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Soldiers in Canada’s Arctic face special challenges of climate and geography that affect operations, supply chains – let alone the ability to just actually survive. Members of the Arctic Response Company Group regularly train to overcome those challenges.
This podcast is for and about soldiers of the Canadian Army.
Its primary goal is to provide them with useful information through thoughtful and open discussions that reflect their mutual interests and concerns.
Though soldiers are our primary audience, the topics covered on this podcast should be relevant to anyone who supports our soldiers or who has an interest in Canadian military matters.
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Captain Carl Pelletier: If you just go there to survive, you’re not going to accomplish anything. If you go there with the mindset to be able to operate, the cold will not feel as cold as it should be. Normally, you are going to achieve great things.
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Captain Orton: Hi this is Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast, and today’s podcast is going to be about Arctic operations. I’m with Captain Carl Pelletier of 35 Canadian Brigade Group in Quebec City. And he is the operations officer for the Arctic Response Company Group or the ARCG. Welcome to the podcast.
Capt Pelletier: Hey, hello! How is it going?
Capt Orton: It’s great, how are you doing?
Capt Pelletier: Yeah very good.
Capt Orton: So, let’s roll right into it. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Capt Pelletier: So, myself, yes, I joined 32 years ago as a private in the Reserves. And, I went from private to Sergeant Major until I was commissioned 5 years ago to captain. Part of my career I’ve been deployed on a bunch of domestic operations, like LENTUS, LOTUS, Operation NANOOK, for the ice storm also in '98. And, I’ve also done deployment overseas with Operation ATHENA and IMPACT. And, most recently, I work at schools, within the Regular Force units. So, a vast career. A bunch of different opportunities.
Capt Orton: And so now you’re working with the Arctic Response Company Group. What does that role look like?
Capt Pelletier: I’ve been away with the headquarters in Quebec City for the past 10 years, so my primary role and job there was to set up the RG capacity when it was put in place in 2009 following the Defence policy to have specialized troops to operate in the Arctic. And I’ve done that job as a master warrant officer like the super warrant officer at operations. And most recently as the operation officer for the Arctic Task.
Capt Orton: So, people are probably thinking, it’s Canada we deal with winter all the time. In some places it’s winter 8 months out of the year. What are the differences between doing normal army stuff in the winter and Arctic operations?
Capt Pelletier: The main difference is the environment. So, we used to say that the south, when we are in northern Canada, the south is like Quebec City, Edmonton, Toronto. So, when we go up north in the Arctic, the main difference is there’s no trees. So, at some point you reach the tree line, it’s around the 55th parallel, and when you go higher than that there’s no more trees. So, it can be a cultural shock for the troops when they arrive on the ground over there because they are going to look for trees to tie their tents but there’s none. So, they have to be prepared for that, so that’s part of our job before deploying to prepare the troops for that kind of environment.
The other main difference is the type of cold. In the Arctic, it’s very dry in winter time. So, minus 30 up there, and minus 30 in Quebec City where it is very humid, there’s a bit of a difference with the type of cold and the effect it has on you. So, up there when it’s minus 60 you can freeze pretty quick, within minutes, and sometimes within seconds. So that’s the main difference. Even if it’s minus 60 over there it can feel quite warm because it is so dry, but if you don’t pay attention you are going to get frostbite pretty quick because that kind of cold is sneaky. That is the two big differences when you operate up there, compared to the south of Canada.
Capt Orton: And what kind of impact does that cold have on equipment? Like you have people that sometimes go out in the cold, and the cold is enough to just kill your cell phone battery. How does that affect the gear that you're using up north?
Capt Pelletier: The main effect is on everything that is rubber-made or plastic, so the cold has an immediate impact. If you try to twist something that is a plastic base in southern Canada, and you do the same thing up north, you can find out that it is going to break quite easily. And same with everything that is rubber-based. Seals and stuff can easily squeeze and lose their flexibility, so you have to pay attention to that. And, you spoke about batteries, batteries are the main thing. If you leave your GPS for example outside of your parka, you can find out a couple of minutes after or 30 minutes after, or within an hour, batteries that are supposed to be good for 8 hours will be just dead. That’s why, you will see, most often the guys or women put their equipment that are based on batteries as a power source, inside of their jacket or winter coats. Another thing we see often is with snowmobiles, when we bring them from Valcartier all the way up to Resolute, when they get on the ground over there, they have been accumulating some humidity in the summertime in Quebec. And, when they get off the plane in the Arctic, within minutes all of the fuel system can freeze. If you have not done a good maintenance job with the machine, you can drive, and after a couple of kilometers everything will freeze. And, you’re stuck there with your Ski-Doo. So at that point the mechanics have to remove everything, purge everything and start again from scratch. So, it’s a lot of work. So it’s those small details that we need to take care of, and the main thing is the troops, the soldiers, they need to take care of and pay attention to their equipment over there because there is no second chance. Once it’s broken, it’s broken. And, the resupply line can be quite far away. Because the local communities are very short on supply equipment for the kind of operations we do.
