Canada’s ‘frozen chosen’ on Alert at the top of the world
• The 79 Canadians who inhabit the northernmost community on Earth last saw daylight on Oct. 14 at 12:30 p.m. The sun will next crest the horizon here at 10:41 a.m. on Feb. 28. When it does, Canada’s “frozen chosen” will hold a party to celebrate its return.
The Cold War never ended at Alert, the Canadian Forces’ remotest outpost. It abuts the Arctic Ocean atop Ellesmere Island, closer to Moscow than to Ottawa and further from the capital than Halifax is from Vancouver. And since it opened in 1956, the top-secret military installation has developed a near-mystical reputation within the Forces.
Those stationed here gather radio signals and other electronic intercepts from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, passing them on to military analysts in the south. They live and work in a Lego-like maze of well-heated, brightly lit buildings that includes a tanning salon, two gyms, two bars and an excellent chow hall. For much of the year they are surrounded by perpetual darkness, sharing their patch of land with polar bears, muskox, Arctic fox, wolves and giant white hares that thrive in one of the most severe climates outside Antarctica.
And severe it is, with weather that can turn drastically in the space of just a few minutes. When Storm Condition One is declared at the station, lifelines are strung between the buildings to help people find their way between them. Storm Condition Two is called when winds exceed 80 km/h, if the wind chill dips below -55 C or when there is zero visibility. When that happens everyone must ride out the storm wherever they happen to be in the facility at that moment, with water, emergency rations and sleeping accommodation available in every working location.
The station hosts Environment Canada meteorologists and scientists conducting research in the High Arctic, and its existence is part of a flag-waving exercise by Ottawa, helping underpin Canada’s claim on its Arctic archipelago. But the principal reason the Canadian military came to and remains in Alert is the presence of the Russians on the far side of the North Pole.
The station comes with a high cost, both human and logistical.
“The chief psychological concern is with people withdrawing into themselves,” says Alert’s top medical official, physician assistant, Chief Petty Officer Second Class Danny Williams of St. John’s, who began his second tour at Alert last Friday. With no doctors or nurses present, Williams is responsible for the physical and mental health of everyone posted at the station.
Living in such close quarters, in a place where months of 24-hour daylight are followed by months of 24-hour darkness, has been known to play with people’s minds. “We need to see that people are taking care of themselves,” Williams says.
The station offers a range of activities to maintain morale. Everyone at Alert may make one video conference call and one telephone call every day to communicate with family and friends down south. There are clubs promoting hobbies like photography and sewing. The messes allow each person a ration of two beers a day, and a place to catch hockey games and other programming broadcast live from the south. Access to a tanning machine, and the ability to soak up some Vitamin D, is considered an essential of life. There are expeditions to fish for Arctic char, weather permitting, and in the summer, mountain biking and treks to collect crystals and pyrite.
“Life anywhere is about who you are with, and I had fantastic people with me,” says Maj. Walt Michalchuk, an aerospace engineer whose six-month tour as Alert’s commander ended on the weekend. “Christmas was especially fun. People at the station came together as a family. There is a great sense of pride at serving here. Even my children in Ottawa, who are only three and seven, understand this. They told their friends I was away with Santa Claus.”
That family is a mix of army and civilian. Many of the soldiers are not long out of boot camp. They make an interesting contrast with the contractors for Nasittuq Corp., mostly grizzled men in their 50s and 60s who maintain the equipment that provides the station’s power and water.
The station’s isolation makes its maintenance an extraordinary challenge. Everything requires advance planning. Most supplies are hauled north by ship in the late summer to Thule, Greenland. From there they are ferried to Alert by air every fall and spring in a biannual mission known as Operation Boxtop.
Its remoteness means the biggest nightmares looming over the station are the threat of catastrophic fire — of necessity, Alert has its own tiny fire department — or life-threatening medical emergency. “Spooling up a bird from Trenton,” to use CPO Williams’ terminology for getting a medevac aircraft to Alert, can take several days.
“The biggest reality of operating in the north is the weather,” says Lt.-Col. Cathy Blue, who, as the chief of logistics and engineering at CFB Trenton, is responsible for supplying CFS Alert. “The environment is harsh and you can’t get away from it.”
Visiting Alert last week, Blue observed that the Forces’ presence at the top of the world is “the same as operating in Afghanistan.
“It is not just the flights. Everything to do with Alert is expensive and complicated.”
THERE IS A GREAT SENSE OF PRIDE AT SERVING HERE.