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Master Cpl. Jason Parkin attempts to exit freezing Jackfish Lake during a training exercise that tested soldiers' endurance after being submerged in cold water. - photo courtesy of Master Cpl. Marc-Andre L-T

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Crashing through the icy waters of Jackfish Lake, sleeping in a tent on the shores of Great Slave Lake, and constructing a shelter out of snow are all tasks the 35 soldiers undergoing winter training will learn during their two-week stay in the capital city.

The training takes place in Yellowknife every February to take advantage of the frigid temperatures and abundance of snow. Training for the senior level group from the Land Advanced Warfare Centre in Trenton, Ont., began on Feb. 8 after a few days of lectures and meetings in the city, and continues until Feb. 25 before the soldiers head to Resolute Bay for some more Arctic training.

Cpl. Pierre-Charles Turcotte, from Saguenay­Lac-Saint-Jean, Que., took part in the training last year and recalls the bitter dip into Yellowknife's bone-chilling Jackfish Lake.

"The shock is hard but it's a really interesting thing to do," he said.

"After you change yourself and all is done, you feel pretty well. But the shock is when you enter into the ice. You're not able to talk, you're not able to do nothing in the first 30 seconds when you're in the water. It's shock and you're not able to do nothing."

Each member jumps into the water wearing running shoes and their uniform; no wet suit. A cord is attached to their waists in case there is an emergency. Turcotte said each member must state their military number while they are in the water and show they are not panicking before pulling themselves out of the water and onto the ice. Turcotte said he enjoyed it.

"It's one of the funnest course I have done in the army."

Last week, the soldiers, who are from all over the country, trained at Slough Shark Alley south of Yellowknife on the shore of Great Slave Lake, and this week, they are scheduled to perform ground search and rescue operations with the help of Yellowknife Search and Rescue.

"It's a great opportunity for us, to gain more experience and knowledge because we are doing an exercise. It's basically a real situation and it gives us yet more opportunities to put the skills that we have into play," said Yellowknife Search and Rescue president Tom Girrior.

Lt. Jeff Lee, a course administration officer, said the training is meant to produce specialists capable of advising commanders in the organization, co-ordination, supervision and planning of deployments and training in Arctic and other cold weather environments.

"We're trying to get them to be used to working with the units that are stationed in the North permanently," he said, such as Joint Task Force North and the Canadian Forces Base 440 Squadron.

"Here, they get a lot more experience in operating snowmobiles ... get practice spending nights out in tents on the ice."

The troops also build an air strip and operate with the 440 Squadron to land aircraft on it. They also must survive without a tent and learn to build improvised shelters such as snow caves.

"The idea is, these guys will come up here and they'll get all this training and they'll go back and if their units have to go up to respond to something, they'll be the advisers to say, this is how the ranger patrol group works, here's the person to talk to when they go into the communities, here's what you need to talk to the mayor for, the (senior administrative officer), hunters and trappers. All that sort of stuff which the knowledge is not there for the units in the south," he said.

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