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Just saw this from the Economist, kinda funny, figure I should share it here.
Huh?
The Canadian Arctic
Slush fund
The Canadian Arctic: Slush fund | The Economist
Sep 11th 2009
From Economist.com
Canada's armed forces wave the flag up north
Wednesday | Thursday | Friday
Wednesday
EVERY summer Canada’s armed forces conduct military exercises in the Arctic, allowing them to test their abilities far from southern supply centres. This year they have chosen Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut, as the jumping off point for what they are calling Operation Nanook.
Members of the national and international media have been invited to observe this show of Canadian fighting prowess. Some 700 soldiers, sailors and airmen will search for a downed aircraft, hunt a submarine and deal with a mock explosion at the tank farm that supplies all of Iqualuit’s fuel.
Reuters True north
Ostensibly, we’re here to witness Canada asserting its control of the Arctic, which is attracting increased military and commercial interest due to the melting polar ice cap. But a political motive lurks behind the PR: Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister of a minority government, may well be facing an election in the autumn. He has made the Arctic one of his signature issues, and will drop by for grips and grins.
We are told to be at Apex Beach, a five-minute drive from central Iqaluit, at 5:30am to witness the first part of the exercise. Around 140 soldiers and their guides, known as Canadian Rangers, will land from the frigate HMCS Toronto and icebreaker CCGS Pierre Radisson. Midway through the two-month arctic summer, the waters of Frobisher Bay are glass-smooth and ice-free.
Although the sun has already been up for an hour, the weather is cool, more like a crisp autumn day than a midsummer morning. The military has thoughtfully provided a tent stocked with coffee and muffins for the journalists. Those who forgot their hats and gloves shelter there as the first of the Zodiac boats zip across the calm waters to the beach. Aside from the Sea King helicopter circling overhead, there is little drama in the landing. The soldiers, clad in green camouflage, calmly disembark and march off in groups of four to assemble at the top of a rocky hill.
Lorne Carruth, a naval commander, observes from the beach, and seems slightly chagrined that calm air and seas made the landing look easy. Still, he says the point was to see whether the army, navy, air force and rangers could work together well in a remote location. Apparently they can. This is not an assault exercise, he adds unnecessarily; the soldiers are meant to find an unmanned aerial drone that has hypothetically crashed nearby.
This is where the Canadian Rangers, in their distinctive red sweatshirts and caps, come into their own. Reservists from northern communities, they make up the bulk of Canada’s permanent military presence in the Arctic. In winter, they patrol on snowmobiles. On summer exercises like Operation Nanook they act as wilderness guides for the troops from the south. “We help the soldiers fit in with the communities,” says Tom Buzzell, a ranger from Haines Junction in the Yukon territory. “And we watch out for bears.” In the Yukon, grizzlies and black bears are the threat. Here on rocky and treeless Baffin Island, it’s polar bears.
Rangers reflect the communities they are drawn from, says Mr Buzzell. In the western Arctic, where he is from, they are a mix of white, Indian, Métis and Inuit. In Nunavut, where Inuit make up 85% of the territory’s population, they are mainly Inuit. In any exercise on land, the regular forces would be lost without the Rangers’ survival skills, as would the numerous expeditions from all over the world that set out each year for the North Pole.
The Inuit are usually too polite to make a point of this. But a video I picked up in Iqaluit called “Quallunat: Why white people are funny” provides a rare glimpse of how Inuit view hapless southerners. The scene in which an Inuit on a snowmobile rescues two so-called explorers, equipped with the latest gear but little sense, makes for funny, if uncomfortable viewing.
There’s no prospect of snow today; the temperature has been climbing steadily. Two hours after the landing began, it’s warm enough for T-shirts. The soldiers tramp across the uneven tundra, headed for the Road to Nowhere, which, not surprisingly, peters out in the wilderness. They will spend the next couple of days out on the land.
Fortunately, we do not have to join them. The military bundles the assembled journalists into a school bus that will take us to a rocky spit where we will board the Zodiacs. We head across Frobisher Bay to the frigate HMCS Toronto and the maritime part of the exercise.
