Defence Team News with Master Sailor Ashton Marlow on Exercise WAKING GIANT
Video / October 20, 2022
Transcript
Genevieve Germano: Today we welcome Master Sailor Ashton Marlow, who is here to tell us about WAKING GIANT, a three day naval exercise led by HMCS Griffon, which recently took place on Lake Superior. I'd like to start off by asking: Can you just tell us a little bit about the exercise?
MS Marlow: Absolutely, so Exercise WAKING GIANT is an exercise that's been taking place for the last three years in Thunder Bay. It's a small boats handling exercise where we've been training members of the Naval Reserve to be able to respond to domestic operations, hone their small boats handling skills, and be ready to assist Canadians wherever possible.
Genevieve Germano: So what sorts of tasks and challenges did the participants perform?
MS Marlow: So the exercise kicked off on the Friday with a parachute drop from the SAR techs of 435 Squadron, where our members were in the water in our boats and ready to pick them up out of the water after they landed. Moving onto the Saturday, we themed this round an Amazing Race style. So the concept being is they had five separate tasks that worked on five separate skills. Some of the highlights being Coast Guard sticking drills with Canadian Coast Guard. We had the museum ship Alexander Henry, where we had a mass casualty exercise, as well as a fire pump challenge where they had to build a fire pump and then use it like we do on ship. Moving into the Saturday night, we had a river search. So the Kaministiquia River runs through Thunder Bay, and we were searching the shore for various items that we were able to report back to our Ops department. And then moving into the Sunday, was a combination of all the tasks that we had previously learned, where we had the SAR techs drop in the middle of Lake Superior, and we had members go and pick them up out of the water, transfer them to the Coast Guard, and perform first aid skills. Really a culmination of all the tasks that we had learned throughout the week.
Genevieve Germano: And can you speak about any of the lessons learned or key takeaways following the exercise?
MS Marlow: I think one of the main key takeaways is Naval Reserve in central region is very capable, ready and able to assist Canadians with domestic emergencies. We were able to call upon assets from across the region to move to Thunder Bay, and be able to execute those with the members they provided, and be able to and ready to assist Canadians.
Genevieve Germano: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
MS Marlow: Yeah, I would like to say that exercises like this are very important to keep our skills and qualifications current, so that we may be better able to respond to domestic emergencies and help Canadians. I'd also like to say thank you to the Naval Reserve division that came here. The 435 Squadron SAR techs, the 38 Service Battalion cooks, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Lakehead Transportation Museum Society, and Elder Ashley Lambroise from the Red Rock Indian Band. Thank you all for your help.