Canadian Rangers from Arctic Bay worked with trainees in the Arctic Operations Advisor course during an exercise in and around the community this winter. - photo courtesy of Combat Camera |
Foreign fighters taught tricks of Arctic survival
Rangers lead cold-weather combat training
Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Monday, May 4, 2015
HIGH ARCTIC
It's a course that gives Canadian Army members the tools to help colleagues survive and fight in the Arctic, if needed, and the course is so special, it is now in demand by NATO partners.
For the first time, foreign fighters - three Americans and two Brits - joined the annual Arctic Operations Advisor course, which saw 45 students train in tactics and logistics for most of February and March in Yellowknife, Resolute and other Nunavut communities.
The training wouldn't be the same without the assistance of more than 20 Nunavummiut Canadian Rangers.
"(The trainees) get to understand the logistics of working in the North," said Canadian Army Advanced Warfare Centre Warrant Officer Glenn Whitten. "In Nunavut, there's no road system, no rail system, distances you're dealing with are vast, hyper terrain, very hard to move around. Logistic problems become paramount to planning. A lot of these things are very different from what they're used to down south. It gives them a very different perspective."
Any member of the Canadian army can take the course, but most are combat members.
"The aim of the course is to produce a specialist who is capable of advising his commander in the organization, co-ordination, supervision and planning of deployments to the Arctic," Whitten said.
Before heading North, trainees undertake a distance learning element, which includes studying environmental issues in the North, as well as environmental permits they have to obtain to run operations.
In Yellowknife, the trainees learn self-rescue from falling through the ice, care and maintenance of Ski-Doos, how to tow loads over snow, ice reconnaissance, how to build structures and cross ice safely and how to set up airstrips on ice. Some ground search-and-rescue training is involved as well.
In Resolute, they learn how to pull loads in qamutiit, survival training, snow caves and iglus, and link up with Canadian Rangers from various communities to plan and execute an exercise within that community.
The training has a local element, with trainees reaching out to the hamlets, HTOs, and other organizations on the ground.
"They conduct a small exercise on the land with the Rangers, usually three to four days long, and do some kind of community outreach program. One did a pancake breakfast at the elementary school this year," he said.
One Ranger helps throughout the course, and then one assists each of five groups in Resolute. Four Rangers are involved in each of Pond Inlet, Arctic Bay, Iglulik, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak.
"So few Canadians go to the far North and experience it, and it's the same with the military," Whitten said of the importance of doing the training in the Arctic. "We haven't done as much Arctic training in the 1990s and 2000s because of other commitments in Afghanistan and Bosnia, but now we're getting into training in the North again. There's a lot of inexperience in the military, so these people are going to learn how to deal with the environments, how to plan and conduct operations, and advise their commanders on the North."
He expects the program will expand next year to include trainees from France, another NATO member.
"We're one of the few NATO countries that actually has a High Arctic element to it, where you can experience those extreme cold conditions, the true Arctic tundra and sea ice. Even in Norway, you're dealing with sub-Arctic conditions."
The climate may be different, but the challenges are similar to working in Afghanistan.
"The lack of infrastructure makes what they have to do that much more difficult," he said.
