Survival school in one of the harshest climates on Earth; Canada’s Arctic
Posted Feb 18, 2016 11:37 pm.
Last Updated Mar 11, 2016 11:06 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s safe to say it’s a survival school designed to acclimatize only the heartiest of Canadian soldiers in the Arctic.
They were marched out from the Arctic Training facility to a place the Canadian Forces deemed “Crystal City.”
“The only time they’re going to have in the buildings for the next 5 to 6 days is 30 minutes a day, right now they’re learning to build tents and their snow walls, after that we’ll have them build igloos and they’ll have to live in their igloos for a few days. After that they’ll build snow caves, multi-man snow caves, where two or three people per snow caves and they’ll have to live in those for a few days,” said Search and Rescue Technician Instructor, Sergeant Morgan Boutilier.
He told City News Edmonton one of the key parts of their training is the isolation factor, so much so that media were unable to talk to any of the soldiers involved but could observe them from afar.
“Our job is to be able to parachute in and rescue people, we don’t get a whole lot of people coming in and walking around otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a rescue, so as part of that exposure, these guys are supposed to be survival experts and rescue experts. They need to have that experience to thrive in an environment while rescuing someone else.”
“Our mandate is all of Canada everywhere from Alert down to the borders right up to 1,000 kilometres off the east and west coast. We rescue fishermen off of fishing boats, some men have come in and parachuted in to rescue seal fishermen, lost hikers, airplane crashes, we pretty much over anything that an ambulance or ground party can’t get to.”
Brigadier-General Wayne Eyre was allowed to convey his well wishes to the troops as they set up their tents.
Soldier taking part in training this week were based out of CFB Comox.
To hear the full interview click below.
