Canada faces dual adversaries on its northern frontier: W5 embeds with the Canadian military in the Arctic

By Jon Woodward – CTV News

It was a blunt lesson about things in Canada’s North that can kill – and it shook the soldiers who had just arrived to a mess hall in a town 200 km north of the Arctic Circle into stunned silence.

“There are three of them: the ice, the cold, and arrogance,” said Capt. Alex Boom, the Operations Officer for the Canadian Rangers, an arm of the Canadian Armed Forces known for its experience in the rugged wilderness.

“Confidence is killer. This is not your backyard,” Boom continued, before turning to teach what Rangers often call “the Green Army” ways to survive in the treacherous white snow and tundra in Canada’s Arctic.