Recently two of our cadets from 2968 RCACC were invited to audit a primary reserve “Cold Weather Operator” course that soldiers take to prepare them for operations in Canada’s arctic.

Stephan Paterson and Raymond Zhang arrived at Lake Street Armouries Friday night to learn about improvised shelters and cold weather injuries. We then had practical classes on lighting and maintaining lanterns, stoves and the equipment in our sleds.

The soldiers slept on the floor of the armoury and then were awakened by a Basic Military qualification course at 0450hrs leaving for a 4km ruck march. We not only got to sleep on cots, we got up at the more civilized time of 0600hrs. After a hot breakfast we loaded our sleds and rucks onto trucks and set off for Winona Ranges.

Arrival saw us getting classes on snow shoeing, setting up and taking down arctic bell tents and then we practiced. And then we practiced. And then we practiced. Lunch was IMPs (Individual Meal Packs) cooked on our stoves and eaten in our tents. We were then off to practical classes on setting snares, building improvised shelters and finally fires and signal fires. We built a shelter and then a fire. After a long day we practiced setting up our tents…

Supper was a hot meal and then classes on map and compass that included plotting points, magnetic declination, taking bearings, measuring distance. We finished with a comfortable fire, hot dogs and hamburgers. The night was cool, but body heat, a stove and lantern kept most people warm enough.

Reveille was 0600hrs and then after a hot IMP breakfast we thought we would get in a few more practice sessions with our tents – our cadets easily met the soldiers’ timings of a complete set up under nine minutes – there was much improvement from our initial time of about twenty minutes. By 0900hrs we were ready for more classes on map & compass and each group planned a route under specific conditions and presented their plan to the course. Zhang was our presenter and looked more than confident presenting to the course and staff.

After a hot lunch we were back to the armouries, clean up and off to RLA. Both our students enjoyed their experience, learned much from the soldiers and gained some cold weather operator lessons just in time for Niagara’s deep freeze this weekend.