From the summer 1987 issue of The Beaver, there's a story about how the Canadian army and Canadian air force travelled to the Far North in the mid-'40s to test their abilities to operate in the Arctic winter.
SA国际影视传媒淥peration Musk-oxSA国际影视传媒� would travel from Churchill, Man., to Baker Lake. Baker Lake was once in the NWT but is now in Nunavut. The article covering this military expedition is written by Donald Storr and is based on his journals while in the field. Storr was a civilian meteorologist, and his job was to advise the commander-in-chief on the weather conditions SA国际影视传媒� one of those jobs was to observe the Northern lights. The crew of men who called themselves the Baker Lake Party were no more than seven in total, and they had two tractors on a Cat train, a caboose and three sleds with supplies, including a keg of navy rum that the men rationed to two ounces per day each.
Storr talks about how the group was trained to build an igloo, and they were told that it takes the SA国际影视传媒淓skimosSA国际影视传媒� one hour to build one. It took two hours for all seven military men working together to build one igloo with many failed efforts, says Storr, and even then snowflakes would drift through the cracks in the snow and ice and fall on his face in the middle of the night in mid-January. Two days into their journey, they met a trapper with his dog team who told them he hadnSA国际影视传媒檛 seen a soul in five months. In order to keep the sled runner slippery enough to glide over the snow, the wooden runner was covered with seal skin and periodically the dog team driver would spit a mouthful of water on the seal fur to keep the layer of ice maintained.
A week or so into their journey, the men took shelter in a trapperSA国际影视传媒檚 cabin, quite possibly the same trapper they had crossed paths with days before. The men helped themselves to the trapper's frozen caribou carcasses stacked up outside his cabin like firewood. Once they arrived at a place called SA国际影视传媒淓skimo Point,SA国际影视传媒� they required an Inuk guide to lead them across uncharted territory. The guideSA国际影视传媒檚 name was Nigyiak. He and his brother, Akpa, would lead them towards Baker Lake. Having never seen a snowmobile until then, the two brothers were interested in how the machines operated, says Storr.
The Baker Lake party eventually came upon a small community and were shown great hospitality SA国际影视传媒� to the point that they were invited to overnight in a well-built, 20-foot igloo. They slept on a layer of snow covered in willow and caribou skins. When they drank tea, one of the elderly woman noticed that the white men wasted their tea bags by only using them once, so she collected their tea bags and froze them to be used for later. There were two separate rooms in the igloo, one for storing caribou meat and the other was where a dog and a litter of pups dwelled.
As the men pressed on over the next few days, the weather dropped to nearly -50 C. They had a new guide and got lost for a time and had to backtrack. Storr complains that he froze his cheeks. The men shot at a wolf and four white foxes but missed. When they reached Baker Lake a little over three weeks after setting out on their journey, Storr describes the town as having no more than a dozen buildings where the white people lived and scattered igloos across the landscape where the Inuit lived.
Storr stayed in Baker Lake until the spring, when he was flown out by plane. He doesnSA国际影视传媒檛 admit it but itSA国际影视传媒檚 quite obvious that the group of army men would have never been able to traverse the Arctic landscape and make it to their destination without the help of the Inuit people who know that land so well. He does, however, state that although they proved that they could move through the worst weather the North America continent can provide, to his civilian mind SA国际影视传媒渃onventional surface warfare would be impossible as well as insane.SA国际影视传媒�
Climate refugees
With growing interest in the Arctic, there's talk of one day being able to travel through the Northwest Passage by water, not over ice, because of the looming polar melt that is being caused by climate change. This has generated interest in creating new marine shipping routes for transportation but what's not talked about enough is how the ice melt in the Arctic will cause many coastal cities to flood. That could be another reason why more and more eyes are on the Arctic as a potential place to live for future climate refugees.
The times are much different now compared to the mid-'40s, when the military only had a few pieces of run-down equipment. Now that Russia and China are joining forces on Arctic strategies, and with America looking at purchasing Greenland, the Arctic is on everyoneSA国际影视传媒檚 radar. As it was back when operation Musk-ox set out, it's ever more vital now to be guided by Indigenous knowledge when suffused in the Arctic landscape.
Yet there are military facilities set up on the outskirts of Indigenous communities like the one between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. Even though they now have a permanent and rapidly growing presence on Arctic soil, many soldiers do not ever step foot into the Indigenous communities they are adjacent to with the excuse being that they donSA国际影视传媒檛 want to deplete community resources. However, with CanadaSA国际影视传媒檚 new defence policy countering threats from other countries, there's an expanded presence of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) and the North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO) personnel in the Arctic operating with a budget of $38.6 billion to be spent in the Arctic over the next 20 years for new weapons and military infrastructure, which will militarize Northern regions.
Surely there's room in the budget to support Indigenous communities who require housing, a robust local harvesting economy, improved education and healthcare SA国际影视传媒� and local government leaders should be negotiating for those funds. After all, it's the army who, after the Second World War, forcibly relocated many Arctic communities and caused the social and economic problems that exist today. The Canadian Armed Forces is no different than the government in that it must operate in alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The government has a legal duty to consult Indigenous rights-holders before undertaking activities on their lands, especially when looking to tap vast natural Arctic resources, such as oil and gas, minerals and possibly open up a new shipping corridor.
The people in the remote Arctic communities, at the very least, deserve to know what's happening on the ground at all times.