Thursday
A BLAST of the bosun’s whistle at 7am starts the day on the HMCS Toronto. Footsteps echo through the metal hull as the day watch makes their way to breakfast. We journalists lag behind. It is not easy to climb out of the bunks (or racks, in navy slang) stacked three high in areas kept permanently dark because someone is always sleeping. It was even harder to get into our racks the night before, as there were no ladders and no obvious way to get up to the middle or top racks.
Yesterday we were warned that we might have to climb a rope ladder to board the frigate from the Zodiacs. This threat was withdrawn and a set of steep metal steps with handrails was provided. Perhaps they took pity on the sedentary hacks that normally spend their days staring at computer screens. More likely, it was because the Canadian prime minister, the defence minister, and the top military brass are joining us.
While having the leaders assembled in one place appears risky—one well-aimed torpedo from an enemy submarine could cripple the Canadian government and wipe out its military command—we are assured that there is no conventional military threat in the Canadian arctic.
Reuters Three Canadians get into a boat...
This raises the question of who exactly the military is training to fight in the far north. When we buttonhole the defence minister and the head of the Canadian Forces on this question they talk vaguely of increased “activity” due to the melting ice cap and the need to project Canadian sovereignty. They will not be drawn on whether they have the Russians in mind. Two Russian submarines were detected in international waters off the east coast of Canada the week before and Russia’s fleet of arctic icebreakers puts those of Canada and the United States to shame.
We are given free rein on the ship, told only not to push any buttons and to walk backwards down the ladder-like steps between decks. We can ask anyone anything; they will answer unless it is deemed a matter of top security. This makes a pleasant change from dealing with bureaucrats in Ottawa who have been muzzled by Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister. He has a reputation for being a control freak. When he arrives I can see how he earned it.
The captains of the frigate, submarine and icebreaker are instructed to align their vessels so that journalists can get a photo of the prime minister, his defence minister, and the captain of the frigate with the assembled maritime might in the background and a trio of CF-18 fighter jets roaring by overhead.
The sailors bear it all with good humour and are endlessly accommodating. When the prime minister’s staff made it known that he wanted to address the crew from behind a podium, they built one overnight and even had it painted and decorated in time for his arrival. They redirect journalists lost in the bowels of the ship and answer what must seem to them stupid questions. The only time that conversation seems subdued is during meals in the mess, when the sailors were distracted by the multiple televisions showing “Gran Torino”. Or perhaps they were just hungry.
Life on board revolves around food. Thursdays, for instance, is steak night: most of the crew like it, and the tradition reminds them what day it is. Alex Grant, the frigate’s captain, notes two essential pantry items: coffee and ketchup, otherwise known as “navy gravy”. I question André Savard, the logistics officer in charge of food stores, who confirms he has more than enough of both to make it through the current cruise. Fresh muffins and cookies are available in quantity in the mess. The exercise machines tucked into nooks and crannies throughout the ship begin to make sense.
Back to top >>
Friday
HAVING come off the boat with one more day in Iqaliut, I decide to interview a stone carver. Inuit art is a niche product (supposedly Jacques Chirac is a fan), but it has been receiving more attention since organisers of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics picked as the games’ symbol the inukshuk—rocks piled in the shape of a man that the Inuit use as signposts. Carvers from across the north are busy turning out small inuksuit (the plural of inukshuk) that will be packaged with the Olympic logo.
Still, finding an artist to interview turns out to be surprisingly difficult. Few have phone numbers; many have no fixed address. In frustration, I phone a woman who knows the local art scene. “When I want to find a carver,” she says, “I either go to the lobby of the Frobisher Inn or I go to the Baffin Correctional Centre.” The prison, she explains, has a programme that allows experienced carvers to keep working and novices to learn the craft. So off I go to the local prison.
Colin Kilabuk, a jolly man who tells me he loves his job running the carving programme, meets me at a shed outside the fences topped with barbed wire that surround the main correctional centre. He only accepts sentenced prisoners, not those on remand, he says, and they must complete a course relevant to their crime before they are allowed to carve. If imprisoned for wife beating, for instance, they take an anger management course. If their crime was alcohol related, they must join Alcoholics Anonymous. All this is dealt with by the prison administration, he says; he prefers not to know what the carvers are in for.
