Thought I'd post this to show what the media is failing to show the blatant Russian "Soviet" expansionism over an area of land that has been considered Canada since its founding.... Damn Communists!
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/index.htmlMartin: Rangers assert Arctic sovereignty the old-fashioned wayDon Martin, National PostPublished: Thursday, October 25, 2007
OTTAWA -- The Conservative Arctic reclamation project calls for unmanned aerial drones, ocean floor sensors, $3-billion worth of new patrol ships, a deep sea port and an expanded military base to drape the Maple Leaf across vast stretches of barren rock, ice and increasingly open water.
But our current guardians on the ground are a paramilitary force that carry 60-year-old rifles to fend off polar bears, provide their own snow, land or sea transportation, call in irregularities over their personal satellite phones and exhaust their holidays to stand on guard for us.
The Canadian Rangers seem to have been overlooked as the most experienced hands-on and economical way to reassert sovereignty claims over a resource-laden region with heightened potential as a shipping corridor in a globally warmed environment.
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Font:****The throne speech gave them a backhanded salute -- pledging to increase their numbers by 20% while getting the name of the 4,100-strong quasi-military force wrong. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's address last week called them the Arctic Rangers, who don't actually exist.
But there's obvious potential to improve surveillance over a region claiming 75% of Canada's coastline yet costs less than the sticker price for three light armored vehicles.
Even though they're not whining about it, the Canadian Rangers have an obvious lag in equipment and status when stacked against regular soldiers.
Instead of a uniform, these recruits get a red sweatshirt, T-shirt, ball cap, vest, compass, first- aid kit and, naturally, a toque. They're paid reservists' salary for the time they're on tour and must provide their own all-terrain vehicles, boats or snowmobiles to get around.
Baba Pedersen is the second family member in a three-generation string of Rangers from Kugluktuk, formerly known as Coppermine -- an accomplishment that earned the trio their very own postage stamp. (And just to get the obligatory conflict of interest declaration out of the way, Pedersen is related to me through marriage.)
But one could argue the .303 Enfields issued to every Ranger are a tad out of date. "My rifle is World War I vintage, but it works well in the cold and is good for shooting caribou," Mr. Pedersen says with a laugh. "If you were standing half a mile away, I could still drop you with it."
He has noticed, but isn't complaining, that Canadian soldiers have the best communications equipment money can buy while Rangers are given old high-frequency radios.
"When the military guys come on our patrols, they come equipped with all sorts of satellite and other technology. We use the stuff while they're here, but when they go, so is the technology," he says. "That's why I usually bring my own phone along."
Mr. Pedersen's tours, done during his vacation period, take him on snowmobile dashes between the automated North Warning System outposts, calling reports into North Bay, Ont.'s command centre. In the pursuit of re-asserted sovereignty, "we plant flags, take some pictures and move on," he says.
Mr. Pedersen's reported the odd sailboat that seemed out of place in the sea ice (no kidding) and called in unusual aircraft or weather balloons.
Perhaps the Rangers' most notorious apprehension was a Romanian who last year bravely boated to Grise Fjord on Ellesmere Island from a port in Greenland, figuring he could mingle with the locals and eventually fly to Toronto unnoticed.
Unfortunately, he docked his boat 100 metres from a Ranger leader's home and didn't exactly blend into the local population, where he was only the second non-Inuit person in the community.
He was detained by the Rangers and deported.
Nobody's quite sure what the Harper government has in mind for the Rangers beyond increasing their size by 900 members in the years to come. There's a leadership session in Yellowknife in a couple weeks where they might get fresh marching orders. Or not.
But given the positive impact an aggressive recruitment and training blitz would have on a region sagging under chronic social problems and high unemployment, an upgrade would seem to be a win-win move for both the locals and faraway Ottawa decision-makers.
"We always say something isn't ours unless we're standing on it," says Capt. Conrad Schubert, spokesman for the Rangers program in Yellowknife, by way of explaining their role in protecting our sovereignty.
That makes this ragtag assortment of Inuit, who spend their vacations serving as our eyes and ears in a hostile but warming environment, Canada's best and brightest north stars.
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