Show Navigation
All Galleries

Distant Early Warning

29 images Created 9 Aug 2020

Loading ()...

  • Non-indigenous Canadian soldiers from the south building traditional Inuit igloo's as an improvised survival shelter near a camp at the Crystal City training area near Resolute Bay and the Polar Continental Shelf Program in temperatures as low as -50 degrees Celsius (-58 F) in Nunavut, Canada. Learning traditional indigenous knowledge to operate in the Arctic has become standard for all soldiers who will operate in the Arctic, which is a reversal of many colonial practices of forcing indigenous people to adopt non-indigenous ideas and practices.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    Palu_arctic_001.jpg
  • Canadian, UK, and French military personnel, primarily pilots and aircrew from Canada learn how to build snow caves at the Canadian Forces Crystal City training facility near Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Snow caves are one of several types of shelter that soldiers must learn to build in order to survive in the Arctic in the event of an emergency. The soldiers in this course spent an entire week living and sleeping outdoors in temperatures below minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 F).<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    Palu_arctic_002.jpg
  • A Canadian Ranger from Gjoa Haven, illuminated by a snowmobile and his headlamp in a snowstorm, helps pull a net using under-ice fishing techniques during a Patrol on King William Island, Nunavut. During the winter months darkness lasts over 20-hours per day in the Arctic with the sun never rising past the horizon resulting in living in near darkness for months. King William Island is the final resting place of the doomed Franklin Expedition of 1845, a British Naval mission to find a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic. The ships were crushed in the ice and all crew perished.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    Palu_arctic_003.jpg
  • On reconnaissance outside Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut, Canadian Arctic Operations Advisors walk on the wreckage of an airplane in temperatures below minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 F). Extreme weather and temperatures have resulted in a number of airplane crashes in the high Arctic where it is too expensive to remove the wreckage of the aircraft.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    Palu_arctic_004.jpg
  • A Canadian soldier stands beside a snow-and-ice-melting device known as an immersion heater, used to generate water supply for washing. In a region where winter temperatures average below minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 F), creating water is an essential part of operating and surviving in the High Arctic. This base camp was set up beside a hangar at the airport in the community of Hall Beach, Nunavut, Canada.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    Palu_arctic_005.jpg
  • A Canadian Ranger lies in the slush and ice on the shore of Clyde Inlet while preparing for search and rescue operations in case of an emergency usually associated with extreme weather in the Inuit Hamlet of Clyde River located on Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada. The Canadian Rangers are a reservist volunteer unit in the Canadian military and perform a high number of search and rescue operations in Canada's High Arctic.
    smith007.jpg
  • The headlight from a snowmobile driven by a Canadian Ranger illuminates a treeless landscape in a snowstorm during a patrol and caribou hunt several hours outside Gjoa Haven on King William Island, Nunavut, Canada. Navigating through extreme weather is a special skill which is essential to operating and surviving in the Polar region. Many Inuit can navigate using the lines of the snow to determine in which direction the wind is blowing which can help them determine direction.
    smith009.jpg
  • US Marines walking toward a long range radar station operated by NORAD in Utqiagvik, Alaska the most Northerly point of the US. The radar station is a part of the North Warning System formerly known as the Distant Early Warning Line which is a radar line that stretches from Alaska to Greenland warning of impending bomber or missile attacks over the Polar Region.
    smith017.jpg
  • US Army soldiers in Alaska seen eating cold weather rations after several days of operating and sleeping outdoors in the cold at the Northern Warfare Training Center before a class on avalanches. This installation is located in Black Rapids, Alaska and the entire course is based on how Finland defeated Russian in the Winter war during the Second World War. Last year indigenous survival techniques were adopted as a new form of training for operating in the Arctic in Alaska.
    smith018.jpg
  • A Canadian flight engineer on an Arctic Survival course at Resolute Bay seen lying in a trench during a lesson on cutting snow blocks. Working in January a month in the Arctic which sees nearly 24-hours of darkness and extreme cold are normal conditions soldiers train to live in. Ice block cutting originated from the creation of Igloos.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    smith022.jpg
