Canada Breaks With The US and Trump in The Arctic

Canadian military aims to show it can go it alone in the Arctic

Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st U.S. state have pushed Canada to rethink relations with its neighbor. But defending the Arctic is too much for any one country.

By Maria Cheng

Reuters

  

Canadian troops conduct Arctic operations

A member of 41 Canadian Brigade Group conducts a ski patrol as part of Task Force Grizzly during "Operation Nanook-Nunalivut," a yearly series of drills designed to highlight the military's ability to defend the Canadian Arctic, in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, February 16, 2026. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

CAMBRIDGE BAY, Nunavut, Canada - Over the past three months, Canadian soldiers conducted a more than 5,000-kilometer snowmobile patrol in extreme Arctic conditions traveling from Inuvik, Northwest Territories to Churchill, Manitoba, braving blizzards and minus-60 degree Celsius temperatures in military exercises designed to prepare for a foreign threat – and demonstrate Canada’s ability to take care of itself.

That’s a tall order. The political climate has changed since U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats to make Canada an American state, take control of Greenland and withdraw from NATO, but the harsh realities of operating in Canada’s frozen north have not.

“There are Canadians up here defending (the country) at all times of the day,” said Travis Hanes, a commanding officer of the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, a special unit of the Canadian Armed Forces’ reserve. “They’re stretching their abilities across some of the most inhospitable terrain and climate that you can possibly imagine.”

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He spoke to Reuters while recovering from a frostbitten nose after weeks of being on the snowmobile patrol.

To Hanes and many of his fellow Rangers, the idea that any foreign power might challenge Canada's sovereignty in a region that is about 40% the size of continental Europe is baffling. "We are the landowners and it's hard to see how someone thinks it could be taken away," he said.

Canada's Armed Forces deploy above the Arctic Circle for "Operation Nanook"

 

NATO members Canada and the United States have worked together for decades in the Arctic. They officially formed NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, in 1958 because neither country could independently respond to a threat by the Soviet Union.

Trump’s jibes about making Canada the 51st U.S. state and his growing tensions with NATO, only heightened by the U.S. war in Iran, have prompted Canadians to rethink their reliance on their southern neighbor.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has vowed to ensure that Canada can protect the Arctic without any outside help. As he unveiled a new plan last month detailing how Canada would spend C$35 billion reinforcing its military in the far north, Carney said Canada was now taking "full responsibility" for its Arctic sovereignty.

“We will no longer depend on any one nation,” he declared.

Canada's Armed Forces deploy above the Arctic Circle for "Operation Nanook"

Lt. Col. Travis Hanes, commanding officer of the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG), speaks with Maj. Matt Wookey, a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-138 Twin Otter pilot, during a stop on the sea ice as the unit makes its way from Cambridge Bay to Gjoa Haven on a long-range patrol during "Operation Nanook," March 18, 2026. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

In interviews with nearly two dozen people including Canadian military leaders in the Arctic, government ministers, diplomats, analysts and serving members of the armed forces during a nine-day trip to the Arctic, Reuters found that despite the prime minister’s pledge, the deep ties between the Canadian and American militaries remain unchanged and the challenges to defending the Arctic are formidable. Not only is it highly unlikely that Canada could be completely self-reliant, but the U.S. too depends on Canada for its own security.