A live mortar round found at Fort Rodd Hill Sunday morning dated back to the Second World War, when the national historic site in Colwood was an active military installation.
Roads in the area were closed Sunday afternoon while a Navy bomb-disposal team assessed the object and used a small amount of plastic explosives for a controlled demolition of the 60-millimetre munition, a spokesperson for the Navy said. No one was injured.
A hiker discovered the unexploded two-inch mortar round on the grounds of Fort Rodd Hill around 9:40 a.m. The military explosive ordnance disposal team and the RCMP arrived at the scene around noon, said Lieut. Pamela Hogan.
Ocean Boulevard was closed from Fort Rodd Hill to the Colwood Pacific Activity Centre on Rosebank Road.
Fort Rodd Hill was established in the mid-1890s as a coastal defence bastion by the Royal Navy. It continued as a key part of Canada’s west coast defence network and as a military training installation during the First and Second World Wars.
It was decommissioned as a military facility in 1956 and handed over to Parks Canada in the early 1960s to establish it as a national historic site. Prior to the installation’s decommissioning, the grounds of the site were swept extensively for unused military munitions.