Training underway at CFB Borden for arctic mission

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces were completing training exercises Saturday ahead of a deployment to the arctic next month.

On Saturday, members from the 4th Canadian Division Arctic Response Company Group were doing various training missions. The predominantly Army Reserve group will be deployed in August to help monitor the increasingly used passages for shipping in the far north.

"The training has been a culmination of years of training in the arctic and in northern Ontario and on our training bases within Ontario," says Major Mike Lacroix. "It has been demanding and challenging within the winter months where we have to compete with the elements to communicate, to survive and move."

The group will participate in Operation Nanook in Nunavut. Corporal Jacob Kelly of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters says the number one enemy is the cold.

"There's a lot of training at my level that we have to do to get prepared," says Kelly. "We have a lot of building on the weekends; especially you have to get prerequisite courses like cold weather operator to get up there."

Altogether about 200 members will be deployed throughout the far north.

The deployment is a real honour for Kelly and many in his unit.

"I think my unit has a great pride in the special training and tasking that we have here in Barrie and in Owen Sound," he says. "I know our unit has had this tasking for quite some time, and it's something that we as local members of the community feel very passionate about to have such an important role for Canada as well as Canada's north and all their interests."