When the final school
bell rang on Friday, May 29, I knew I didn't have much time. In just a few hours, I would be heading out
on the land with the cadets of 3045 Army Cadet Corps for a weekend Field
Training eXercise (FTX). The FTX was
supposed to take place the weekend before, but had to be postponed due to bad
weather. I had to race home, change into
less formal clothing, finish packing, and head down to the staging area.
May 29 also happened to be the last day of final exams
for high school students. I had managed
to correct most of the exams I administered but there were still some left over. I would be spending a day or two the
following week, correcting exams, class work, and inputting final marks &
comments on report cards.
Thick white clouds hovered above Arctic Bay, blanketing
the area with snow. It wasn't the best
weather but it would have to suffice.
The additional snow on the ground would be good for the skidoos. The staging area was on the western side of
town, aptly named the West Coast by the local population. An old airstrip previously occupied this area
before being replaced by houses in the 1980s.
I arrived at the staging area on my white skidoo in the
late afternoon. I was wearing
comfortable civilian clothing and heavy Canada Goose & Baffin outer
clothing. The commanding officer of
3045, Lt. May, Ranger Andy, and a few senior cadets were packing the qamutiks
(sleds) with supplies. We would be
taking four qamutiks on this trip. Lt.
May instructed me to take several cadets and his pickup truck to the school and
load it up with the remaining camping supplies.
There were plenty of cadets waiting around the staging area when I
pulled up in the pickup truck, packed to the brim with food, tents, cooking
supplies, ground sheets, portable toilets, toilet paper, garbage bags, and many other things. The cadets immediately went to work unloading
the pickup truck and carefully placing all the camping supplies on the
qamutiks.
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| Ranger Andy's skidoo. |
There are certain ways of packing qamutiks; you can't
just throw everything onboard and tie them down with ropes. You have to treat the task like a game of
Tetris. Don't put heavy items on top of
light items, gas tanks & oil should not be in the iglutak (hut), and use
every available space. If large ground
sheets are available, use them to cover your equipment & supplies before
you tie everything down.
Everyone gathered around Lt. May for a quick
briefing. He announced that we would be
camping at last year's location, a small fishing area called
Qajuutinnguat. The isolated location
lies 33km to the southeast of Arctic Bay.
Unfortunately, Levasseur Inlet was deemed too far and complicated to
hold an FTX. Plan B was in effect. I didn't mind the change of location; I've
already been to Levasseur Inlet two weeks prior. Lt. May made it clear to everyone that I was
the Officer of Primary Interest (OPI) on this FTX. In short, I was the person in charge. The senior cadets were there to assist me and
Ranger Andy was tasked with protecting everyone from polar bears.
The convoy of four skidoos & qamutiks began the long
drive to Qajuutinnguat. It was 7pm in
the evening but there was still plenty of daylight. I was driving my own skidoo and pulling a
qamutik. The excited cadets were riding
in the three other qamutiks. I could see
in their faces that they were "scared" to ride in the back of a
qamutik that I was pulling. This was their
first time seeing me do such a thing.
Reassuring them that I had previously pulled a qamutik in March didn't work. I rode in the middle of the
convoy, keeping my speed between 25- 30mph (40-48km/h). We passed an Inuit family ice fishing in the
middle of bay. In the distance, we
spotted tiny black dots on the ice: seals.
We briefly stopped halfway to make sure everything was
still tied down to the qamutiks. When
pulling a qamutik with your skidoo, you can't stop right away because you'll be
rear-ended by the qamutik. The trick is
to gradually slow down ahead of time and then come to a complete stop. We arrived at the camp site after driving for
90 minutes. Despite my best efforts, the
qamutik I was pulling lightly collided with another. I still need to practice pulling a qamutik
when turning.
There was no time to waste; the bivouac site needed to be
established. The cadets went to work
pitching tents. We brought two white
Fort McPherson tents, and two green 5-person arctic tents. The McPherson tents would separately house
the male & female cadets, one green tent would be used by the adult staff,
and the other green tent would house the food.
The food consisted of American-made Meals-Ready-to-Eat, aka MREs. Unfortunately, the Canadian-made Individual
Meal Packages (IMPs) were unavailable.
The Canadian Armed Forces have priority over IMPs. While the tents were being pitched, two empty
qamutiks were pulled to the ends of the camp site. A luggable loo was placed behind each
qamutik, effectively creating two separate washrooms (one for males, one for
females). The gas cans, naptha fuel, and
oil were placed at a designated P.O.L. site, away from the tents. (P.O.L. stands for petroleum, oil, &
lubricants).
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| Senior cadet Kigutikarjuk carries a blue ground sheet to the male tent. As you can see, there was some wind. |
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| Flat cardboard boxes being broken into pieces. |
We "moved in" to our designated tents after
they were pitched. Ground sheets and
flattened cardboard boxes were placed inside to create a comfortable
floor. Next came the air mattresses,
sleeping bags, and kit bags. The cadets
who were finished early were tasked with placing all the MRE boxes in the green
storage tent.
The cadets were rewarded for their hard work with hot
chocolate and granola bars. Clear white
snow was collected in large grey pots and melted using the Coleman stoves to
provide hot fresh water. The hot
chocolate packages came from the MREs.
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| Bringing back clear white snow for melting. |
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| Lt. May (left) & me on the right. |
As the day came to a close, Lt. May bid me good luck and
said that he would be back on Sunday for the trip back to town. I had been preparing for this moment ever
since we arrived. The commanding officer
would not be staying for the FTX; I would be alone with Ranger Andy and the
cadets. The ranger had a satellite phone
in the event of an emergency, but help would take about an hour to arrive. This was a test: could I maintain order and
complete all the necessary tasks/lessons as an officer cadet out on the land? I intended to show Lt. May and everyone
around me that I could. As Lt. May drove
away on his skidoo, his shape getting smaller & smaller, I thought to
myself, This situation just got real.
Taking a deep breath, I turned around and faced the camp
and the cadets. "Alright
everyone! Start getting ready for
bed. We've got a very long day
tomorrow." Once everything was
quiet, I retired to my green tent and got into my sleeping bag. As I closed my eyes, I wondered how well I
would lead the cadets for the next two days.
To Be Continued . . .
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