Defending the Arctic is vital to Canada’s future and the threats are real. For The National, CBC’s David Common goes north for a closer look at how the military and the local communities are standing on guard for the country's sovereignty.
More than 3,000 kilometres north of the nation's capital, soldiers, ships and aircraft of Canada's Armed Forces gathered this week in one of the most remote areas of the country to answer one question: How would they board a foreign vessel that neither wanted to be seen, nor stopped.
What if the crew of that ship was near sensitive military sites in the North?
It may seem far-fetched. But smaller vessels run routinely through the north often with no transponders — largely invisible to other ships at a distance, and not necessarily seen by Canada's satellite and surveillance systems.
The annual exercise is known as Operation Nanook, and took on particular significance this year with a collision of geopolitical changes: China's growing ambition in the Arctic, Prime Minister Mark Carney's plans to substantially increase the capabilities of the military and the newly recognized value of minerals in
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