He takes me across to a work area where Rocky Aula, a 26-year-old from Iqaluit, is perched on a block of wood, surrounded by chips of stone, filing a soapstone neck pendant in the shape of a whale’s tail. On the table in front of him lies an almost finished inukshuk about six inches high. Mr Aula tells me that he used to sell the work of other carvers in restaurants before he started carving himself. A novice, he does not expect to be a full-time carver when he gets out, he says. When I ask what he plans to do, he smiles. “I don’t know yet, but I’ve got a lot of time to think about it.”
Each Friday, Mr Kilabuk holds a carving sale at the prison. The inmates set the prices for their work, but if they are too high or too low, they are advised to adjust them. The prison keeps 20% of the money for the carving programme. The inmates keep the rest and use the funds as they choose. Some buy more soapstone for C$2.75 ($2.54) per pound. “I know one carver who bought his father a boat when he got out,” says Mr Kilabuk. Mr Aula thinks his inukshuk will fetch C$75.
While we’ve been talking, another of the carvers has been standing in the background. He had told Mr Kilabuk he was too shy to talk to a journalist, but now he has changed his mind. He is Alariaq Shaa (pictured), and he comes from Cape Dorset, an artists’ colony a short plane ride from Iqaluit (there are no roads between any of the communities on Baffin Island, so all travel is done by air or by sea). Mr Shaa is 31 years old, and he has been carving for 16 years, honing a skill that was passed down to him by his father, grandfather and uncles, all renowned artists. He is almost finished a polar bear (his favourite subject) for the sale that afternoon. It needs smoothing and polishing, but even in its rough state, the carving strikingly conveys the muscular form of the polar bear. Mr Shaa says he will likely get C$500 for the carving. Mr Kilabuk concurs. He says people seem to know when master carvers are at the prison. Art dealers and galleries call to see what pieces are likely to come up for sale.
I would love to buy Mr Shaa’s polar bear, but I leave the prison empty-handed. Sadly, a correspondent’s salary doesn’t stretch to luxuries like original Inuit works of art.
the frigate’s captain, notes two essential pantry items: coffee and ketchup, otherwise known as “navy gravy”.
The Canadian Arctic
Slush fund
The Canadian Arctic: Slush fund | The Economist
Sep 11th 2009
From Economist.com
Canada's armed forces wave the flag up north
Wednesday | Thursday | Friday
Wednesday
EVERY summer Canada’s armed forces conduct military exercises in the Arctic, allowing them to test their abilities far from southern supply centres. This year they have chosen Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut, as the jumping off point for what they are calling Operation Nanook.
Members of the national and international media have been invited to observe this show of Canadian fighting prowess. Some 700 soldiers, sailors and airmen will search for a downed aircraft, hunt a submarine and deal with a mock explosion at the tank farm that supplies all of Iqualuit’s fuel.
Reuters True north
Ostensibly, we’re here to witness Canada asserting its control of the Arctic, which is attracting increased military and commercial interest due to the melting polar ice cap. But a political motive lurks behind the PR: Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister of a minority government, may well be facing an election in the autumn. He has made the Arctic one of his signature issues, and will drop by for grips and grins.
We are told to be at Apex Beach, a five-minute drive from central Iqaluit, at 5:30am to witness the first part of the exercise. Around 140 soldiers and their guides, known as Canadian Rangers, will land from the frigate HMCS Toronto and icebreaker CCGS Pierre Radisson. Midway through the two-month arctic summer, the waters of Frobisher Bay are glass-smooth and ice-free.
Although the sun has already been up for an hour, the weather is cool, more like a crisp autumn day than a midsummer morning. The military has thoughtfully provided a tent stocked with coffee and muffins for the journalists. Those who forgot their hats and gloves shelter there as the first of the Zodiac boats zip across the calm waters to the beach. Aside from the Sea King helicopter circling overhead, there is little drama in the landing. The soldiers, clad in green camouflage, calmly disembark and march off in groups of four to assemble at the top of a rocky hill.
