"The Rangers make the North accessible to Canada’s military, said Whitney Lackenbauer, the Canada Research Chair in the study of the Canadian North. He’s also an honourary Canadian Ranger.
'Literally, there’s, nothing like the Canadian Rangers anywhere else,' Lackenbauer said in an interview in Tuktoyaktuk.
'By having that foundation, having that footprint, it allows us to pull assets, pull resources up to the North to operate if we need to,' he said."
The commander of my Marine unit trained with the Canadian Rangers who taught the American soldiers how to survive in the frigid -50 c weather but how to detect human movement in the vast whiteness.
“Everything we know down south about surviving doesn’t really fly up here,” said Jim Davison in an interview on Parsons Lake, about 60 km north of Inuvik.
He and his crew had just loaded up snowmobiles and sleds full of supplies on a Chinook helicopter, and were just about to head to a camp to help the military scientists there stock up.
“Finding shelter is a lot harder. Finding warmth and supplies like firewood – that doesn’t exist up here. The elements get you real quick,” he said.
