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OP BOXTOP: Canada Command Takes It To The Top

OP BOXTOP: Canada Command Takes It To The Top

Timing is everything at the top of the world.

That’s why, for two weeks twice a year, about 150 Canadian Forces (CF) personnel work around the clock to ensure that the inhabitants of Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert – the northernmost permanently inhabited settlement – get what they need to carry on. Dubbed Operation BOXTOP, the re-supply mission is staged each March and August, hauling bulk fuel and heavy equipment that can’t be accommodated on the weekly shipments of personnel and fresh goods that are flown in from Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Trenton. Since April 2009, both CF and commercial Hercules aircraft ensure the weekly sustainment flights from CFB Trenton to CFS Alert.

Further, during the biannual Operation BOXTOP both CF and commercial Hercules aircraft share the airlift of dry goods to CFS Alert. For wet lift shipments of bulk fuel only CF Hercules aircraft are currently used to sustain this part of the operation; however, in September 2009, this will also become a shared venture between CF and commercial assets. Civilian Hercules aircraft will be expected to carry up to 100,000 imperial gallons of diesel fuel per flight.

Four Hercules aircraft fly the 600 kilometres from Thule Air Base in Greenland, making about 100 flights overall. While the fuel is sourced in Greenland, the heavy equipment is shipped to Greenland by sea from Montreal. “It’s the most efficient system possible to get what’s needed up there,” says Maj Lubbertus Rutten of Canada Command’s J3 Operations.

The spring shipments aim to send a year’s supply of fuel to the 55-year-old Canadian base on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island. In August, the planes fly in additional bulk fuel and about 335 000 kilograms of dry goods.

The amount of supplies required has declined over the years as modernization continues to lower the number of personnel needed to operate the northern station. Established as a weather station, Alert has housed as many as 120 staff. Today, 55 people – 21 military personnel, 30 commercial contractors and four Environment Canada employees – live at the base. Transferred to the control of 8 Wing Trenton in April 2009, Alert is responsible for gathering signals intelligence in support of military operations, and plays a key role in Canada’s Northern strategy. The base also maintains radio facilities to support search and rescue and other operations, and supports Environment Canada weather services and Arctic researchers.

The harsh conditions 817 kilometres from the geographic North Pole are tough on vehicles and other heavy equipment, and engines are run constantly to avoid freeze-up. The bi-annual shipments are essential and Canada Command continues to provide this all-important lifeline for Alert’s “frozen chosen.”

At the U.S. Air Base in Thule, Greenland, Canadian air traffic controllers supplement the base’s regular tower staff to keep the Hercules aircraft flying around the clock, seven days a week. Prior to the flights, the heavy equipment is transported by barge from the supply ship, inventoried and stored inside two of Thule’s huge Cold War-era hangars. Once the flights begin, the countdown begins.

“It’s a tight schedule,” says Rutten, “and the availability of aircraft and the uncertain weather are the biggest challenges.”

The mission is not without its dangers. On October 30, 1991, five of the 18 crew members aboard a BOXTOP re-supply flight died when their plane crashed several kilometres short of Alert’s gravel runway. The incident was immortalized in Mark Sobel’s film Ordeal In The Arctic.