He taught computer science for several years, developed a laptop-like device called the Lightwriter in the early 1970s and then started hatching plans for the bunker and universal language in the latter half of that decade, as his Cold War-inspired fears of nuclear war took hold.īeach also secured a roughly $50-million tax credit from the Canadian government in the late ‘70s, according to Kell, which he would use to buy and retrofit an old ferry for deep-sea exploration. The couple eventually moved to Canada to live on Jean’s family property in Horning’s Mills. They ultimately had three children together, though one died in a sledding mishap at the age of eight. He recovered and met his future second wife, Jean, at a Baha’i temple in Illinois in 1962, and the two were soon married. “It’s a loss for the community, for someone with so much character and so much local colour to be gone.”īeach and Maxine divorced in 1961 and he later converted to the Baha’i Faith after a major scooter accident left him unable to do anything but read for several months. “He was a pretty forward thinker … a great negotiator, a great barterer,” said Melancthon Township Mayor Darren White, whose community includes Horning’s Mills. She has since taken over his long-running prepper newsletter, which goes out to roughly 2,000 people around the world.īeach would rankle friends and local officials with his stubborn dedication to the bunker, but he also earned their respect.
“What I loved most about him is he inspired many more to care for others, not just your family,” Lau said. It was that “humanitarian” trait that attracted many others to his cause, according to Antonia Lau, a proclaimed psychic and prominent member of Beach’s wide-reaching bunker community. Himer says the bunker was a “symbol” of Beach’s ambitions, because he built it to save hundreds of people – not solely his own family. “He had a mission to serve and to make things better and rebuild,” said Adam Himer, a 30-year-old engineer who helped Beach at the bunker for a decade. “People could always come and have a meal, and people were always working on the shelter,” Eldner said. Now his family, friends and followers are facing a cataclysmic question of their own: What next? Will someone continue Beach’s mission up to and beyond an uncertain Doomsday - or will the Ark Two be buried with its Noah?
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Beach died on May 10, leaving behind an ailing wife, five grown children, a massive bunker, some half-finished plans for a new world and no instructions for how to carry on without him. He did all this under the assumption that the world would end soon, and that he’d be around to start a new one.īut Bruce Beach’s life came to an end before the world did, after he suffered a heart attack at age 87. Then he recruited friends, family and fellow survivalists to his cause, assembled plans for restarting society after the nukes hit and began developing a universal language that would supposedly unite humanity through a common tongue.
He buried 42 school buses in the 1980s and linked them together into the world’s largest private fallout shelter, the Ark Two. Marta Iwanek/Toronto Star via Getty Images Bruce Beach poses for a photo in front of his fallout shelter in Horning’s Mills on July 9, 2015.
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