  • Snow blocks shaped into an X stained with red smoke grenades by Canadian soldiers and airmen training to signal rescue aircraft, at the Crystal City training facility in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada. Inuit Rangers are a part of the training of all soldiers who come through the Arctic training program. Signalling in the Arctic is one of the most important means of communications. The foundation of landmarks for communicating in the Arctic at distances comes from the Inuit Inukshuk, which is an ancient device used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds marker and is made of a stack of stones resembling a human figure which provides a geographic marker in one of the most challenging and extreme environments on earth.
    smith023.jpg
  • The remains of a polar bear legally hunted by Canadian Rangers on a military exercise on the north end of Cornwallis Island, more than 12 hours by snowmobile from Resolute Bay in Nunavut, Canada. The polar bear also known in Inuktitut the Inuit language in Canada is a sacred animal and the meat is shared throughout the community and fur used for making clothing. The Greek word "Arktos", meaning “bear”, is the origin of the Arctic name. Antarctica means “no bears” as there are only polar bears in the Arctic.
    smith024.jpg
  • A Inuit Ranger teaches Canadian non-indigenous soldiers from the South how to skin and eat a seal at an Air Force hanger in Hall Beach, Nunavut next to the NORAD radar station FOX Main. The oil from seals can be used for lighting and heating tents as well as for food and the fur is used for clothing. Seals are one of the main animals hunted on a regular basis in this region.
    smith020.jpg
  • Canadian Rangers (L-R) Henry Crawford and Richard Jr. Ansotialuk rest after carrying the butchered remains of a caribou caught 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) during the summer from their Ranger base camp. With well over 100 pounds of meat the rangers split the edible meat into two pieces one placed inside a sack made from the caribou's fur and tied around Richard's forehead and the remainder carried on Henry's back and taken by foot back to camp.
    smith029.jpg
  • Canadian Ranger Sgt Nellie Scharer teaches Cpl. Janique Fillion from the Arctic Response Group Company (ARCG) how to find and identify blackberries, blueberries and cranberries on the tundra during Operation Nanook located in Rankin Inlet an Inuit Hamlet in Nunavut which is located in Canada's Arctic on Hudson Bay where NORAD has a Forward Operating Location (AKA FOL) which were created under the North American Air Defence Modernization program to operate jet fighters from to secure Canada's Northern hemisphere.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    smith033.jpg
  • A small rock weir holds fish trapped and caught by Inuit Rangers and Canadian soldiers from the south who learned how to catch fish inland on rivers during the summer months when the rivers are ice free just outside the Hudson Bay community of Rankin Inlet. Rock weirs created with rocks have been used as natural ways of trapping fish for centuries in this region and are a food source in the summer on the Tundra.
    smith031.jpg
  • Jerry cans with fuel, a caribou head, and drying Arctic char (fish) at a base camp for a Canadian Rangers summer Patrol north of the Inuit hamlet of Naujaat, Nunavut. This is a picture of a refrigerator and two eras of natural resources for the Inuit. The fuel jerry cans made of plastic in this case for a boat, allow for faster and further travel but are industrially produced. The caribou head and arctic char cubes hanging from its antlers are sitting in a natural outdoor refrigerator because in the North the natural ambient temperature even in the summer allows for the meat to remain naturally cooled and the animals are a renewable resource. Climate change and increased human activity may alter this forever.
    smith027.jpg
  • Dogs focused on the left overs of a fish at a Ranger basecamp located in the Sub Arctic tree line not far from Joint task Force North in Yellowknife. Dogs that can survive in harsh environments are a part of daily life in the North and particularly important alarms for bears, wolves and in the past pulling sleds, which for the most part are no longer used. Dogs rely heavily on their owners for survival and are a part of the Rangers deep relationship with animals for survival.
    smith034.jpg
  • Canadian soldiers unload traditional wooden Inuit sleds known as quamutiiks from a C-117 Air Force transport aircraft for a military operation in Hall Beach in Nunavut for what Canada calls Sovereignty Operations which are meant to enforce security in the Polar region. Even with the technical innovations in much of many military units from the South, traditional hand made sleds such as this have never been replaced by anything more effective.
    smith038.jpg
  • Just south of the Arctic Circle approximately 400 soldiers from US Army Alaska playing the role of an imagined invading army parachute from aircraft onto the Donnelly Training Area near Fort Greely, which is a US Army launch site to counter ballistic missiles. The exercise is designed to train for cold weather warfare and is one of the many exercises preparing for every known and unknown possibility in the Arctic and its terrain such as mountains and extreme cold.
    smith039.jpg