Capt Orton: So, speaking of preparing your gear to go up north, what kind of preparation do you do with the troops before they start Arctic operations?
Capt Pelletier: At 2nd Division, we have a training package for the guys that are tasked within the RG’s. We have a 3 to 4 weekend training that is called the Tundra Exercise Cycle. So, it is 3 to 4 weekends that they do in Valcartier. During these weekends they will cover a bunch of specialized formations and training that is tailored for the mission they will accomplish during the validation exercise. That is called ‘Guerrier Nordique’ for the 2nd Division. Depending on the scenario we will play during our training exercise, we will tailor the weekend training for that. For sure, we will cover some basic things like how to use the specialized equipment like the Yukon stove that is a kind of a wood stove, but it is multi-fuel. And it is especially used by the troops to warm the tents in the Arctic. So, we are going to train the guys on how to use those stoves. And we are going to also put in place some special package for the troops to be trained on the communication equipment that are specialized for the Arctic. Like the ticks radios, the green radios, we call them, they are not very useful in the north for a bunch of different reasons. So we are going to have our coms specialist train the troops on satellite radios and HF radios. That is our two primary means of communication up north. Apart from that, as usual before we deploy up there, we are going to request all of the troops to be qualified on basic winter warfare courses. And since the snowmobile is our main means of transportation on the ground, on the land over there, so everyone will be requested to complete the snowmobile driver course.
Capt Orton: It’s funny that you mention the Yukon stove because I think a lot of the newer soldiers haven’t really touched that piece of equipment or even seen it. And some of the more senior folks will be like: “Oh yeah, that was a great piece of gear”. And, that is still to this day one of the essential pieces of equipment for Arctic operations.
Capt Pelletier: Yeah. And it’s funny you talk about that because when we started to put in place the capacity, we were doing a bunch of kit lists for us to get so we could become more specialized with Arctic operations. The big one was the Yukon stove and the first call that we did to the different depots and quartermaster within the brigade was: “Hey, you have a Yukon stove within your inventory?”And they were saying: “What are you talking about? What’s that stove?” So, we were explaining and sometimes you had some quartermaster sergeant that would say: “Oh, I’ve got a bunch of metal boxes at the far quarter of my QM and we don’t know what they are”. We were telling them: “Hey, shoot us a picture”, and they were the Yukon stove. So we have to gather all of the equipment to a centralized point for us. So we got quite lucky, but we put them to good use, it’s quite useful.
Capt Orton: It’s almost impossible to talk about Arctic operations without hearing about the Canadian Rangers and their involvement. I think every single time that I’ve heard about soldiers operating up in the Arctic, they come back and they have a Canadian Rangers story. What role do they play in Arctic operations?
Capt Pelletier: The Rangers for us are crucial to all operations. So, every time we deploy up north, within the area of responsibility, we are going to work with them. There are two big advantages to them working with us. The first one is, since they know the area, they are going to be useful to help the guys travel on the land, on the tundra. So they are going to be used as guides, as scouts. And they are also going to help the guys survive on the land. So they are going to be able to teach them, for example, how to build igloos and how to live on the tundra. So it is very useful for us and very important also for troop’s safety because, when it becomes cold, they can go and talk to the chain of command of the company and tell them: “Hey there is a blizzard coming so maybe we should set up camp and wait for the bad weather to pass”.
And, the other usefulness of the Rangers is the liaison with the local communities. So, most of the time we deploy up north, we don’t have National Defence infrastructure over there. So we are going to have to rent from the local community’s infrastructure to set up the command post, the supply stores and also the main medical bay if we have some kind of medical emergency. So the Rangers will help us do liaison with the local town hall. So that’s mainly the two big impacts they have when they work with us. For sure by the end of every training we do, we are going to offer them to do a cultural day. So, the troops can have a sense of what is the Inuit culture. So, the Rangers will also liaise with the local community to set up something for us. So that’s their main task when we deploy up there.
Capt Orton: A lot of soldiers coming back, also come back with those stories of those cultural exchanges and kind of what that is like. What do those look like? How does that feel?
Capt Pelletier: The first cultural experience they bring back about the Inuit culture that is different from our culture, the culture from the Canadians from the southern part of Canada. Sometimes I used to say it’s like you are going to Afghanistan dealing with the locals. It's kind of the same up north in Canada. So doing these cultural events at the end of the exercise gives the Inuit a chance to show our troops what the culture is. So the troops will taste raw caribou, raw seal meat, raw beluga meat, whale meat, and fish also. So the guys have a taste of those kinds of meals. So sometimes it can be funny to see the guys react by taking a bite of a beluga. It can be quite funny. Also, they are going to show us Inuit games. So you have the muskox event, and you have also the high kick, and they are pretty fond of tug a war. So we are going to set up teams to go against the Inuit. For sure Inuit win most of the time because they are pretty strong, it’s pretty amazing. And the guys always enjoy also the throat singing. So, that’s impressive to see. So it’s always good fun when we can have the Inuit show us their culture.
