Ernest Harmon Air Force Base began its life as Stephenville Air Base, opened by the United States in 1940, one of three locations in Newfoundland and Labrador over which U.S. military forces exerted complete control. In the late 1950s, Ernest Harmon Air Force Base was selected to be equipped with defensive nuclear weapons to be flown in fighter aircraft stationed there. The newly built F-102 Delta Dagger – the first U.S. supersonic interceptor aircraft – was chosen to be the delivery vehicle for these weapons, and the USAF 59th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was assigned to Harmon. It was the only American military unit assigned to Canadian soil armed with nuclear weapons. The American military presence in Newfoundland and Labrador had a huge economic impact. By 1962, over 2500 U.S. military personnel were stationed at Harmon, and the base had become the major civilian employer in the area. It has been estimated that, at their height, the three U.S. bases at Goose Bay, Argentia, and Harmon were the third-largest employer in the province.

But on December 19, 1966, it all ended for Stephenville. The F-102 Delta Daggers had proven to be problematic aircraft, and the issues surrounding American-controlled nuclear weapons placed on Canadian soil had become a liability for a country politically and geographically squeezed between two superpowers. The U.S. military, their attentions now focused on a proxy war in southeast Asia, shut down Harmon as a cost-cutting measure.

Following up on the first 2007 Cold War Artifacts project titled BOMARC: The Shadow of the Shield, the Harmon Project will include a 1:1 silhouette of a Delta Dagger constructed of material relevant to the historical and contemporary local economy of the Corner Brook and Stephenville region. Accompanying the silhouette will be a large, wall-mounted time line of signage vinyl that will trace out relevant contextualizing dates and historical information pertaining to the 26-year period between the U.S. acquisition of the Stephenville Air Base in 1940 and the official closing of Ernest Harmon Air Force Base.