EvanL
04-01-2004, 12:16 AM
Storm delays Arctic patrol; troops won't visit disputed island on 18-day trek
at 16:49 on March 31, 2004, EST.
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RESOLUTE, Nunavut (CP) - Diving temperatures and high winds that whipped up 30-metre plumes of snow delayed the departure of the longest one-way Arctic sovereignty patrol in history Wednesday.
But that didn't diminish the enthusiasm of the 20 Canadian Rangers and regular army soldiers for crossing 1,300 kilometres of ice and snow from Resolute to Alert at the top of Ellesmere Island.
"You're filled with a barely containable excitement when you're starting a patrol," said commanding officer Maj. Stewart Gibson.
The party, armed with antique but cold-friendly Lee-Enfield rifles, was to set out on snowmobiles Wednesday morning.
But clear skies degenerated into howling winds and -35 temperatures.
"Sometimes off the top of the hills you can see a 100-foot plume of snow just picked up and held in the air for a while," said Cpl. Doug Stern, a Ranger from Cambridge Bay.
"This is just normal to me," shrugs Stern, who has lived in the central Arctic for 22 years.
"You wait till it's good enough to go, and then you just go."
Gibson's 15 Rangers and five regular army soldiers are charged with showing the Canadian flag in a part of the world that is rarely visited but increasingly contested as climate change opens up possibilities for Arctic shipping and resource development.
One of those flashpoints is Hans Island, an uninhabited pebble in the sea ice midway between Ellesmere Island and the Danish colony of Greenland. The island is the subject of ongoing talks between Canada and Denmark and a recently published photograph shows a Danish flag waving on its rocky shores.
The Canadians would love to plant the Maple Leaf on Hans Island, but their orders say no, said Gibson.
"I would love to be given the order to go over there," he said. "But that's a national decision that's got to be made at the diplomatic level."
Besides, it's too dangerous to try to reach the island over the ice.
"That is such ugly-looking ice, all jumbled up and crunching along," said Stern, who looks out toward Hans Island during the summer when he works at Ellesmere's Quttinirpaaq Park.
"It's not just rough, but it's moving."
This patrol is the latest in a series designed to enhance Canada's presence in the North. It is intended to mark the start of increased efforts to wave the flag over the disputed waters.
Last summer, two navy minesweepers made it as far north as the south tip of Baffin Island, the first naval presence in the Arctic in 13 years. HMCS Summerside and HMCS Goose Bay landed a group of reservists on a small island off the coast.
This summer, the frigate HMCS Montreal is scheduled to sail north, the first large warship to do so in at least a generation. It will carry 200 soldiers and five helicopters for exercises.
Another sovereignty patrol is scheduled next year from Resolute to Prince Patrick Island, on the west side of the Arctic archipelago.
Gibson's party is expected to reach Alert in 18 days. Only seven of the original group will conduct the whole tour in order to minimize impact on the fragile environment of Quttinirpaaq Park.
The party can barely wait, said Gibson.
"Every day, you're saying 'I'm really doing something terribly important,' " he said.
"Then you look at the scenery. It helps the miles go by as you're travelling, the realization that you're making the first footprints in some areas where nobody in recorded history has been before you.
"By the eighth or 10th day, you're getting tired and you're looking forward to a bed that's already made, with running water and a toilet that flushes."
© The Canadian Press, 2003
at 16:49 on March 31, 2004, EST.
Printable version Send to a friend
RESOLUTE, Nunavut (CP) - Diving temperatures and high winds that whipped up 30-metre plumes of snow delayed the departure of the longest one-way Arctic sovereignty patrol in history Wednesday.
But that didn't diminish the enthusiasm of the 20 Canadian Rangers and regular army soldiers for crossing 1,300 kilometres of ice and snow from Resolute to Alert at the top of Ellesmere Island.
"You're filled with a barely containable excitement when you're starting a patrol," said commanding officer Maj. Stewart Gibson.
The party, armed with antique but cold-friendly Lee-Enfield rifles, was to set out on snowmobiles Wednesday morning.
But clear skies degenerated into howling winds and -35 temperatures.
"Sometimes off the top of the hills you can see a 100-foot plume of snow just picked up and held in the air for a while," said Cpl. Doug Stern, a Ranger from Cambridge Bay.
"This is just normal to me," shrugs Stern, who has lived in the central Arctic for 22 years.
"You wait till it's good enough to go, and then you just go."
Gibson's 15 Rangers and five regular army soldiers are charged with showing the Canadian flag in a part of the world that is rarely visited but increasingly contested as climate change opens up possibilities for Arctic shipping and resource development.
One of those flashpoints is Hans Island, an uninhabited pebble in the sea ice midway between Ellesmere Island and the Danish colony of Greenland. The island is the subject of ongoing talks between Canada and Denmark and a recently published photograph shows a Danish flag waving on its rocky shores.
The Canadians would love to plant the Maple Leaf on Hans Island, but their orders say no, said Gibson.
"I would love to be given the order to go over there," he said. "But that's a national decision that's got to be made at the diplomatic level."
Besides, it's too dangerous to try to reach the island over the ice.
"That is such ugly-looking ice, all jumbled up and crunching along," said Stern, who looks out toward Hans Island during the summer when he works at Ellesmere's Quttinirpaaq Park.
"It's not just rough, but it's moving."
This patrol is the latest in a series designed to enhance Canada's presence in the North. It is intended to mark the start of increased efforts to wave the flag over the disputed waters.
Last summer, two navy minesweepers made it as far north as the south tip of Baffin Island, the first naval presence in the Arctic in 13 years. HMCS Summerside and HMCS Goose Bay landed a group of reservists on a small island off the coast.
This summer, the frigate HMCS Montreal is scheduled to sail north, the first large warship to do so in at least a generation. It will carry 200 soldiers and five helicopters for exercises.
Another sovereignty patrol is scheduled next year from Resolute to Prince Patrick Island, on the west side of the Arctic archipelago.
Gibson's party is expected to reach Alert in 18 days. Only seven of the original group will conduct the whole tour in order to minimize impact on the fragile environment of Quttinirpaaq Park.
The party can barely wait, said Gibson.
"Every day, you're saying 'I'm really doing something terribly important,' " he said.
"Then you look at the scenery. It helps the miles go by as you're travelling, the realization that you're making the first footprints in some areas where nobody in recorded history has been before you.
"By the eighth or 10th day, you're getting tired and you're looking forward to a bed that's already made, with running water and a toilet that flushes."
© The Canadian Press, 2003