Alert Mission(s)
Although Alert was originally established as a weather station in the early 1950s, its primary role today is as a military base. The Canadian Forces arrived in 1956 and have since focused on two main missions: maintaining Arctic sovereignty and conducting signals intelligence (or as I like to call it, “Russian spying;)”). Alert also supports environmental research, including the original weather station and the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) observatory (est. 1986).
Living in Alert
Alert is not really a “community” or a “town”, although if you Google it, pictures of Iqaluit often come up. Google Maps also says there’s a Tim Horton’s here, which I think is supposed to be some sort of Canadian joke (besides a small gift shop, there aren’t any stores in Alert).
Alert is a small compound with no permanent residence, rather, it has rotating personnel. The population fluctuates depending on the time of year. Typically, the dark season has 40-50 people while the light season gets closer to 100-110. In general, 80% of those people are military, 17% are Nasituq (a Nunavut contracting company that employs support staff such as cooks and heavy vehicle operators), and 3% are ECCC. We all live under one roof and enjoy just about every darn minute together;).
Military rotations are a “one and done” 3 or 6 months. The Nasituq contractors typically do 2 months in and 2 months out (so, lots of recurring faces there:)). ECCC has two sections – the weather station and the GAW lab, both of which employ two people. ECCC contracts are typically 3-4 months, with the exception of the GAW operator who is on a 14 (now 16) month tour :P.
