The Westmount Examiner > National > Winter warfare course shows military still struggling in Arctic
Snowmobiles were drained of gas on the flight up to save weight. But that allowed condensation to form inside the gas tanks, which caused the machines to repeatedly stall as water in their fuel lines froze in Resolute's -60 C temperatures.
Soldiers had to boil water, pour it over the frozen sections and try to get the machine going before the hot water turned to ice as well.
"It's kind of tricky working machines up there," Rancourt said.
Tricky cooking, too. The soldiers were issued standard boil-in-a-bag rations, which promptly froze and required large amounts of fuel to thaw out, placing added demands on limited supplies.
"Up North, logistics lines are much more fragile," said Rancourt. "It's more of a problem up there."
Building snow shelters was also part of the course, but military-issue, aluminum-bladed machetes and square-nosed shovels couldn't cut into dense, wind-compacted Arctic snowbanks.
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