HAY RIVER
With law enforcement teams coming in from all over North America, including the FBI and ERT (Emergency Response Team, essentially Canada's answer to SWAT), it's easy to wonder what the winter preparedness camp on the shores of Great Slave Lake has to offer.

Mike Snow, an RCMP officer in High Level, Alta., lights a signal fire from below during an exercise at a winter preparedness camp. - Sarah Ladik/NNSL photos

"It's very ordinary, but that's the thing that will get you killed quicker than not," said Jack Kruger, search and rescue co-ordinator for the RCMP's G Division in the NWT.

Kruger said he has seen experienced bushmen get stuck within sight of town lights and succumb to the cold, hunger, and most dangerously, panic.

"The first thing that's going to kill you is up here," he said, tapping his temple.

Kruger has been running the training camp for the past 15 years in its current incarnation. The five-day course consists of a day spent learning or reviewing proper snowmobile use, one day of hands-on learning at Hay River's Coast Guard base, and two-and-a half days spent at the winter camp, many kilometres out of town on the shores of Great Slave Lake.

In the last few weeks, Kruger has taken six groups of RCMP officers from across the territory, including the odd ERT unit and member of the Canadian Armed Forces, into the bush to show them how to survive and function in the cold.

"The example I use, is if you're a detachment commander and an airplane crashed and you had to go secure the scene, what would you do?" he said. "The main things are to know what to take, how to set up a tent, and how to boil water."

These may seem like simple concepts, but Kruger saw a need for further instruction in many of the officers coming North through transfers from other jurisdictions or those who were new to the force entirely.

Participants learn how to operate a snowmobile, but they are also exposed to the realities of having to cut wood to make fires for cooking, he said.

"Some of the younger pilots have never seen the flares we use before too and it all adds to making the situation as real as possible," said Kruger

While there are certainly other survival courses offered by a variety of organizations, RCMP say Kruger's camp on Great Slave Lake makes for a unique draw.

"Jack Kruger is the reason this course is what it is," said instructor Const. Trent Hayward. "Its been going for more then a decade and it just keeps growing."

As impressive as the training is on its own, it also pays dividends in the real world. Kruger recounted how a participant in a previous year had never really been in the bush, but took to it quickly. When he was posted to Fort McPherson, he adopted the lifestyle and spent many off-hours on a snowmobile. His skills and experience served him in good stead when he tracked a missing person through the snow for two days before finding the person who was brought home safely.

"If you're going to live up here, participate, and know what you're doing," said Kruger. "What I want them to take away from this course is the confidence that they could do this and

function out there."

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