  • A Ranger seen in the shadow of the church in the community of Clyde River on Baffin Island in Canada. The colonial era in Canada brought with it Christian based missionaries and conversion of many Inuit communities to western European religious beliefs.
    smith036.jpg
  • The USS Connecticut, a US Navy nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, seen surfaced through the ice in the Beaufort Sea during operations and weapons testing north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Submarine activity in the Arctic has increased between the US and Russia as tensions have increased in what many are calling a "New Cold War". Submarines are able to navigate below the ice where ice breakers cannot and operate for months due to being nuclear powered. They are used for a variety of task including hunting other submarines and signals intelligence where they can gather information like a mobile spy base.
    smith040.jpg
  • A Canadian Ranger seen walking past a window at the Polar Continental Shelf Program and Arctic Training facilities during the High Arctic phase of the Arctic Operations Advisors Course where they learn how to operate, travel, survive and build shelters in which temperatures at times were as low as -50 degrees (-58 F) with the windchill. Photographs from the Canadian Army's Arctic Operations Advisors Course (aka AOA) which takes place in two phases, first in the Sub Arctic in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and then on to the High Arctic in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. This is a special course to train soldiers to advise military operations to work in the Arctic. These photographs are from the Sub Arctic phase of the training in the tree line in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. <br />
Photos © Louie Palu/ZUMA Press
    book edit v1 011.jpg
  • A Canadian soldier seen holding survival candles which will be his only source of heat in an igloo he built in the Arctic Operations Advisors where soldiers learn how to build and sleep in improvised survival shelters near a camp at the Crystal City training area during the Arctic Operations Advisors Course near Resolute Bay, the Polar Continental Shelf Program building and Arctic Training facilities during the High Arctic phase of the Arctic Operations Advisors Course where they learn how to operate, travel, survive and build shelters in which temperatures at times were as low as -50 degrees (-58 F) with the windchill. Photographs from the Canadian Army's Arctic Operations Advisors Course (aka AOA) which takes place in two phases, first in the Sub Arctic in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and then on to the High Arctic in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. This is a special course to train soldiers to advise military operations to work in the Arctic. These photographs are from the Sub Arctic phase of the training in the tree line in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. <br />
Photos © Louie Palu/ZUMA Press
    book edit v1 050.jpg
  • Canadian soldiers making snow blocks for building survival shelters near Hall Beach in Nunavut, Canada at temperatures averaging -60 degrees Celsius.<br />
(Credit Image: © Louie Palu for National Geographic)
    palu contact 04.jpg
  • Canadian soldier Sgt. Mathieu Bilodeau-Roy seen after climbing out of the icy waters of a lake during a through the ice test at temperatures of -36 degrees Celsius in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories where Canada's Arctic Operations are based at Joint Task Force North. During this test each soldier must walk approximately 50 meters, fall through the ice into the water, answer several questions while in the water, then recover themselves out of the water and on to the ice, crawl 10 meters, then walk and change into their dry clothes. <br />
(photo © Louie Palu/ZUMA Press)
    sfe_lppmm_arctic_07.jpg
  • Canadian pilots and air crew seen after a week of Arctic survival training for military personal from Canada, United Kingdom and France at the Canadian Forces Chrystal City training facility near Resolute Bay in Nunavut, Canada. These military personnel are seen in a tracked ground vehicle taking them back to heated facilities after a week of living outdoors in makeshift shelters at temperatures below -50 degrees Celsius (-58 F).<br />
(photo © Louie Palu/ZUMA Press)
    sfe_lppmm_arctic_08.jpg
  • Canadian Rangers from Resolute Bay and Arctic Bay training soldiers in Arctic survival at temperatures as low as -60 Celsisus at the Crystal City training site in Resolute Bay, Nunavut.<br />
(Credit Image: © Louie Palu for National Geographic)
    palu contact 01.jpg
  • Aviation crew members from the U.S. Army based in Fort Wainwright located in Fairbanks, Alaska watch an instructor demonstrate how to use a signal flare at the Northern Warfare Training Center. Operating in the Arctic requires special survival training for air crews who may travel into the Arctic Circle on missions. This is a U.S. Army Alaska installation located in Black Rapids, Alaska. It is the active Army's only cold region training proponent. Soldiers here train to survive in cold weather in case their aircraft crashes, which includes building shelters, sleeping outdoors in the cold and foraging for food.<br />
© Louie Palu/Agence VU
    pic_lppmm_04flare.jpg
View: 100 | All
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
x

Louie Palu

  • Portfolio
  • About