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Northern commander to visit High Arctic

Gabriel Zarate
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 26, 2009

NUNAVUT - Brig.-Gen. David Millar, commander of Joint Task Force North, will be hopping through five Nunavut communities in the first week of November, visiting local Canadian Ranger and Junior Canadian Ranger patrols, other military personnel and hamlet officials along the way.

Grise Fiord's Ranger Sgt. Jimmie Qaapik, an employee of the hamlet, said the hamlet and the council both hoped to meet with Millar and his staff and discuss Arctic sovereignty over Lancaster Sound, a major part of the disputed Northwest Passage.

A spokesman for Joint Task Force North said the purpose of the trip is to communicate with the communities and tell them what the military is doing in their areas.

According to navy Lt. Jordan Holder, Millar's team will visit Coral Harbour, Iqaluit, Arctic Bay, Grise Fiord, Resolute and Cambridge Bay from Nov. 1-6.

The trip comes as military and civilian government planners are brainstorming ideas about how to conduct Operation Nanook 2010.

Holder confirmed earlier media reports that Nanook 2010 will take place much farther north than the usual location around the Iqaluit area. The decision has been made to have the operation in Lancaster Sound, somewhere between Resolute and Pond Inlet. An exact location has not yet been finalized.

Holder said the emergency response part of the operation will be a simulation of an oil spill in the Northwest Passage. Many Northerners have expressed concern that as the passage opens to shipping, the risk of an oil spill will grow in the delicate Arctic ecosystem.

Holder said next year's exercise might involve military and civilian organizations from other circumpolar counties for the first time.

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