Lorne Carruth, a naval commander, observes from the beach, and seems slightly chagrined that calm air and seas made the landing look easy. Still, he says the point was to see whether the army, navy, air force and rangers could work together well in a remote location. Apparently they can. This is not an assault exercise, he adds unnecessarily; the soldiers are meant to find an unmanned aerial drone that has hypothetically crashed nearby.
This is where the Canadian Rangers, in their distinctive red sweatshirts and caps, come into their own. Reservists from northern communities, they make up the bulk of Canada’s permanent military presence in the Arctic. In winter, they patrol on snowmobiles. On summer exercises like Operation Nanook they act as wilderness guides for the troops from the south. “We help the soldiers fit in with the communities,” says Tom Buzzell, a ranger from Haines Junction in the Yukon territory. “And we watch out for bears.” In the Yukon, grizzlies and black bears are the threat. Here on rocky and treeless Baffin Island, it’s polar bears.
Rangers reflect the communities they are drawn from, says Mr Buzzell. In the western Arctic, where he is from, they are a mix of white, Indian, Métis and Inuit. In Nunavut, where Inuit make up 85% of the territory’s population, they are mainly Inuit. In any exercise on land, the regular forces would be lost without the Rangers’ survival skills, as would the numerous expeditions from all over the world that set out each year for the North Pole.
The Inuit are usually too polite to make a point of this. But a video I picked up in Iqaluit called “Quallunat: Why white people are funny” provides a rare glimpse of how Inuit view hapless southerners. The scene in which an Inuit on a snowmobile rescues two so-called explorers, equipped with the latest gear but little sense, makes for funny, if uncomfortable viewing.
There’s no prospect of snow today; the temperature has been climbing steadily. Two hours after the landing began, it’s warm enough for T-shirts. The soldiers tramp across the uneven tundra, headed for the Road to Nowhere, which, not surprisingly, peters out in the wilderness. They will spend the next couple of days out on the land.
Fortunately, we do not have to join them. The military bundles the assembled journalists into a school bus that will take us to a rocky spit where we will board the Zodiacs. We head across Frobisher Bay to the frigate HMCS Toronto and the maritime part of the exercise.
Thursday
A BLAST of the bosun’s whistle at 7am starts the day on the HMCS Toronto. Footsteps echo through the metal hull as the day watch makes their way to breakfast. We journalists lag behind. It is not easy to climb out of the bunks (or racks, in navy slang) stacked three high in areas kept permanently dark because someone is always sleeping. It was even harder to get into our racks the night before, as there were no ladders and no obvious way to get up to the middle or top racks.
Yesterday we were warned that we might have to climb a rope ladder to board the frigate from the Zodiacs. This threat was withdrawn and a set of steep metal steps with handrails was provided. Perhaps they took pity on the sedentary hacks that normally spend their days staring at computer screens. More likely, it was because the Canadian prime minister, the defence minister, and the top military brass are joining us.
While having the leaders assembled in one place appears risky—one well-aimed torpedo from an enemy submarine could cripple the Canadian government and wipe out its military command—we are assured that there is no conventional military threat in the Canadian arctic.
Reuters Three Canadians get into a boat...
This raises the question of who exactly the military is training to fight in the far north. When we buttonhole the defence minister and the head of the Canadian Forces on this question they talk vaguely of increased “activity” due to the melting ice cap and the need to project Canadian sovereignty. They will not be drawn on whether they have the Russians in mind. Two Russian submarines were detected in international waters off the east coast of Canada the week before and Russia’s fleet of arctic icebreakers puts those of Canada and the United States to shame.
We are given free rein on the ship, told only not to push any buttons and to walk backwards down the ladder-like steps between decks. We can ask anyone anything; they will answer unless it is deemed a matter of top security. This makes a pleasant change from dealing with bureaucrats in Ottawa who have been muzzled by Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister. He has a reputation for being a control freak. When he arrives I can see how he earned it.
The captains of the frigate, submarine and icebreaker are instructed to align their vessels so that journalists can get a photo of the prime minister, his defence minister, and the captain of the frigate with the assembled maritime might in the background and a trio of CF-18 fighter jets roaring by overhead.
