Topic: The Arctic Military Base Thread [merged]

[ArmyVern]

I haven't dug out that Auditor General (searching on the Auditor General report database is not easy) report yet, but I expect there will be costs savings of a significant magnitude to warrant the closures, otherwise, the Auditor General would not have made that observation.

Here's my thoughts and humble personal opinion on the matter of Base reductions/closures/cut-backs call it what you will. Those of us with some TI will recall the days when there were Bases, Stations and Dets spread throughout each Province and Territory of this great nation of ours. They have been 'amalgamated/slashed/cut-back' now throughout my career. Yes, we have experienced a volumuous cost savings in effecting these closures and consolidating our ever-shrinking resources.

"Ever-shrinking" leads me to my next point. There was a time when the great majority of Canadian taxpayers actually had a clue what was going on in their Armed Forces because we were visible in their Communities and were spread out nation-wide contributing to many local economies, endeavours. We were visible, had morale and experienced very high levels of recruiting.

Since our cutbacks/consolidation over the past decade...we have experienced a marked decrease in morale, a marked decrease in recruiting, a marked decrease in awareness amongst the general population of Canada. We are no longer visible or known on a regular and routine basis to those persons whose taxes justify and pay for our very existance. Why should they support something they don't see? Something they do not directly benefit from on a daily basis (oh sure in times of fire, flood and snowstorm....there we are)?

Yes we have funding now to purchase some new kit items and equipment (albeit very slowly) due to centralizing many small Unit locations into larger ones. But at what cost to the overall effectiveness and morale of the Canadian Forces? At what social and economic costs to those communities we have pulled out of? Was this factored into the equation anywhere? At what costs to recruiting and maintaining the personnel strength we desperately require in times like these?

No matter what the "monetary" cost savings to be realized by further infrastructure reductions; the means do not justify the ends.

The ends being a Canadian Forces even further out of sight and mind of those very voters who would justify our existance and determine or budgets and requirements with those votes and their voices.

I believe we need the opposite to occur. Get us back out into the communities. Make us visible (other than on the 6 o'clock news when a critical incident occurs) once again. Give us back the pride, morale and esprit de corps Armed Forces; and don't just give it back to me....give it back to the average Canadian out there.

There truley is no life like it and it's high time we were out visibly proving this on a routine and daily basis to all of Canada and throughout all of Canada, not just the select locations currently 'benefiting' from our presence.

By realizing the social, economic, morale-boosting and civic pride invloved in having us 'visible' at wide-spread locations, with a wide-spread support base from the populace, I believe we would soon learn that the costs associated with this far outweigh the savings associated with relegating us to our own little corner of the ring.

IMHO of course.

[Ex-Dragoon]

Well said.

[FoverF]

Personally, I've always thought that Churchill would make the best location for a permanent northern base.
Already has a 10,000-ish foot runway, rail sidings, a port which I've seen accomodate some bloody huge ships (plural), plenty of housing, and perhaps most importantly, it's got the largest major hospital in the region. Actually, it's the ONLY hospital in the Keewatin area (Nunavut et al). It's all just sitting there, not doing much (and not worth a whole lot in dollar terms to anyone other than the government).

A detachment at Inuvik is a good idea as well, but I don't think it's nearly as suitable from an infrastructure standpoint. Particularily with a view of being able to park a couple of ships there.

Churchill is also within commuting distance of Winnepeg, Cold Lake, Iqaluit (Frobisher), Rankin Inlet (which has also hosted temporary CF-18 detachments before), and a lot of the eastern arctic in general. A very convenient stepping stone from the places the CF is, to a lot of places that we want them to be.

And there's  still several square km of cleared ground next to the airport, from when the last base was scraped away, and various buildings in various stages of repair (fire hall, etc) are still in use (so far as I know, it's been a few years). There would need to be some construction, obviously, as with any new base, but Churchill already has surveyed, cleared, and level ground, right where a base would go. 

Did I mention the port? On the Arctic Ocean?

[Kirkhill]

The problem with Churchill is that it is as far from the eastern end of the NW passage at Lancaster Sound as St. John's, NF and unlike St.John's it is iced in for much of the year.  Churchill is also well south of the Arctic Circle.  Despite its salt water access it is more of an inland port, similar in many respects to Thunder Bay.

