Canada’s Arctic is a massive, treacherous, and largely inhospitable place, stretched out over nearly 4 million square kilometres of territory – but with a small population roughly equal to Blackburn in England or Syracuse, New York.
“You can take a map of continental Europe, put it on the Canadian Arctic, and there’s room to spare,” Pierre Leblanc, the former commander of the Canadian Forces Northern Area told the BBC. “And that environment is extremely dangerous.”
