Alert, Nunavut

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Orthographic projection centred over Alert Nunavut

Environment Canada air chemistry observatory

Alert is the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. It is located at 82°28′N 62°30′W, about 10 km west of Cape Sheridan, the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, on the shore of ice-covered Lincoln Sea, in the territory of Nunavut in Canada. Alert lies just 817 km (507 miles) from the North Pole. It is named after HMS Alert, a British ship which wintered about 10km away in 1875-76.

Alert had five permanent inhabitants in the 2006 census [1]. Alert also has many temporary inhabitants as it hosts a military signals intelligence radio receiving facility at Canadian Forces Station Alert (CFS Alert), as well as a co-located Environment Canada weather station, a GAW atmosphere monitoring laboratory, and the Alert Airport.

The settlement is surrounded by a rugged terrain of hills and valleys. The shore is composed primarily of slate and shale, and the sea is covered with pack ice year-round. The local climate is actually semi-arid. However, evaporation rates are also very low, as average monthly temperatures are above freezing only in July and August. There is 24-hour daylight from the last week of March until the middle of September and the sun is above the horizon from mid-April through August. From mid-October through the end of February the sun does not rise above the horizon and there is 24-hour darkness.

Sir George Nares was the first known person to reach the northern end of Ellesmere Island; he arrived on HMS Alert in 1875–1876. The weather station was established in 1950, and the military station in 1958.

Other places on Ellesmere Island are the research base at Eureka and the Inuit community of Grise Fiord.

The nearest large Canadian city to Alert is Edmonton, Alberta, which at 3,578 km (2,223 miles) is more distant than Oslo, Norway at 3,192 km (1,983 miles) and Reykjavík, Iceland at 2,300 km (1,430 miles).

Nine crew members of an RCAF Lancaster died in a crash while making an airdrop of supplies to the station in 1950.

A CC-130 Hercules, Boxtop 22, crashed about 30 kilometers short of the runway on October 30, 1991. Of the 18 aboard, 4 died in the crash, while the pilot died during the 30 hours that it took SAR teams to reach the crash site under blizzard conditions. Several books, including "Death and Deliverance: The True Story of an Airplane Crash at the North Pole" by Robert Mason Lee, were written and a film "Ordeal in the arctic" starring Richard Chamberlain, were based on the event.

As of April 13, 2006 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was reporting that the heating costs for the station had risen. As a result of the rising costs the Canadian Forces proposed cutbacks to support jobs by using private contractors [2].

In early April 2006 the Roly McLenahan Torch that will be used to light the flame in Whitehorse, Yukon for the 2007 Canada Games passed through Alert.

In August 2006, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, made a visit to Alert as part of his campaign to promote Canadian sovereignty in the north.

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