The Canadian Forces’ northern presence will grow this year, as the federal government puts a greater emphasis on asserting Canada’s sovereignty and preparing for emergencies in the Arctic, says the military’s northern commander.
The Canadian Forces plans to hire an additional 20 military and civilian staff this summer, as well as build a fourth floor atop its Yellowknife headquarters. It also wants to boost the number of Canadian Rangers serving the region.
“We have to be more prepared so that if something should happen — a major air disaster for example — then we already have the plans in place, and we already have some people in place, in order to be able to facilitate whatever has to happen in a very timely manner,” Brig.-Gen. Chris Whitecross, who commands Joint Task Force North, said Thursday.
Whitecross said the number of airliners flying over the North has increased from 50 a day to upwards of 400 a day.
“What that means to me as a military member is we have to be more prepared in case something should happen through one of those overflights, so the idea is to have a militray organization that can work in an integrated sense with other government departments,” she said.
Whitecross’s comments came as the Canadian Forces completed its latest Arctic sovereignty exercise, Operation Nunalivut, this week.
The 24-member operation, which officially ended Wednesday, travelled a total of nearly 5,600 kilometres by snowmobile across Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic.
One eight-member team braved blizzards, harsh winds and whiteout conditions along western Ellesmere Island to arrive in Alert, the most northerly military station in Canada, on Monday.
“As soon as we started travel, we hit a storm,” Maj. Chris Bergeron, who led Operation Nunalivut, told CBC News on Wednesday.
“We had winds up to 116 clicks [kilometres] an hour; 120 is a hurricane. So the last 25 clicks [kilometres] before Alert, we fought every single centimetre to make our way in, and we arrived at Alert at two o’clock in the morning.
“We hit blizzards, wind, whiteout, non-stop for nine days. So we had travel with GPS all the time. We didn’t see much of the coast because it’s always white.”
Bergeron said that patrol’s snowmobiles have been heavily damaged from the trip and will be flown from Alert to Yellowknife next week for major repairs. But Canadian Ranger Patrol Paul Ikuallaq from Gjoa Haven said at least everyone was safe.
“There was a few scratches here and there but there was nobody seriously injured in our group anyway,” he said.
Despite the rough conditions, the military is already discussing the possibility of another High Arctic sovereignty patrol next year.
