At the
northern tip of Elsmere Island, Northwest Territories (NWT), there was a
weather station jointly operated by Canada and the United States. The station
was part of a network of weather operations called Joint Atmospheric Weather
Stations (JAWS). Just up the hill from the weather station there is a radio
research station that used to be called Alert Wireless Station. In the late
1950’s to the mid 1960’s operations at the station were conducted mostly by
civilians, including myself. In recent times the station has been run by the
military as Canadian Forces Station Alert. Alert is about 437 nautical miles
from the geographic North Pole.
In 1964
there was a Norwegian group, the Bjorn Styb Polar Expedition, who used the
runway near Alert as a base for attempting a trek to the North Pole. The
expedition was administered by General Curtis LeMay of the United States Air
Force and was jointly funded by the National Geographic Society and the
newspaper Aftenposten of Norway. The expedition had what was considered to be
the best of equipment and supplies. There was no doubt in their mind that they
would make the trek successfully. As can be imagined, the newspaper wanted
coverage of the event and had reporters at the site. This bothered the radio
research group because the kind of activities that went on at the time was
highly classified. Having foreign newspaper reporters around made for
potential security breaches. There was also a radio amateur station in Alert
that operated under the call sign VE8TU (later VE8RCS) and this is the object
of our attention.
The
amateur station VE8TU was licensed by the Department of Transport, Radio
Regulation Branch, on the understanding that there would be a licensed amateur
on the base whenever the station was in operation. Although the base was in
compliance with this requirement the licensed operator during events of 1964,
Ron Hutchinson, was accused of passing commercial traffic on behalf of the
Norwegian newspaper. This was considered a serious breach of the regulations
and there was talk of the station being shut down. But there was a lot more to
it than this.
The
Norwegian polar expedition set out in sleds powered by husky dogs. The sleds
were made of fiberglass. The sleds cracked and split and eventually the group
had to return to Alert for repairs. A message requesting urgent replacement
was transmitted to Norway through the amateur station. In time, repairs were
made and the group set out once again. About sixty miles out the polar
expedition ran into an ice ridge several feet high that could not be scaled.
So the group broke into two parties in hopes of finding passage around the
ridge. Somewhere during this operation the radio operator had a heart attack
and died. The group returned to Alert and another message was transmitted from
the amateur station to Norway with the sad news.
There
was no place to keep the body except on an outdoor loading ramp at the radio
base which attracted the huskies. The wife of the deceased made here way to
Alert via the Strategic Air Command base in Thule, Greenland. All the while
the Aftenposten newspaper was covering the story. As can be imagined, this
kind of attention was not appreciated by the military high command because
this was a most tense period of the cold war. The wife eventually made it to
Alert but was outraged at the way her husband’s remains were kept. Another
message was transmitted from the amateur station to the newspaper in Norway
with the sordid details of how she recovered the body.
In the
meantime, the manager of the monitoring station in Almonte, Ron Power, is
alleged to have written a letter to the Minister of Defense warning him that
the station would be shut down if commercial activity of the amateur station
continued. Assuming the radio traffic was commercial in nature it would be
interesting to know how the regulatory authorities could shut down the remote
amateur station.