[Bert]

Inuvik, Iqaluit, and Resolute have robust airfields capable of supporting a variety of aircraft.
Iqaluit has a general hospital and medical support to other communities is varied.
Other communities in the lower and high North can not support CF-18s or C-17s without
major expansions and paving.  Inuvik is within the MacKenzie delta and is limited by shallow
water and moving ice.  There may be communities on the east coast of Baffin Island,
Broughton Island, Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet, Grise Fiord (Ellesmere), and the western Arctic like
Sachs Harbour or Tuktoyaktuk that are better locations for ports but have numerous handicaps.
Certainly military and civilian (air, port, government, commercial, social) infrastructure will have
to co-exist and integrate somewhat to become practical.  It would be interesting to get more
details on the Conservative intent.

[blueboy]

There was a small article in the Vancouver province today noting that the Canadian Military will be conducting arctic patrols by snowmobile this spring,to reece two possible forward basing  locations.

[geo]

Arctic patrols?.... the Ranger dets do patrols all the time.

WRT forward basing?.... I guess contingency planning is possible
Unlikely but possible

[old medic]

There was a short CP newswire article in many of today's editions:

Canuck soldiers plan epic series of Arctic trips

OTTAWA (CP) -- Canadian soldiers are planning an epic series of Arctic trips
this spring to reinforce sovereignty and prepare for emergencies arising
from increased use of northern skies and waters.
Up to 52 soldiers in five patrols will snowmobile 4,500 kilometres, building
airstrips on the sea ice, cataloguing buildings they spot on the way, and lay-
ing the groundwork for two High Arctic bases.
The patrols will be conducted by the Canadian Rangers, a largely aboriginal
reserve unit that is Canada's primary military presence in the North.
The patrols in Operation Nunalivut -- Inuktitut for "the land is ours" -- will
leave from different points in mid-March and converge about a week later
on a tiny island south of Lougheed Island.

[Kirkhill]

Here's a fuller version.

Arctic military trips reinforce sovereignty
Updated Fri. Feb. 10 2006 6:30 AM ET

Canadian Press

Canadian soldiers are planning an epic series of Arctic trips this spring to reinforce sovereignty and prepare for emergencies arising from increased use of northern skies and waters.

Up to 52 soldiers in five patrols will snowmobile 4,500 kilometres, building airstrips on the sea ice, cataloguing buildings they spot on the way, and laying the groundwork for two High Arctic bases.

"The more military activities we have in that region, the better it is for assertion of sovereignty," said Col. Norman Couturier, commander of Canada's northern forces.

"Sooner or later, we know there will be emergencies in that region. We have to be ready to operate in that area."

The patrols will be conducted by the Canadian Rangers, a largely aboriginal reserve unit that is Canada's primary military presence in the North.

The patrols in Operation Nunalivut - Inuktitut for "the land is ours" - will leave from different points in mid-March and converge about a week later on a tiny island south of Lougheed Island.

Two patrols will leave from Mould Bay, an abandoned Environment Canada weather station on Prince Patrick Island. One of those will head east to Resolute Bay, the other will head east and even further north to another weather station on Ellef Ringnes Island, where it will be joined by a third patrol, resupply and start heading south.

A fourth patrol will be heading west from Grise Fjord on Ellesmere Island. A fifth will head west from Resolute.

Two of the patrols will rendezvous on Melville Island; the other three will meet somewhere near Edmund Walker Island, a rocky piece of nothing in the middle of a frozen ocean.

"It's going to be rough," said Maj. Chris Bergeron, commander of 1 Canadian Rangers Patrol Group.

"I'm talking about patrols meeting in the middle of nowhere on the ice."

Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean has been invited to the Edmund Walker rendezvous. Her office is considering the request.

Patrols will climb glaciers and cross remote mountain passes. Twin Otters from Yellowknife-based 440 Squadron will fly before them, warning of open water and scouting out the safest and most efficient routes through the sometimes towering jumble of ice.

The patrols can only carry enough supplies for a week, so they will have to build airstrips on the sea ice so resupply planes can reach them.

Along the way, they will catalogue any structures they see that may have been left behind by the generations of explorers, miners and oil drillers that have travelled the North.

Cameron Island, for example, has an old oil well that may still have a usable airstrip and dock.

"There are old mines, there are abandoned sites," said Couturier. "We just really want to know what's out there."

