I should add that I'm in Canada and ideally would like to connect with Canadian shelter-builders, but I'm open to talking to anyone in North America if you have a great shelter.

I would also totally understand if people wanted to keep the location of their shelter secret. Makes sense.

Doomsday bunkers premiered last night.

I personally have always fantasized about having some sort of self-sufficient shelter

Exactly.
Preparedness is not about fantasy.
Though mine is capable of handling a tornado, probably even a nuke beyond 10 miles, that isn't what it's about. Getting free heat from the sun and storing it? That is a story worth telling but it's kinda boring eh? Just doesn't have that pizzazz that gets ratings?

There is a Survivalist up in Horning Mills, ON. His Name is Bruce Beach dubbed by the magazines as Santa doom, due to his large white beard. He and his supporters built a undergound Fall-out Shelter with 42 shcool buses. Here is a bit written by the Man himself.

ARK TWO

Anyone is welcome to join the Ark Two Survival Community (located in Ontario, Canada) - so long as they do so before the catastrophe occurs. The Ark Two Community is founded and commanded by a government trained and certified Radiological Scientific Officer.

The purpose of the Ark Two Survival Community is to ameliorate the effects of a Nuclear War and to help reorganize society afterwards. The community founder believes that a nuclear war is inevitable and therefore in 1980 built the first phase of the Ark Two Refuge and has since expanded it and prepared many ways to assist survivors - as listed on this web site.

The project has not been favorably received by the local and provincial governments. By 1990, when I stopped counting, it had been subject to over 30 court and commission appearances and that number has greatly increased in the years that followed. Legal costs mounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 1999 there was a raid without warrants involving 7 police vehicles, 4 fire units and over 40 personnel and a K-9 unit, coincidentally caught on video tape by the CBC. Subsequently the facility was hounded with repeated government inspections. Some of the inspectors candidly admitted that it was just harassment, but because of wanting to keep their jobs they of course were not going to put that into writing. It is for this reason that one might refer to the facility as Waco North. A kinder, gentler Canadian version in that The Ark doesn't have any weapons and in that so far no one has been killed by the raiders.

The general public views the project as being operated by an eccentric (in the most favorable terms) or by a nut-case in what is the more usual expressed attitude. For the forty years in which I have built over two dozen shelters and have consulted on many dozens of others, the general ridicule has been extensive, to say the least. "Why do it then?", I have often been asked. Why not get a life, enjoy life and quit worrying about doomsday? The answer is that I don't see the purpose of life, nor happiness in life measured in how many rounds of golf I might play, but rather in service to my fellowman. While I don't have any "visions" or hear any "voices" this appears to me to be a service to which I have been called.

Still, the shelter remains. Waiting and ready. It has been welded shut by the government but that has only made it secure. If the need arises it can be immediately opened and activated. Equipment and supplies are stored and ready. Members of the Ark Two Community meet regularly and each know their tasks and responsibilities in activating it. We continue to review and improve upon the plans and equipment. We continue to seek others who are interested in the project and can help with it.

So it makes sense that people wanted to keep the location of their shelter secret, now I can totally understand it.