The sailors bear it all with good humour and are endlessly accommodating. When the prime minister’s staff made it known that he wanted to address the crew from behind a podium, they built one overnight and even had it painted and decorated in time for his arrival. They redirect journalists lost in the bowels of the ship and answer what must seem to them stupid questions. The only time that conversation seems subdued is during meals in the mess, when the sailors were distracted by the multiple televisions showing “Gran Torino”. Or perhaps they were just hungry.
Life on board revolves around food. Thursdays, for instance, is steak night: most of the crew like it, and the tradition reminds them what day it is. Alex Grant, the frigate’s captain, notes two essential pantry items: coffee and ketchup, otherwise known as “navy gravy”. I question André Savard, the logistics officer in charge of food stores, who confirms he has more than enough of both to make it through the current cruise. Fresh muffins and cookies are available in quantity in the mess. The exercise machines tucked into nooks and crannies throughout the ship begin to make sense.
Back to top >>
Friday
HAVING come off the boat with one more day in Iqaliut, I decide to interview a stone carver. Inuit art is a niche product (supposedly Jacques Chirac is a fan), but it has been receiving more attention since organisers of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics picked as the games’ symbol the inukshuk—rocks piled in the shape of a man that the Inuit use as signposts. Carvers from across the north are busy turning out small inuksuit (the plural of inukshuk) that will be packaged with the Olympic logo.
Still, finding an artist to interview turns out to be surprisingly difficult. Few have phone numbers; many have no fixed address. In frustration, I phone a woman who knows the local art scene. “When I want to find a carver,” she says, “I either go to the lobby of the Frobisher Inn or I go to the Baffin Correctional Centre.” The prison, she explains, has a programme that allows experienced carvers to keep working and novices to learn the craft. So off I go to the local prison.
Colin Kilabuk, a jolly man who tells me he loves his job running the carving programme, meets me at a shed outside the fences topped with barbed wire that surround the main correctional centre. He only accepts sentenced prisoners, not those on remand, he says, and they must complete a course relevant to their crime before they are allowed to carve. If imprisoned for wife beating, for instance, they take an anger management course. If their crime was alcohol related, they must join Alcoholics Anonymous. All this is dealt with by the prison administration, he says; he prefers not to know what the carvers are in for.
He takes me across to a work area where Rocky Aula, a 26-year-old from Iqaluit, is perched on a block of wood, surrounded by chips of stone, filing a soapstone neck pendant in the shape of a whale’s tail. On the table in front of him lies an almost finished inukshuk about six inches high. Mr Aula tells me that he used to sell the work of other carvers in restaurants before he started carving himself. A novice, he does not expect to be a full-time carver when he gets out, he says. When I ask what he plans to do, he smiles. “I don’t know yet, but I’ve got a lot of time to think about it.”
Each Friday, Mr Kilabuk holds a carving sale at the prison. The inmates set the prices for their work, but if they are too high or too low, they are advised to adjust them. The prison keeps 20% of the money for the carving programme. The inmates keep the rest and use the funds as they choose. Some buy more soapstone for C$2.75 ($2.54) per pound. “I know one carver who bought his father a boat when he got out,” says Mr Kilabuk. Mr Aula thinks his inukshuk will fetch C$75.
While we’ve been talking, another of the carvers has been standing in the background. He had told Mr Kilabuk he was too shy to talk to a journalist, but now he has changed his mind. He is Alariaq Shaa (pictured), and he comes from Cape Dorset, an artists’ colony a short plane ride from Iqaluit (there are no roads between any of the communities on Baffin Island, so all travel is done by air or by sea). Mr Shaa is 31 years old, and he has been carving for 16 years, honing a skill that was passed down to him by his father, grandfather and uncles, all renowned artists. He is almost finished a polar bear (his favourite subject) for the sale that afternoon. It needs smoothing and polishing, but even in its rough state, the carving strikingly conveys the muscular form of the polar bear. Mr Shaa says he will likely get C$500 for the carving. Mr Kilabuk concurs. He says people seem to know when master carvers are at the prison. Art dealers and galleries call to see what pieces are likely to come up for sale.
I would love to buy Mr Shaa’s polar bear, but I leave the prison empty-handed. Sadly, a correspondent’s salary doesn’t stretch to luxuries like original Inuit works of art.
Help, anyone! 
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