Defence Attaché takes part in tour of Arctic

A report by Defence Attaché Lieutenant Colonel Kay Kuhlen

The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) maintains contacts to national government offices around the world via foreign service attachés. Three times a year, these accredited military attachés are invited to travel through the country to visit military installations, experience cultural attractions, and establish contacts with public authorities and industry. In mid-June the DND put out the call for participants in a particularly special trip: the Arctic Tour.

Enlarge image Hercules C-130J of the Canadian Air Force (© K. Kuhlen)	The itinerary included remote locations surrounded by perpetual ice. For this reason the trip was only possible by means of a military transport aircraft.

The moon in Iqaluit (Nunavut) Enlarge image The moon in Iqaluit (Nunavut) (© K. Kuhlen) A C-130J Hercules, which has only recently been introduced in the Canadian Forces Air Command, took us to La Grande in Quebec; Iqaluit in Nunavut (the land of the Inuit); the Canadian Forces Station in Alert, which lies only a few hundred kilometres from the North Pole and affords a beautiful

Canadian Forces Station in Alert (Nunavut) Enlarge image Canadian Forces Station in Alert (Nunavut) (© K. Kuhlen) view of Greenland; Cambridge Bay, an Inuit settlement with approximately 700 inhabitants; Dawson City, the gold mining town in the Yukon familiar from Jack London’s tales; Whitehorse and Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories; and finally to Churchill, Manitoba, located directly on Hudson Bay.

Enlarge image Inukshuk in Cambridge Bay (Nunavut) (© K. Kuhlen)	Numerous inuksuit (Inuit for “one who shows the way”) accompanied us through the inhospitable land of the Inuit, where it either never really gets light or never really gets dark.

Besides the many interesting people we met on this trip, more than anything it was the experience of the immense distances in the vastness of Canada that will remain unforgettable Lieutenant Colonel Kay Kuhlen with Canadian Rangers in Dawson City, Yukon Enlarge image Lieutenant Colonel Kay Kuhlen with Canadian Rangers in Dawson City, Yukon (© K. Kuhlen)

Conversations with Canadian Rangers, who are part of the Canadian armed forces, and with experienced hunters and trappers living in the region provided us with interesting impressions of what it means to live life in seclusion and solitude.

After travelling more than 12,000 kilometres in six days, it was clear that Canada is proud of its Far North and that the Inuit in the Arctic reaches are proud to be Canadians!