Eastern Ontario remembers Jimmy Carter’s legacy [Video]

Flags are flying at half-mast outside of the United States Embassy in downtown Ottawa following the death of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

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Carter died at the age of 100 on Sunday.

Many in eastern Ontario are remembering the time he spent in the region to help Canada avert a nuclear disaster and the “profound” impact it had on him in his political career.

Kingston, Ont. based Historian Arthur Milnes, author of the book 98 Reasons to Thank Jimmy Carter, became friends with the former president later in his life, he says.

Before going into politics, a young Jimmy Carter was a nuclear reactor officer on the USS Swordfish, which brought him to Chalk River, a town roughly 180 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. The nuclear reactor in the town suffered a serious accident and a partial meltdown in 1952.

It was the first serious nuclear reactor accident of its …