Siriuspatruljen at 75
Danish polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen is perhaps most famous to the internet for this image, snapped in 1912 after he and a partner survived two winters marooned and trapped in a cottage in northernmost Greenland:
To be fair to Mikkelsen, an explorer, author (eight books, numerous studies and reports), and administrator (he spent two decades as the Royal Inspector of East Greenland), was a pretty together guy who deserves his monuments and accolades.
Mikkelsen when not looking so haggard.
Well, he has returned to the frozen island in a sense in the form of the 1,750-ton Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen (P571), which is scouting the famed explorer’s old stomping grounds, which has since 1974 been known as the Northeast Greenland National Park. Covering about a fourth of the island, the park is some 375,000 sq. mi. in size, making it larger than 166 countries.
An interesting thing about Mikkelsen’s patrol of the NGNP is that it is carrying members of the Navy’s Sled Patrol Sirius (Slædepatruljen Sirius), aiding the elite unit in its summer sovereignty patrols and sending them ashore via small boat.
Mikkelsen, the explorer, had a role in the creation of Sirius, which was a carryover from a WWII sled patrol set up by the Greenland government while he was trapped back in occupied Denmark. The explorer was still Royal Inspector when the current patrol was rebooted 75 years ago this month.
The patrol and surveillance service was originally established to prevent unwanted activity during wartime and to fulfill Denmark’s sovereignty obligations through the surveillance service in peacetime. The patrol carries out its tasks year-round, using dog sleds in the winter months and patrol vessels in the summer.
Their traditional armament consists of the M1917 Enfield bolt-action rifle in .30-06 (typed as the Gevær M/53-17) and the Glock Gen 3 G20 in 10mm Auto. However, they have also been seen recently practicing with suppressor-equipped Gevær M/10 and Denmark’s Colt Canada-made C8/M4s.
Since its first sortie from Ella Ø Station on 18 August 1950, Sirius has mushed 773,108 miles in the northeastern part of Greenland. This is equivalent to 31 times around the world– and all of it with dog sleds in a high Arctic climate.
They use about 95 locally procured Greenlandic sled dogs (grønlandske slædehund) with new fur-clad talent scouted every year from around the island by a Navy veterinarian to keep the pack at its fittest.
Sirius consists of six sled teams (plans are to beef this up to eight teams in the next year), each consisting of two men and 11 to 15 dogs. These dozen men are supported by another dozen station personnel (stationsspecialister) at the four remote bases who handle support/meteorological/radio duties, giving the whole operation a force of 24. When traveling, each sled team carries approximately 770 to 1,100 pounds of gear, depending on the distance to the next depot.
Running 26-month tours, each sled team contains a senior member, the patrol leader (patruljefører), who has already “walked the beat” for 13 months and has mastered glaciers, frostbite, and polar bears, teamed with a junior member fresh out of training assigned to learn the ropes.
Speaking of training, before a new patrol member sets foot in Greenland, they have to pass a grueling 10-month Sirius Forskole course run by the Jaegerkorpset commando corps in North Jutland which typically starts with 48 carefully prescreened (marching and orientation tests, swim tests, rigorous health and psychological screening) volunteers and is whittled down to the best six over the evolution.
Sirius has its headquarters at Daneborg (over winter contingent 12, originally established in 1943 by the USCGC Storis with an Army weather detachment as Station OYK), and maintains personnel at Station Nord, Grønnedal, and Mestersvig, each with a 3-to-5 member overwinter team.
The only population in the region, other than the Sirius teams, their support personnel, and the ~400 inhabitants of the hunting village of Ittoqqortoormiit at the base of the park, are at three government-owned research stations at Brønlundhus (run by the University of Copenhagen), the Danmarkshavn weather station, and Zackenberg (run by Aarhus University). The research stations may sport as many as a few hundred transient expedition members in the summer, dropping down to a skeleton crew over winter.
Station Nord/Villum Research Station is the furthest north manned Sirius station, at some 700 miles overland from Thule (Pituffik Space Base, the DoD’s northernmost installation). It is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, established in 1975, and has been permanently manned since then.
Station Nord today.
Station personnel at the four Sirius bases, usually assorted Navy mechanics and maintenance rates, have to undergo a similar screening process and a shorter seven-month training school as well as make the same 26-month tour of duty, teaming up senior stationsspecialister with junior ones on a rotating basis.
Sirius also utilizes more than 50 unmanned depot huts scattered across the patrolled area. The nominally polar bear-proof caches are resupplied by small boats in the southern area, and by aircraft in the northern part.
