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Story October 16, 2020

Freezing Cold War: Militaries Move in as Arctic Ice Retreats – Photo Essay

Country:

Canada United states

Author:

Louie Palu
Grantee

Canadian soldiers on the ice Sheet near Little Cornwallis Island during a military operation in -57 C weather in Nunavut Canada. Image by Louie Palu. Canada, 2017.

English

An examination of the ongoing geopolitical transformation of the Arctic along the old Cold War...

Louie Palu
Grantee

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Canadian Arctic operations advisers scale the decades-old wreckage of an airplane in temperatures below -50C. They are on reconnaissance outside Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut, Canada. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. Canada.

Canadian pilots and air crew seen after a week of Arctic survival training for military personnel from Canada, the U.K. and France at the Canadian Forces Crystal City training facility near Resolute Bay in Nunavut, Canada. These military personnel are in a tracked ground vehicle taking them back to heated facilities after a week of living outdoors in makeshift shelters at temperatures below -50C. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. Canada.

U.S. soldiers from bases in Alaska train to ski while attending a course about using snowshoes, survival and logistics in cold weather conditions. They are just south of the Arctic circle, at the Northern Warfare Training Center, a U.S. army installation in Black Rapids, Alaska. Part of their training is based on the Winter War fought by Finland against the Soviet Union in 1939. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. United States.

The Fox-Main Long Range Radar site, also known as Site 30, part of the North Warning System. This complex superseded the Distant Early Warning Line, which was initiated in 1954 to detect possible Russian missile and bomber attacks. This facility is located in the community of Hall Beach, Nunavut, and is jointly operated by the U.S. and Canada.Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. Canada.

Canadian soldier Master Bombardier Jonathan Caron Corriveau holds survival candles that will be his only source of heat in an igloo he built on an Arctic operations advisers course. Soldiers learn from Inuit instructors how to build and sleep in improvised survival shelters at the Crystal City training area near Resolute Bay, where temperatures at times were as low as -50C (-58 F) with the windchill. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. Canada.

Canadian soldiers on the Arctic operations advisers course build igloos under the supervision of Inuit instructors at the Crystal City training facility near Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. Canada.

A Canadian ranger, illuminated by a snowmobile and his headlamp during a snowstorm, helps pull a net using under-ice fishing techniques for Arctic char during a patrol on King William Island, Nunavut. Canadian rangers are a volunteer, community-based military unit. In the Arctic they are mostly Inuit. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. Canada.

Civilian personnel from the U.S. navy’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory prepare to retrieve a torpedo fired under the ice by the USS Hartford, a nuclear attack submarine, during ice operations. Two other submarines, including a Royal Navy submarine from the U.K., later sailed below the ice to the North Pole from a base set up on a floating ice sheet 150 miles north of Deadhorse, Alaska. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. United States.

Marines practice room clearing in buildings outside a U.S. national guard barracks in Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow, in Alaska. These marines were training for an upcoming deployment to Norway. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. United States.

U.S. marines and army special forces walking toward a long range radar station operated by Norad in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. These troops are taking part in the U.S. military’s annual Arctic Edge exercise. Image by Louie Palu / Zuma Press. United States, 2020.

The U.K., the United States, and Canada have been among the countries ramping up their Arctic military exercises, and for the past five years, photographer and film-maker Louie Palu has been taking pictures of soldiers confronting an environment as hostile and deadly as any enemy force. He has photographed a parachute drop into mountainous terrain in Alaska, "through-the-ice" training in a lake in the Northwest Territories, a submarine coming up from under the ice in the Beaufort Sea, and igloo-building and radar operations in Nunavut. He saw soldiers suffer frostbite and, during exercises in Finland, even be killed in a vehicle accident, he said.

Read the full story on the Guardian's website.

Freezing Cold War: Militaries Move in as Arctic Ice Retreats – Photo Essay

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New Cold War

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