Tag Archives: sovereignty patrol

Stirring news from the Great North!

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Updates from Ice Camp, 1 CRPG, and the Marines in Norway.

So much great content has been coming from Ice Camp 26 (Boarfish), which is running for three weeks in the Beufort Sea with the surfaced USS Delaware (SSN 791) and Santa Fe (SSN 763)— marking the 100th American ice surfacings, along with personeel from U.S. Marine Corps, Air National Guard, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, French Navy, Royal United Kingdom Navy, Norwegian Defence Research Institute, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

Beaufort Sea, Arctic Circle – Operation ICE CAMP 2026 participants from Arctic Submarine Lab, Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center Detachment San Diego, Underwater Construction Team (UCT) TWO, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation Science, and various U.S. Navy commands pose for a photo at ICE CAMP Boarfish 2026, Mar. 17. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jacob D. Bergh)

Add to this the stuff coming from the 2,800-mile snowmobile-borne High Arctic sovereignty patrol of the Yellowknife-based 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG/GPRC), which is visiting 17 remote communities across the country’s arctic regions. The patrol has reached Naujaat and Hudson Bay, and is finally turning South.

1 CRPG GPRC Canadian Rangers Long Range patrol at Kugaaruk radar station

1 CRPG/GPRC Canadian Rangers Long Range patrol at the long abandoned circa 1903 NWMP barracks, on Hudson Bay’s Cape Fullerton

Finally, check out this great U.S. Marine Corps video by Sgt. Noah Masog highlighting Exercise Cold Response 26 in Norway.

Looks terrible. Where do I sign up?

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As part of long-running (since 2007) Op Nanook-Nunalivut, a joint exercise in the Canadian Arctic, the Yellowknife-based 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG/GPRC) has begun its snowmobile-borne High Arctic sovereignty patrol.

Supported by Joint Task Force North and the Royal Canadian Air Force, the patrol will cover some 2,800 miles over the next several weeks, literally showing the flag, as well as visiting and engaging with 17 remote communities across the North who like to know that “someone” is out there in all that snow and ice.

1 CRPG/GPRC Op Nanook ’26

I have to admit, I almost want to move to the Yukon just to volunteer for the Rangers and ride along on one of these!

On a side note, the Army National Guard/Alaska State Defense Force needs to stand up such patrols in the more remote regions of Alaska, reversing decades of closing historic small community NG armories. 

RCAF unit getting Ranger rifles

Of note, the RCAF’s No. 440 “Vampire” Transport Squadron, JTFN’s primary air unit, is co-located at Yellowknife and operates four CC-138 Twin Otters, enabling them to “conduct year-round, all-weather missions including on-skis/tundra tires” throughout the Arctic.

The unit recently upgraded their predator defense rifles aboard each plane to the same Colt C-19 (Tikka T3 CTR) .308s that the Rangers use. The standard service round for the C-19 is the C180 cartridge, which uses a Nosler Accubond 180-grain Trophy bullet over a pretty stout load, in the interest of having to stop polar bears.

Or random Russian commandos, just saying.