The guys who went out in the cold
When a bunch of soldiers from the South try to survive in the Arctic, they screw up their igloo and catch fish too small to eat
A group of Canadian Forces troops have built a new kind of igloo. This one, well, wobbles.
The lumpy-looking snow house stands next to another, far more orderly igloo. To be fair, the first started as an oval, while their rivals used a circular design. But now the half-finished oval has acquired a tilt, its walls rising and falling chaotically.
“Elders can do it in about half an hour. We’ve been doing it all day. It gives you an idea of their skill,” says Master Cpl. Eric Viau, who smoothes another snow block on the wonky walls. Around him, fellow soldiers are placing bets on whether their igloo will stand by day’s end.
Viau is one of 84 soldiers from Gagetown, N.B., gathered outside Iqaluit at Iqalugaajuruluit, past Tarr Inlet, last Friday for a sovereignty operation dubbed “Glacier Gunner.”
It’s a fitting title for a mission that saw their powerful 50-calibre machine guns freeze, then break during firing practice.
Good thing the soldiers are accompanied by 11 Canadian Rangers. It’s no coincidence that the wobby igloo lacks the guidance of an Inuk, while their symmetrical rival has Sgt. Dinos Tikivik inside it, reaching to grab ice blocks passed to him by a string of soldiers.
“They’ve come a long way,” Tikivik says of the troops. “They only knew how to set up a tent.”