Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 26/00) - Talk about a different point of view.

Capt. Kevin Waring, a member of the army reserves from Cairns, in the Queensland Region of Australia, recently made the trip from Down Under to do some training in Canada. He also spent some time with the Coral Harbour Rangers.

The Australian captain was one of seven reservists selected from more than 200 names to receive a Prince of Whales award.

Australian defence force members who win the award travel abroad to either Canada, the United Kingdom or the U.S. to spend two weeks with a comparable civilian employer and military unit.

"Before I came to Coral Harbour, I spent two weeks with the Royal Bank of Canada in Abbotsford, B.C., to look at aspects of business banking. That's what I do for a living," says Waring.

"I came to Coral to see how the Rangers train because I work quite closely with indigenous soldiers in my unit in Cairns."

Waring says he was keenly interested in the way translations are handled.

"It's a lot like back home where English is a second or third language for the soldiers."

Waring says his three days spent on the land were an eye-opener.

A balmy 31 C when he left Australia, temperatures dropped to -40 C on the land.

"Back home, the further North you go the hotter it gets," he says with a laugh.

"The temperature was definitely the biggest difference, but getting out on the land like that was the highlight of my trip so far.

"I found it absolutely beautiful."

Australian Rangers employ formal military training, with no emphasis placed on traditional skills.

Waring, however, has become a fan of the informal style of training.

"We tend to be somewhat too formal and we should look at doing more along the lines of the way Inuit do it here.

"In many instances, it would benefit us more than the formal classroom setting where we mix everybody into one big melting pot and try to do a structured 40-minute lesson like you're sitting in school.

"There's a certain ease with which Inuit go about their training that we could certainly learn from."