Yellowknife (Apr 22/05) - Despite a scaled-down mission hampered by unrelenting weather, the Canadian Armed Forces are calling this year's sovereignty patrol in the High Arctic successful.

More than a dozen Canadian Rangers, along with nine members of the regular Armed Forces, finally landed at the unmanned Isachsen weather station located 1,400 km north of the Arctic Circle, April 4.

Whiteout conditions there had trapped them in Resolute.

"The weather had its impact: we adjusted our plans, we got into Isachsen and we met most of the objectives that had been set out for me by the boss," said commanding officer Major Stewart Gibson, after returning to Yellowknife, April 14.

The $1 million operation was forced to change its plans after blizzard conditions set in at the notoriously weather-battered station. They managed to complete two of four planned patrols from their base at the weather station on Ellef Ringnes Island.

Two separate patrols reached Amund Ringnes and Meighan Islands to the east, planting emergency cairns and making reports on the land and sea ice before heading back to Isachsen by snowmobile.

Patrols to Mackenzie King and Borden Islands to the west, as well as a planned aircraft crash simulation using a U.S. Air Force DC-3 plane that went down in the 1940s, were scrapped because of the time crunch.

The patrol also lost two days waiting for Col. Norm Couturier to visit his troops at the site. The weather kept Couturier in Resolute until his return to Yellowknife, April 9.

"Whenever you conduct operations or exercises, you're always challenged by the weather and so you have to be flexible in terms of your start and end of your operations," said Couturier.

At the same time a Dash-7 airplane safely plunked Couturier down in Yellowknife, the Rangers were preparing to redeploy to Resolute.

The fact that the crew made it in at all and was able to complete several aspects of the mission made it a "total success," said Gibson.

They had hoped for a 12-day mission, but made do with seven, said Gibson.

The Armed Forces started Arctic patrols in 2002 when a crew travelled 1,700 km from Resolute to the Magnetic North Pole and back.

With climate change in the Arctic causing an increase in shipping and air traffic - and countries like Russia, the United States and Denmark showing an interest in Canada's far North - the army needs to make its presence known, Couturier said earlier this month.

Since then, Canada has established yearly sovereignty patrol missions with members of the Rangers from Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. The 13 Rangers who travelled to Isachsen returned earlier this week. For many of them, the trip was the farthest North they'd ever travelled.

Traditional knowledge

During the patrol, the Rangers share their traditional knowledge of navigation, Arctic animals, and igloo building with the regular force members in return for first aid skills and learning how to use a global positioning system.

With increased activity in the North, a major plane crash or ship emergency is inevitable. The Rangers will likely be first on the scene, says Gibson. This year's operation confirmed their ability to respond to emergency situations in the future, he says.

"It has confirmed in my mind that these Rangers were skilled in the past and could carry out and accomplish any task that we've given them," he says.

"We're demonstrating our capability to operate in the Arctic regions. The Canadian Forces are moving about the North and putting in the time and resources to show the rest of the world that yes, this is sovereign Canadian territory," he says.