Capt Orton: So, other than the rangers and obviously the local people there, what other organizations do you operate with when you’re up in the Arctic?
Capt Pelletier: Oh, that’s the interesting part of the deployment up north. Every time we go up north we are going to deal with other government agencies. They can be Environment Canada, Natural Resources, RCMP, Coast Guard; everything depends on the mission we have to do or the scenarios that will be put in place for the exercise or the operations over there. We also deal with foreign allies, so that is an interesting part of the job up there.
Capt Orton: Why is having an Arctic Operations Capability important for the Army and the CAF?
Capt Pelletier: The most important thing that is behind the setting up of the RG capacity is for the government to have specialized troops to operate in the Arctic. For sure our main role is for Canadian sovereignty, but we are also called upon to be able to react to any kind of domestic emergencies over there. And also to support, like I was saying prior, governmental agencies. It can also go all the way to scientific missions or scientific projects. And supporting scientific projects is something we did within the last couple of years with a project that was aimed at analyzing cold injuries to extremities of the human body. So it’s quite interesting what we can do over there in the Arctic. And to provide support to the Canadian government.
Capt Orton: So, we talked a little bit about the key players up north, as well as how to get there, what type of equipment is used, and how do you prepare for it. So once you’re up there what type of scenarios do your major exercises cover?
Capt Pelletier: Since the Arctic is quite vast, the main means of transportation over there would be Ski-Doos. So most of the time our main objective with our exercise up north is to have the troops practice mobility operations. So they are going to have objectives more than 100 km from home station. Like the base station where we deploy or the local village. And we are going to create training activities; they can be search and recuperate crash satellite parts, doing a search and rescue mission for lost parties. All kinds of stuff. We can also go to the full spectrum of the operation with a bit of tactical mission. But since our main goal is to be able to travel over land in very harsh and austere environments, we make sure that the guys know how to travel far away from the village or the base station where we deploy. Because if you can’t travel over land in the Arctic you are not going to be able to achieve a lot of things. Our mentality; we try to give our troops a mindset of being able to operate and not just survive. If you go there just to survive you’re not going to accomplish anything. If you go there with a mindset of being able to operate, the cold won’t feel as cold as it should be. And, normally you are going to achieve great things.
Capt Orton: We were just talking as we were preparing for this show, and the producer was saying: “You got to be crazy to want to go and be constantly working up north and working in these extreme negative temperatures”. And yet there are people who seek that out and want to volunteer and go up there to do all of this stuff. Why do you love working up north in the Arctic?
Capt Pelletier: First of all, the Arctic is a unique environment, and every time you go, you’re going to have different stories to bring back. You are going to face different challenges. Every time, even after all my years operating in the Arctic, I’m always surprised by what I can be confronted with as a challenge when we go. And it’s a big accomplishment, every time that we are able to go there, do our things, our missions, and come back. And, realize everything within the environmental limitations, and all the factors that can affect your exercise, it is always a great accomplishment. So that’s the main reason. But yeah, people will say he’s crazy but me for myself I love it. It’s pretty cool because there are not many people that want to take my job. So, at some point it’s pretty great to keep my job also.
Capt Orton: Yeah job security, gotta love it.
Capt Pelletier: Yeah.
Capt Orton: Alright, is there anything you want to add before we wrap up?
Captain Pelletier: No, maybe a last thing, maybe for those who are afraid to go there or think they will not enjoy the experience, I recommend everyone within the Forces to go. It’s an experience of a lifetime. I’ve been going up a lot. I’ve been to the most important locations up north, being Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Alert, Eureka. I’ve been to all of those places and, just the environment, it's unique. Don’t be afraid to go. There are people with a lot of experience that will be there to help you out. And most of the time the troops when they come back from those kinds of operations, they enjoy it and they want to go back. So, the Arctic is an experience of a lifetime.
Capt Orton: That’s awesome.
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Well thank you very much.
Capt Pelletier: Yeah, thank you. It’s been a pleasure to chat with you today.
Capt Orton: Yeah, it’s been great. That was Captain Carl Pelletier of the Arctic Response Company Group.
Before I sign off, I’m going to do something a little different and quickly talk about the Canada Army Run. Because it’s a great experience that I have done before, and in fact we’ve talked about it with a couple of guests. Super worth checking out. This year it is sticking with the virtual format and registration is kicking off, so check it out on ArmyRun dot ca and there’s early bird pricing before March 31st. So, save yourself a couple of dollars and help out the troops.
I’m Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast. As usual, stay frosty!
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