FROSTBITE AND FUEL
THE LOGISTICAL CHALLENGES OF A MILITARY OPERATION IN CANADA’S ARCTIC
The worry most defence analysts from the southern parts of Canada share about this country’s Arctic territories is about the Russians and the Chinese making inroads. But as temperatures here dip to -55C, it’s the image of a finger, blackened and dead as a result of frostbite and severed from its owner, that makes more of an impression about the dangers of Canada’s North.
That severed finger — a photograph of it, at least — is part of a briefing about the realities Canadian military personnel face while taking part in Operation Nunalivut, the month-long annual exercise in Canada’s Arctic. During this exercise two years ago there were 80 cases of frostbite among the soldiers, and though many were minor, it drives home the point: to those habituated to the south, this might as well be the far side of the moon.
In January and February, temperatures at Resolute Bay dropped to around -70C, but by the time the Forces deployed at the end of February temperatures hovered around -40. At night, with wind chill, they faced lows between -55 and -60.
At -65C, frostbite can develop on exposed skin in as little as two minutes. The troops wear goggles and face masks making them look like extras from the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. The military keeps its trucks running around the clock to keep their engines warm, lest they not start again in the cold.
“The Arctic is unforgiving,” explains Capt. Shawn Claire of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, one of the units taking part. “She will claim lives and she will claim limbs.”
Some 350 Canadian soldiers — along with the PPCLI, the Arctic Response Company Group from 38 Canadian Brigade Group and the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group are part of the operation, which runs through March 23 — have spent the month conducting Arctic survival training, sovereignty patrols and scientific research while navy personnel tested their abilities in diving under ice.
This year’s edition comes amid increasing international interest in the far North. In late January, China’s government released an official Arctic strategy, laying out plans to spend up to $1 trillion to develop polar regions economically. While the document pointed out that China has no territorial claims on the area’s oil, gas or mineral resources, it made clear the nation’s keen desire to develop new trade routes and ports in the north. The Russians, meanwhile, are expanding military bases in their northern territory and have created new battalions to operate in the Arctic.
Brig.-Gen. Mike Nixon, commander of Joint Task Force North — in charge of Operation Nunalivut — dismisses both countries’ gestures as so much sabre-rattling. The Chinese are interested in economic ventures and partnerships, he said last week, and as for the Russians, he said, their investment in new infrastructure and bases is a fraction of what was spent during the Cold War.
“I’ve been asked if I’m worried about one of those Russian Arctic battalions marching in here,” Nixon said. “I am worried — but it’s because if they did that we would have to launch the biggest search-and-rescue mission we’ve ever done.”
The challenge of operating in the Arctic is in large part simply the challenge of getting stuff there. Giant C-17 and Boeing 737, as well as C-130 Hercules aircraft, transport equipment and food up to Canada’s Arctic Training Centre in Resolute Bay and to other locations. Each summer ships bring in some 60,000 litres of fuel, needed in part for the military’s many snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles.
The training centre, opened in 2013, is a major hub for northern military operations. But its electricity, as well as the power for some 25 residential communities in Nunavut, comes from large diesel-powered generators which need hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel.
Although it’s a considered a domestic mission, deploying troops to the far North is similar to an international operation. It takes eight months to plan the deployment into the Arctic of just these few hundred military personnel.
“Logistics is the Achilles heel for everything in the North,” said Nixon.
Nixon points out that while Russia is expanding its northern infrastructure, it has about 13 million citizens living near or in its Arctic region. “If that was my sovereign territory I’d do the same,” he said. Canada, by contrast, has a population of a little more than 100,000 in the North, but most are located in just a few population centres like Yellowknife and Whitehorse. The rest are in small communities. Resolute Bay has a population of about 200 people. Cambridge Bay is a relative metropolis of around 1,700.
At Intrepid Bay, north of Resolute, soldiers established a small camp to conduct patrols and test the resupply system. Their patrols were on snowmobile, since moving on foot risked working up a sweat — which in the frigid temperatures can cause problems with frostbite. But the vehicles often break down in the extreme weather, and the fuel they can carry dictates how far from base they can operate.
The troops rely on the Canadian Rangers, the largely Indigenous group of some 5,000 reservists that operates across Canada’s North. Rangers like Master Corp. Matthew Manik, a 36-yearold Inuit, teach the troops how to build a wind block from snow and how best to keep their snowmobiles running in the extreme cold.
“We’re learning a lot from the Rangers,” said Maj. Jason Hudson of the PPCLI. “It’s wild here. It’s a big eye-opener to see the High Arctic.”
Scientists from Defence Research and Development Canada and Natural Resources Canada are starting to examine whether technology, such as batteries that can be recharged from a snowmobile, could help make life easier for the troops when it comes to light, heat and cooking. But for this exercise the troops had to keep to a tried-andtrue method. In a 10-person military tent, the Coleman gas stove and lantern are kept going all night. While it may be -55C outside, the heat from the stove and lantern had the temperature inside the tent around freezing. Soldiers took turns minding the stove throughout the night.
But the erratic weather patterns affecting the Arctic have brought with them challenges of their own. For a short period in late January, temperatures at the North Pole jumped as high as 2C. The Rangers, the eyes and ears for the Canadian Forces in the Arctic, have noticed changes as well.
“One day it’s nice, the next it is foggy and we have difficulty travelling,” said Allen Elatiak, a 69-year-old Inuit who has been a Ranger since 1987. Climate change has affected wildlife too, Elatiak said, which seem to moving closer to inhabited locations.
Maj. Gary Johnson, who lives about seven months of the year at the Arctic Training Centre in Resolute Bay, echoed Elatiak’s observations about the effect of the unpredictable weather. On Aug. 24, intense rain created a mud bowl on the tundra, trapping one of the military’s all-terrain vehicles up to its handlebars in muck. Several days later the temperature turned, dropping to -20 and freezing the ATV in the mud. It took several days to recover the vehicle, using pickaxes to free it from the frozen ground. Before it could be recovered, a curious polar bear had torn off some of its parts.
Even as rising temperatures make Arctic sea ice recede, the Forces aren’t expecting operations in the Arctic winter to become easier, supplies and fuel still a challenge. But the summer will be different as travel to the region increases. The 1,000-passenger Crystal Serenity cruise ship toured the Northwest Passage in 2016 and 2017, stopping in Cambridge Bay. Construction is underway for a polar-class megayacht that will carry 200 passengers and ship traffic is only expected to increase.
The military is helping conduct an emergency preparedness audit for the area, looking at how, for instance, Cambridge Bay could respond to a crisis. But again, that crisis won’t come from Russian paratroopers. The focus is what would happen if the giant generators which provide energy for Arctic communities malfunction or if a cruise ship like Crystal Serenity were to run aground or sink.
Nixon says it’s those types of threats over which the military and partners in government and at the community level keep a close watch. “It’s not about ‘fixed bayonets’ in the North.”