<b>Military showing the flag in Arctic</b>
ABOARD HMCS TORONTO, in Frobisher Bay -- Cmdr. Alex Grant scans the dark, frigid waters and stares down the enemy.
On the bridge of this 4,000-tonne warship, there's a tense calm. Crew members in black ball caps peer through binoculars or check the ship's position on glowing maps. Outside, heavy clouds hang low over treeless hunks of brown rock. Occasionally, an innocent-looking white cluster bobs along the slow-rolling sea.
For HMCS Toronto, these are uncharted waters. The navy frigate has handled dangerous missions, including deployments to hot spots such as the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa, but it has never sailed this far north. Until recently, Canadian navy vessels rarely ventured into the Arctic, a task that mostly fell to unarmed, red-hulled Coast Guard icebreakers. But as the Arctic ice melt accelerates, more vessels of all kinds are visiting Canada's northern waters. These days, "showing the flag" is becoming less of a symbolic exercise.
"Presence. Grey hulls. Red hulls. This is what sovereignty's all about," says Grant.
The Toronto is one of two navy ships taking part in Operation Nanook, the biggest Arctic sovereignty exercise in Canadian history. The military-led exercise involves roughly 600 personnel from the army, navy and air force, as well as officials from an unprecedented number of federal and territorial organizations, including the Coast Guard, RCMP, CSIS, Public Safety, Health Canada and Nunavut's Emergency Management Office.
"Some of what is taking place here has to do with what I would describe as testing of the boundaries, perhaps, of the Canadian North," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who flew here this week with Gen. Walt Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff, to observe the exercise.
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<i>Next month, military exercises are set to begin in Lake St Clair,
on the Canadaian US border, as a show of strength in response to US combat helicopter patrols. Just kidding.</i>
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"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." - Patrick Henry
The level of injustice and wrong you endure is directly determined by how much you quietly submit to. Even to the point of extinction.