Monday, 19 April 2010 09:00
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| Canadian Forces C-17 Globemaster lands in Alert |
Well it's time to say goodbye to Alert. And this time we're traveling in style: Dave Brosha and I are going to have the privilege of flying in Canada's newest acquisition, the C-17 Globemaster transport plane. It has four jet engines and it's bigger and faster than the venerable C-130 Hercules, the workhorse of the Canadian military.
Canadian Forces have only four C-17's but they are incredibly proud of their new acquisition, especially since they managed to land the C-17 on Alert's frozen gravel runway a couple of days ago.
Unlike the Herc where we sat in net seats along the cabin, the C-17 has rows of airline passenger seats in front and two brand new toilets that actually have doors (in the Herc all you have is a basic toilet with a curtain around it). It still has that brand new car smell.
Dave Brosha, a freelance photographer and writer from Yellowknife and I have the plane to ourselves and about 20 feet of leg room! We're flying to Thule, Greenland.
Thule is an American airbase that Canadians often use for stopovers and refueling on the way to Alert. I'm quite surprised to find this out.
With all the jingoistic rhetoric we have heard in the Canadian media about the Canadian-Danish dispute over the tiny Hans Island, a rocky outcrop situated between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, one would think that Canada and Denmark were about to go to war over it. Yet the truth of the matter is, despite our disagreements over Hans Island and the maritime boundary in the Lincoln Sea, we actually cooperate with Danes and Americans in the Arctic. In fact, Canada would be hard pressed to maintain its presence in Alert without annual flights from Thule that re-supply Alert with fuel.
In Thule we're supposed to get on the same Herc that brought us to Alert and fly to Winnipeg. But the C-17 is supposed to go back to Alert, pick up the U.S. ambassador and fly back to Ottawa with a brief stopover in Thule.
I'd like to get on that flight but for some reason the military brass has decided to fly me all the way to Winnipeg, in the very center of Canada. I'm guessing that they don't want me on the same flight as the ambassador. I'm a bit frustrated and angry: it's not like I'm going to harass the ambassador or Australian polar adventurer Tom Smitheringale who's taking the same flight. If the ambassador doesn't want to talk to me, he won't! And Tom had already granted me an interview.