Parachuting into Resolute; a private’s first time training in the Arctic

His frost encrusted eyebrows said it all, it was his first time in the Arctic and for a private originally from the Greater Toronto area, he appeared to be loving every minute.

Private Jeff Bray is stationed with Bravo Company at 3 PPCLI at CFB Edmonton, he’s otherwise known as a Princess Patricia.

In the event of a domestic emergency, often times it’ll be platoons like Bray’s who will first get the call to suit up and head north, due to Alberta’s proximity to the territories.

“Honestly? Have you ever seen Star Wars? The planet Hoth? That’s what I thought I was jumping into…” he laughed, in relaying his first impressions of the exercise. “This being my first time, I thought it would be colder, I’m sure it can get colder with the wind and everything, but for my first time being here, it’s quite the experience, put it that way.”

There was little wind and temperatures were in the low minus thirties on the morning that media was escorted out to their encampment.

Apart from learning how to live in the extreme cold, Bray says there have been other transferable skills.

“We learned how to build an igloo, the Rangers showed us over there how to cut ice blocks and build igloos and most important just staying warm, tent routine, ya it’s been a good time.”

The rookie in Resolute says that has been the crucial part, learning to stay warm after there had been several cases of frostbite.

“The biggest thing would be your fingertips and toes, they get cold quite easily, especially if you take your gloves off at any point. You can feel it, the tips of your fingers get a little numb,” said Bray. “With that being said, you gotta make sure you always keep your gloves on and if you do take them off, immediately put them back on to avoid getting frostbite. I mean, it’s unfortunate that some dudes did go down with some frost nip or frostbite, but as long as you keep doing those things, you should be alright.”

Bray says he still managed to sleep comfortably, despite the cold.

“You pretty much have to get down to like your one thin layer of underwear but as soon as you do that and jump in your sleeping bag, you’re perfectly warm.”

In terms of his jump, he say he didn’t think about it for very long, jumping out of the back of a plane has become kind of natural.

“Honestly, most of these guys, I’m more new to the company, but most of these guys here have 20 plus jumps for example. It’s all muscle memory now like, you don’t even think about it, you’re in the door and before you know it, you’re in the sky,” said Bray after completing his eighth jump.

“I don’t think anyone got hurt in the jump, my landing was perfectly fine, I had a soft landing, it was awesome cause I thought it was going to be hard. We’re landing on ice, right? But to be completely honest out of all my eight jumps, that was probably my softest one.”

His commanding officer, Major Ben Schmidt of “B” Company, says they are very strict with what they will allow the soldiers to wear.

“The guys know it but we always force it and make sure everybody is following all the policies and our orders so that nobody has a cold injury. One of the big challenges for us is, for instance, when we jumped, some of the guys had 80, 90 pounds of equipment with them and then they have to haul that off the drop zone a kilometre or two,” said Schmidt. “Inherently you’re going to get sweaty and then it’s minus 50 so if you get sweaty, it’s a problem so you just have to manage that. We’re pretty good at taking care of our guys.”

Schmidt says his company trains almost on a weekly basis to get ready and be able to jump anywhere in the north on a moments notice.

He wasn’t surprised to see there were no severe injuries to speak of, in the jump.

“I was glad to hear it,” he said. “These guys are quite skilled and quite experienced and to be honest, the cold conditions are the only thing that’s really different here, as far as the actual drop, it’s no different that what we do in Wainwright or Edmonton, so it’s good.”

To this seasoned officer, the big measure here for the younger guys is to be ready and learning that in action.

“It shows that if we had to within a couple of hours, six hours, we can be on the ground anywhere in Northern Canada and then we work with 38 Brigade with the RG company, which is really critical to us. Of course this is our land and it’s our sovereignty up here so working with local communities and showing them we can operate here is really important.”

Media later observed what’s called a “Relief in Place”, where reservists from Winnipeg trekked out to the area via snowmobile or snow machine and relieved the Edmonton-based first-responders.

All of this done in front of their Brigadier-General Wayne Eyre who is counting this mission as a big success.

Private Jeff Bray’s interview

Major Ben Schmidt’s interview