Military Pauses Arctic Sovereignty Operation

Over the course of the 12-day exercise, soldiers landed on surf-pounded beaches and sailors fired across the bow of a Coast Guard icebreaker to practise boarding techniques. The frigate HMCS Montreal patrolled the crystalline waters with the smaller HMCS Goose Bay and Moncton while icebergs drifted majestically by in the near-24-hour daylight. Aurora surveillance planes cruised overhead while a Griffin helicopter moved soldiers into observation posts along the waters Canada claims for itself. But after the final fence post around the graves of Const. Victor Maisonneuve and Const. William Stephens had been reinforced and repainted, the manoeuvres grew briefly silent Saturday as members of all five participating services doffed their headgear in remembrance. [snip] But its impact on the Forces might be better summed up by one of Montreal's seamen, who stood having a smoke on the ship's port deck watching the passing show of glaciated, rugged coastline and the slow promenade of icebergs. "Gorgeous," he said in a thick Newfoundland accent. "Makes you feel all Canadian." http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/08/20/pf-1766870.html

Note: http://cnews.canoe.ca/C...