ECHELON - Canadian Forces Station Alert

 military airbase, military, village, settlement, Canadian Forces Base (CFB)

Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert, (Nunavut) is the most northern permanently inhabited settlement in the world.

It is at approximately 817 km from the geographic North Pole.

In the Cold War era, Alert was of prime strategic importance because of it's proximity to many soviet military facilities. Today, it is still used for strategic radio communications for the Canadian Forces.

Alert is named after HMS Alert, a British ship which wintered about 10 km (6.2 mi) away in 1875–76.

Sir George Nares was the first known person to reach the northern end of Ellesmere Island; he arrived in HMS Alert in 1875–1876. The weather station was established in 1950, and the military station in 1958.

Shortly after the close of World War II, Charles J Hubbard began to rouse interest in the United States and Canada for the establishment of a network of Arctic stations. His plan, in broad perspective, envisaged the establishment of two main stations, one in Greenland and the other within the Archipelago, which could be reached by sea supply. These main stations would then serve as advance bases from which a number of smaller stations would be established by air. The immediate plans contemplated the establishment of weather stations only, but it was felt that a system of weather stations would also provide a nucleus of transportation, communications and settlements which would greatly aid programmes of research in many other fields of science. It was recognized that ultimate action would depend on international co-operation since the land masses involved were under Canadian and Danish control.

Nine crew members of a Royal Canadian Air Force Lancaster died in a crash while making an airdrop of supplies to the station in 1950.

A C-130 Hercules, part of Operation Boxtop 22, crashed about 30 km (19 mi) short of the runway on October 30, 1991. Of the 18 aboard, four died in the crash, while the pilot died during the 30 hours that it took search and rescue teams to reach the crash site under blizzard conditions. The crash was the subject of several books, including Death and Deliverance: The True Story of an Airplane Crash at the North Pole by Robert Mason Lee, as well as a film, Ordeal In The Arctic, starring Richard Chamberlain.

www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/8-wing/alert.page
jproc.ca/rrp/alert.html