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“Operation Iqaluit” achieves its objectives

Armed forces members enjoy fun tour of Iqaluit

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Putting on a new face: a member of the Royal 22nd Regiment applies camouflage paint to an Iqaluit boy’s face at a “boot camp” for youngsters held behind Nakasuk School this past Saturday afternoon. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik speaks at the end of an armed forces parade between Nakasuk School and the parking lot of the legislative assembly. Okalik said Iqaluit has a “rich military history” and that he supports Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

Elisapee Sheutiapik, the mayor of Iqaluit, presents visiting armed forces members with a declaration giving them “the freedom of the city,” a symbolic gesture intended to make them feel welcome. (PHOTO BY JACKIE WALLACE)

A brass naval band behind them, crew members from HMCS Montreal march past Iqaluit City Hall this past Saturday. (PHOTO BY JACKIE WALLACE)

Learning the drill: a member of the Royal 22nd Regiment in a fun push-up contest with a youngster from Iqaluit, at the start of an obstacle course created out of playground equipment at the back of Nakasuk School. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

So began Armed Forces Day in Iqaluit this past Saturday, a “day” that lasted an entire weekend.

The event actually kicked off the previous evening with a barbecue at Commissioner Ann Hanson’s residence, and didn’t end until Sunday, with a Canada Games torch ceremony and the early evening departure of HMCS Montreal for a military exercise in Lancaster Sound.

In between, members of the Armed Forces conducted displays, attended breakfasts and barbecues, entertained elders and youth, and toured the community.

This included most members of Joint Task Force North. Headquartered in Yellowknife, the JTFN is northern Canada’s section of the Armed Forces, and its 140 or so members include regular forces personnel, part-time reservists, and civilian workers.

Their ranks were augmented by a platoon of “Van Doos,” as the Royal 22nd Regiment is known in English Canada, crew members from the HMCS Montreal, crew members from an Aurora surveillance plane, a brass marching band, and squads of Rangers and cadets.

The JTFN, which is in charge of Ranger patrols and Cadet groups in northern Canada, has seen its role expanded this year to provide better assistance to civilian government agencies in emergency preparedness, search and rescue work, pollution detection, and fisheries patrols.

To that end, most of the Armed Forces units headed to Pond Inlet this week for Operation Lancaster, a multi-faceted exercise that will feature co-operation between the armed forces and civil agencies such as the Canadian Ice Service, Parks Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP.

Operation Lancaster, which complements Operation Beaufort, a military exercise in the Western Arctic that ended last week, started Aug. 12 and will continue until Aug. 25.

It’s the most northerly operation the Canadian Navy has conducted in decades, a feature that Prime Minister Stephen Harper pointed to in his declaration of commitment to Canadian sovereignty in Iqaluit this past Saturday.

“We always need to know who is in our waters and why they’re there. We must be certain that everyone who enters our waters respects our laws and regulations, particularly those that protect the fragile Arctic environment,” Harper said in a speech intended to launch Operation Lancaster.

Harper said there is no question that Canada’s border extends from the northern tip of Labrador to the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, extends along the Queen Elizabeth Islands to the Beaufort Sea, and from there extends to the Canada-Alaska border.

And he insisted that Canada’s jurisdiction extends for 200 miles outwards from that line, as set out in the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention, a document that he urged the United States to ratify.

“I have been very clear in asserting that Canada intends to enforce its rights under the Law of the Sea,” Harper said.

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