Such structures could be handy in an emergency, Couturier said.

Operation Nunalivut is also the first step in turning the two abandoned weather stations into "turn-key" base camps that could be quickly activated in an emergency.

Mould Bay, shuttered in 1997, still has snowplows and trucks. Its living quarters look as if they were abandoned yesterday, with someone's old guitar still leaning on the sofa.

"If we can make sure the runways are usable and make sure we have limited caches of fuel and so on, that would be great," said Couturier.

Commercial air traffic over the High Arctic has grown rapidly over the last decade. Transport Canada figures show 142,000 commercial flights in 2004, most of them passenger flights by large jets.

As well, many experts predict there will be increased shipping traffic as global warming reduces sea ice and opens navigation.

The rendezvous plans are also part of preparing for an emergency, said Couturier.

"We want to train them so if we give them a GPS co-ordinate, they can get to that point. If we had a plane going down, we could give the GPS co-ordinate to three or four patrols and say rendezvous at that point.

"We want to give them lots of practice."

Arctic issues surfaced in the recent federal election campaign, with Stephen Harper's Conservatives promising to boost Canada's military presence in the North with new icebreakers, a deepwater port in Iqaluit, new aircraft and a winter warfare school in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

Couturier welcomed the government's northward gaze.

"The profile of the Arctic has been raised," he said.

"I don't think it would have mattered which government would have gotten into power, there would have been more emphasis on the North.

"This is something we've had in mind for quite some time."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060210/arctic_sovereignty_060210/20060210?hub=Canada

[geo]

ayup. As some have said in the past............. use it or lose it.

Who knows... some may decide to start using TF 2 or 4 for sovereignity / show the flag activities in the High Arctic.

[54/102 CEF]

Sorry, that's just inarticulate fluff - if you have credible real-world solutions to offer, please do so, otherwise it's just more static. I can probably find an on-line mission statement generator that would produce equally valuable statements.

I think the writer of the first part is closer to the evolving stuff coming out of transformation

[LeonTheNeon]

I thought some of you might be interested in this.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/14072006/2/national-defence-minister-wants-arctic-port-2007-pledges-arctic-army.html

Defence minister wants arctic port by 2007, pledges arctic army school
Fri Jul 14, 6:04 PM
 


IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) - Federal Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says he hopes to know by the end of the year where to build an arctic deep-water port.

ADVERTISEMENT
 
 
 
 
O'Connor also says he's considering a winter warfare school at Resolute, Nunavut, and is looking to improve Canada's northern naval capability.


"On the advice of the Nunavut government, we're told there are seven possible locations for a deep-water docking facility," O'Connor told reporters in Iqaluit on Friday at the end of a northern tour.


"Our military staff are going to look at all seven against our requirements. This would be a military-civil facility.


"I'm hoping that by the end of the year we know where it's going to be."


Canada is the only arctic country that doesn't have a deep-water port along its northern coastline.


That not only hampers military operations - the Canadian navy must now refuel in Greenland - it also inhibits Nunavut's economic development.


Ships in the territory's growing fishery have nowhere to land their catch. Arctic cruise lines make frequent inquiries about landing at Nunavut communities, but none has docking facilities.


Currently, ships at Iqaluit are forced to anchor offshore at Frobisher Bay. All cargo - from food to building materials to bulk fuel - must be unloaded onto barges and run up the beach along the shoreline - a long and environmentally hazardous procedure.


"We want to get the port," said Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik, who promised to co-operate with the federal study. "We don't have one. We need one."


The community of Iqaluit has floated port plans of its own, but O'Connor said the proposed facility would be too small to meet military requirements.


O'Connor did praise the proposed Iqaluit site, however. "It looks like a fine location. What we have to look at is how many months of the year can you use it (and) if we had to use it in ice, what problems would that cause?"


Other communities likely to be in the running are Kimmirut on the southern end of Baffin Island, and Arctic Bay on its northern tip. A port at Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island in the central Arctic has also been proposed.


Building an arctic port would deliver on one of the Conservative party's campaign promises from the last election.


O'Connor also repeated pledges for an increased military presence in the Arctic. Surveillance from the air will be increased, he said, as will sovereignty patrols across the ice and tundra.


"I want the navy, the army and air force operating up here so that our airspace, our waters and our land are all under the control of the Canadians so there's no question that if people went through our land, air or water they follow our laws," O'Connor said.


