The Canadian Forces Station at the top of the world

getting to and from Canadian Forces station alert and an RCA F c-17 cargo aircraft was an epic journey that took five days as might be expected when trying to reach the northernmost inhabited place in the world on a resupply mission in the dead of winter ice fog snow icing at high altitudes and strong crosswinds were responsible for most of the delays but there was also one technical glitch with the aircraft that caused a pause at an American Air Base with the Sun never cresting the horizon from mid-october until the end of February there is not much to see or do outside at alert but the seventy-nine soldiers and civilians waving the Canadian flag here were full of good cheer and hugely positive about their experience near the top of the world it is a great experience here an alert mainly because of the people the people make you hear at the station and there's also the fact that you have to stay busy you have to stay occupied when you're here and alert to keep mental health and the statement mentally fit here at the station because of the environment because of the total darkness you have to make sure that you occupy your whole day so you go to a gym you play the sports here at the station so we have ball hockey you almost every every second thing we have ball hockey despite being 4400 kilometers north of Ottawa the Canadians are not alone at this gelid military Listening Post which is located here because it is closer to Moscow than it is to the Canadian capital there are other living beings outside the base namely musk oxen arctic fox wolves and hares and the occasional inquisitive polar bear that the Bears have they rarely come around here but when they do it's usually because of the open water as well they come here but if they do we lock down the station and we take steps to scare them off usually that's that's worked as far as I've seen I had to do it three times in October scare off the polar bears and they they go away

Channel: National Post

Views: 103,738

Rating: 4.9053836 out of 5

Keywords: alert, canadian forces station, matthew fisher, cpv

Id: Ka7c4qpnh4M

Length: 2min 39sec (159 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2018