ARCTIC Experience & Operations - Episode 4: Arctic Calling

We're here in Eclipse Sound, just off of Pond Inlet in Nunavut. The experiences here, we've seen a little bit of everything. It's been a really interesting week. So I'm here with my peer, Commander Corey Gleason, who is the commanding officer of the first Arctic and offshore patrol vessel. And Corey has had a number of trips here to the Arctic already, and I've been drawing again on his experience, and seeing come to fruition now on this trip some of the things that he's experienced in the past. This is just really a part of a larger program that I've put together throughout the years. Essentially what it really is, is just operating on the shoulders of a navigable season, which is most difficult times to operate up in the north. We'll follow on with that with an academic program. We'll put an advanced navigation course and a basic navigation course together for the future captains and navigators to prepare us to operate in the north throughout the whole of the navigable season. Really that's what it's about, isn't it? Trusting your guys on launch, trusting the system to do what it needs to do. Those little lessons that he's been passing on to me over the past several months, I'm seeing them firsthand and understanding the application of some of those processes that we've talked about. And between him and then the cooperation that we have with the Canadian Coast Guard and the captains of the vessels that I've been embarked in, it's been a really excellent relationship, and I'm looking forward to being able to take advantage of more of this. As I was standing there watching this go through, in my brain I'm thinking, you know, watching the current go through, watching the ice move, and knowing now that I've already had a look at it before I come up here for the first time, I know what to expect. And I can prepare to be prepared for it in advance, and that's one of the big things. I have learned a lot from you, and what I have seen out here and how this is going to contribute to my first experiences when I come into the Arctic has been invaluable, so thank you.