"It's all part of sovereignty."


But O'Connor was cautious when asked about another promise to build three heavy, armed icebreakers.

"Whatever the most effective way is to get the navy operating in the North, we need to go with it," he said. "I'm looking at a range of options - ships that can cross the ice, smaller double-hulled vessels that could go through one-year ice."

He did say new naval vessels would all have some ice capability.

"Any major vessel original to the navy will have to go through first-year ice because we are respecting the fact that we have three oceans."

As part of his trip, O'Connor also visited Resolute, a High Arctic community on Cornwallis Island, where military officials propose a northern warfare school - something that's long been on the army's wish list.

"They are enthusiastic about having an arctic training centre," said O'Connor.

"We had a look at Resolute Bay (Thursday) and the military officers with me will be taking the information back to Ottawa to make a decision."

O'Connor wouldn't estimate the cost of the new facilities or how many military personnel they would bring to the Arctic. Iqaluit's smaller design for a port was estimated to cost about $50 million.


(EDIT: As Big Bad John points out, I misspelled arctic as artic in the title.   I have fixed it.  Thanks for pointing it out.)

[Cdn Blackshirt]

If you don't claim your sovereignty, you lose it.

Kudos to the Conservatives for looking for more than 5 minutes ahead in their planning....


Matthew.   

[big bad john (John Hill)]

Perhaps one of the staff could help out on the spelling error in the title.

[Guardian]

Just an idea...

If we are serious about reinforcing our sovereignty up north, might it be practical to station some ground forces up there? More than just a training cadre at this proposed arctic warfare school, but actually a "rapid reaction force" of sorts.

This would give some heavier backup to the Rangers and be useful in case of civil disasters up North (i.e., the increasingly-feared prospect of an airliner crash). They would be available most of the year for sovereignty patrols, too. They might even be able to act as an EN force for the school.

Such a force could probably be a reinforced company - sized organization. Let's say a recce platoon, two rifle platoons, a heavy weapons platoon (just in case), a support platoon, an "arctic mobility platoon" (snowmobiles and the like), just for the sake of argument (if someone has a better ORG idea, by all means).

For this force to be of any use, it would have to have a few large, air-to-air refuelable helicopters located with it. The company would be trained airmobile. Put a Buffalo up there as well, and the recce platoon could jump into an area of interest in advance of the rest of the force.

We might even be able to draw most of this force from the reserves, if we trained and rotated them through the tasking like any other op tasking. There have to be some reservists out there who would volunteer for a six-month tour of the Arctic - if given the proper incentives, anyway (the operational tax break? Some special pay arrangement? Even a medal (after all, Alert rates one, and it would be an operational task, I'd think)?

And after a few years of annually rotating a couple hundred reservists through the North, the training and experience gained and thus disseminated might be a general benefit to the Reserves. Best of all, the overtasked Reg Force might only have to provide a training cadre and some specialist positions - positions that would likely have to be resident at this school anyway. (I'm just thinking of the Army side, not the Air component that would be required).

Any thoughts? Or is this totally out to lunch?

[whiskey601]

Perhaps one of the staff could help out on the spelling error in the title.

Seems to have spelt it the way most people say it.  :'(

[Crantor]

Guardian: Not a bad idea but maybe a reinforced coy might be a little too ambitious to start.  Maybe an enlarged platoon to begin with.  With reserves being deployed overseas now more than ever and other taskings such as training etc, it might be difficult finding enough reservists to man something like that year round.  Maybe a platoon size on the ground with others on standby able to deploy at a moments notice and integrate?

Don't know really.  But arctic sovereignty is becoming more relevant and Canada needs to make its presence felt.  And it has to be more than just the occasional exercise.

I also applaud the conservatives for taking this seriously.  This is one of the main reasons why I voted for them.

[Thucydides]

For more discussion and alternatives to icebreakers, see this thread: http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,44203.0.html

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Civie Question: "How quickly could you integrate some of the younger Rangers into a number of dispersed active units?"

And for those with far more experience than I will ever have, how would you outfit them?

Thanks in advance,

Matthew. 

P.S.  Are the Griffon's Arctic-capable?

[George Wallace]

They don't get integrated, they get attached.  That is a formality; Orders.  They would act more or less as 'Guides' and 'Advisers' to the unit.

