Canadian Forces Station Alert

Located on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, CFS Alert is the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world, located 817 kilometres (km) from the geographic North Pole.

On April 1, 2009, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) took command of CFS Alert. It is a unit of 8 Wing, headquartered in Trenton, Ontario (ON).

The Station was first settled in the early 1950s as a weather station of the Joint Arctic Weather Station (JAWS) system. On September 1, 1958, Alert began its operational role as a signals intelligence unit. At that time, it became the Alert Wireless Station and was under the command of the Canadian Army.

Today, Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel, Department of National Defence (DND) employees, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) employees, and contracted employees comprise the entire population of CFS Alert.

CFS Alert maintains signals intelligence facilities to support Canadian military operations.

Personnel at CFS Alert also maintain a geolocation capability to support operations and High Frequency and Direction Finding facilities to support Search and Rescue and other operations, and to provide support to Environment and Climate Change Canada researchers. Alert also plays a key role in projecting Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.

The Doctor Neil Trivett Global Atmosphere Watch Observatory at Alert belongs to ECCC. It provides data for scientific assessments and other atmospheric research that improves understanding of climate change and air quality in the Arctic and around the world. Alert is also home to an upper air weather station.

Over the years, technological advances led to the reduction in the number of personnel required for the operational/signals intelligence role.

There are approximately 55 full-time military and civilian personnel at the station.

Typically, most CAF personnel spend six months at CFS Alert, with some specialized positions being designated as requiring a rotation every three months.

Military personnel who acquire an aggregate of 180 days of honourable service while posted to Alert, or while serving with a military force operationally deployed to or at Alert, are eligible for the Special Service Medal.

Eureka, located on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, is at 80° north latitude, about 400 km south of CFS Alert, making it the second most northerly permanently inhabited location in the world. Eureka consists of an airport, "Fort Eureka" (quarters for military personnel maintaining communications equipment), and an ECCC weather station. It was established approximately 70 years ago as part of the Canada-United States (U.S.) network of post-war Arctic weather stations.

CFS Alert is situated on the north-eastern tip of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in the territory of Nunavut.

It is found at 82° 30' North latitude, and 62° 19' West longitude. This is approximately the same longitude as Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

CFS Alert is 817 km from the geographic North Pole.

The closest settlement is Grise Fjord, located about 725 km to the south. The ECCC weather station at Eureka is about 400 km to the south. Although Edmonton, Alberta is the nearest Canadian city at 3,475 km, Stockholm, Sweden is closer at just 3,282 km away.

CFS Alert is always on Ottawa time, either Eastern Standard or Eastern Daylight Saving Time.

The often-photographed signposts at Alert portray other distances from Alert, including:

The terrain in the vicinity of CFS Alert is rugged and undulating with hills and valleys. The U.S. mountain range is visible to the west, and on a clear day the peaks and cliffs of Greenland can be seen 56 km to the south-east.

Pack ice is usually present offshore during summer and is frozen solid from shore to horizon in winter. The coastline is irregular with many small inlets, bays, and points of land. The rocks in the area consist almost exclusively of slate and shale, which break down easily, forming ravines and canyons in the plateau regions and stony clay along the coast. In summer, the shale disintegrates to a very fine penetrating dust and the ground thaws in some places to a depth of one meter, under which permafrost is found.

Although the soil is poor and growing conditions are extremely harsh, more than 70 species of plants are found in the area. Vegetation manages to exist in the lee of hills and cracks in the ground and, during most of July and August, many miniature flowers grow, resulting in a profusion of reds, purples, whites, and yellows from every available sheltered place. Common plant types are blue grass, chickweed, arctic poppy, saxifrage, arctic willow, and mountain avens.

There is an astonishing variety of wildlife in the area, but the total population is small due to the scarcity of available food. Arctic hare and fox are common in the area, while seals, arctic wolves, musk-ox, caribou, lemmings, and weasels (ermine) are occasionally seen.

Many types of birds nest in the summer, but are gone by September. They include glaucous and ivory gulls, longtailed jaegers, sandpipers, turnstones, knots, snow buntings, and occasionally snow geese. Although insect life seems to be almost non-existent, spiders, deer flies, and warble (blue) flies abound on Ellesmere Island. In some areas, large numbers of small flies swarm a few inches above rocks on hillside heated by the sun, but they are not bothersome.

The most noticeable differences in the environment compared to southern Canada are the periods of full daylight and full darkness, lower ambient temperatures, and lower annual precipitation.

From approximately April 8 to September 5, there is absolutely no night time. At the peak of summer, the sun revolves around the horizon, rising no higher than about 30° above the horizon at noon, and dipping to about 16° above the horizon at midnight.

From October 10 to March 1, there is no direct sunlight, and between these two extremes there is a fairly rapid transition period, which takes approximately six weeks.

During the summer months, CFS Alert experiences about 28 frost-free days. The temperature rises to an average daily high of approximately 10° Celsius, with 20° Celsius being the record high.

In July, the warmest month, the daily mean is 4° Celsius. During the winter, the temperature typically hovers around -40° Celsius for an extended period; the record low is -50° Celsius. Severe storms can appear on short notice, and when this happens, visibility quickly deteriorates because of blowing snow. The human body's ability to keep itself warm is also severely reduced as the wind gets stronger. This effect, known as 'wind chill', makes the temperature feel far colder than the thermometer indicates.

An example of this occurred on January 23, 1993, when the thermometer indicated -45° Celsius, but with the 40 km/h winds, it felt like -71° Celsius. Human skin will freeze in less than one minute if left unprotected at temperatures below -30° Celsius, so it is imperative at CFS Alert that everyone dress for the worst when leaving the immediate camp area.

The area surrounding CFS Alert, like much of the high Arctic, is classified as desert. It may seem strange to picture a place covered with snow most of the year as a desert, but the average precipitation that falls in the area of CFS Alert is less than that in the Sahara Desert.

Since 1951, when recordings began, the mean annual rainfall at Alert has been only 17.5 millimetres, falling almost entirely in July and August. Snow, however, falls in every month of the year, with an annual average of 148.1 centimetres (cm). September has the greatest snowfall of any month, averaging 33 cm.