They come equiped with what they were issued so there would be no outfitting.

[Cdn Blackshirt]

They don't get integrated, they get attached.  That is a formality; Orders.  They would act more or less as 'Guides' and 'Advisers' to the unit.

They come equiped with what they were issued so there would be no outfitting.

My bad....I must have written that poorly.

What I meant was "If you were to recruit currently trained Rangers to create a new active unit, how long would it take to train them to current active duty standards and if were to become an active unit how would you equip it?  In short, instead of bringing active personnel from other regions of the country, are there overwhelming hurdles to using the Ranger-trained force who know the environment better than anyone as the basis for a new active unit or units?"


Matthew.   

[EX_RCAC_011]

My bad....I must have written that poorly.

What I meant was "If you were to recruit currently trained Rangers to create a new active unit, how long would it take to train them to current active duty standards and if were to become an active unit how would you equip it?  In short, instead of bringing active personnel from other regions of the country, are there overwhelming hurdles to using the Ranger-trained force who know the environment better than anyone as the basis for a new active unit or units?"


Matthew.   

Although I agree with your comment on how they know the environment better than anyone else,you have to pause and look at their culture.Having said that what I'm about to say is only a personal view from working with the rangers personally and my father owned a Hudson bay company in great whale river northern Quebec.

The rangers provide a valuable asset to our forces and country,but lets not get them confused with reservist or regular force soldiers.You will find that if a ranger has nothing to gain from an experience he may not show up.He also has a life where hunting and fishing (in some areas)is still important to their communities and culture,therefore you cannot expect him to show up when there is stuff to be done in his family.

My father said they were really hard workers but when they received enough money from his company to get what they wanted to buy,you wouldn't see them again till they needed more.That's not lazy that's a way of life.Having said that I have served alongside one young man from great whale river (our fathers were buddies) and he served 3 years but decided to go back to his family.And one of the best shots I've ever seen I must add.

When I worked with them in raymore ontario they said the only ones who jumped right into the "army way" were city slickers.The ones in the country just didnt quite go that way.

To form a bat allion of Rangers is a silly thought.Not only would it not work due to cultural reasons,it could dramatically affect their way of life and destroy a culture by making them into a workforce.

[GAP]

My father said they were really hard workers but when they received enough money from his company to get what they wanted to buy,you wouldn't see them again till they needed more.That's not lazy that's a way of life.Having said that I have served alongside one young man from great whale river (our fathers were buddies) and he served 3 years but decided to go back to his family.And one of the best shots I've ever seen I must add.

Having worked with Inuit and lived in the north also, I can only agree with you. Great people, just not focused the same way we are. Nothing wrong with it, just different.

[Missile Man]

I completely agree with Guardian - let's send the Army up there to "defend our sovereignty" and stuff.  Someone needs to maintain vigilance on Hans Island, am I right?  So I vote the Army, and the Rangers, not the Navy.  We will stick to Victoria, Ottawa, and Halifax....

[Navy_Blue]

Navy and Air force are really the key assets we need up north.  Keep our Infantry well trained and able to work with rangers and we're good.  No real need to post lots and lots of people up north either.  Logistical service and support and maybe if you want to be really mean and nasty stick the ice breaker crews up north too.  If you think about posting anywhere from 150 to 500+ people north of sixty will be very very costly.  I've been up there with the ship and its another world.  Did I mention that you can only drink at lunch and supper till 11PM the horror!!! If the Coast Guard is smart enough to rotate crews out of more major centers like St John's.  We could rotate our crews up there for a few months on and a few months off.  With a rotation it comes down to Sea Pay only not PLD to cover a 10$ bag of potato's or 15$ for a head of lettuce.

So now it comes down to a Jetty with a Medium sized Warehouse/Maintainance facility with a few billets for Log/Traffic Techs, a Clerk and and some Local technical support.  Just a simple Jetty with an ability to accommodate medium sized freighters and tankers would be priceless to a place like Iqaluit

Now as far as Zoomies go, do we need more air bases than we already have??  Would UAV's and our patrol aircraft not have the range to fly out of Goosebay and Yellowknife to do the job.  Iqaluit would be able to handle a small detachment as well.  Again rotational basis only.

Why make all this more expensive than necessary?? I think you could get the same results without a large influx of personnel and save some money in the long run.

My 2 peanuts.