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Warrant Officer Maxime Richard: This is a unique place to come. If you want to live the adventure, it’s the last frontier.

Captain Adam Orton: Hi! This is Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast.
So you speak to your career manager and they tell you the good news. You’ve been posted up north near the 60th parallel. Joining me from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories is Warrant Officer Maxime Richard. He’s the Operations and Training Warrant with the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group. Welcome to the show.

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WO Richard: Awesome. Thank you so much for receiving us. It’s really appreciated.

Capt Orton: Yeah. I’m looking forward to hearing about your experiences up north and what’s going on up there.

WO Richard: Fantastic.

Capt Orton: So, you find out, you’re posted up north? What was your reaction to that?

WO Richard: So, for us, for my family, because I have to include my family into that. Right? Like, it was a delight. We were so happy to come over here. Because we wanted to discover the north. We had some friends that were discussing about coming over here when I was in Winnipeg—and they were discussing Yellowknife, and it was almost like a dream like you see in the movie. Right? And when I arrived at the battalion, because I got posted back from Winnipeg to the battalion to make a story short, is that I learned that that posting was available to me. So I jumped on it—and we’re so happy we did.

Capt Orton: So, tell us a bit about yourself. And tell me about your career leading up to this posting.

WO Richard: So, a little thing about my career—I’ve been in the military for the last nineteen years. I'm in my twentieth year now and did all my infantry stuff. I’m part of the Royal 22e Régiment, the Van Doos, and really, really proud to be one, actually. So I got deployed with the Van Doos in Afghanistan in 2007 to 2010. I got deployed in Estonia with the Royal Welsh, our sister regiment that we have for the Van Doos. And I got posted to CFSSAT the Canadian Forces School of Survival and Aeromedical Training as a survival instructor over there. I really, really liked it. But as you know, in the military, you get posted, right. So I got a promoted post back to the battalion, the 1st Battalion of the Royal 22e Régiment. And when I was up there, my friend was always talking to me about Yellowknife. And because I finished my time at the survival school, I wanted to learn more about survival. What is the best way to learn about survival than learning it from an expert? Well, it is to immerse yourself into that type of environment. So this is why I wanted to come here and wanted to meet with the 1 CRPG, the Canadian Patrol Ranger Group—to discover and learn more about survival and to hone my skills about survival. Right? And I got served really well.

Capt Orton: You got what you signed up for? It’s for sure. So how is this different from a regular posting?

WO Richard: Well, coming over here—so, I had the chance to be an RI—Ranger Instructor—and the platoon warrant. And now I’m the training warrant. But when I did my first year as a Ranger Instructor, I was able to discover the north first like the three territories Nunavut, Yukon, and Northwest Territories. And, like, when you’re deployed on a patrol, you’re doing many, many jobs. Right? You’re a clerk, you’re an instructor, you’re a leader, a mentor, you’re a navigator. You’re doing range. You’re learning about how to hunt animals, how to do ground search and rescue, how to do airstrips and all that type of stuff. So it is phenomenal. Like the stuff that we’re doing. So you’re doing it all. Like I’m the QM, too—like the quartermaster. So I’m bringing the equipment for the Ranger in a charter, charter plane—little airplane. And we’re bringing them their equipment that they need for them to monitor their patrol and to do the patrol that we’re doing. So it is totally different. We’re having so many responsibilities on our shoulders when we’re getting deployed on the land in those communities is pretty, pretty unbelievable.

Capt Orton: So, you’re talking a little bit about patrols and some experiences as a Canadian Ranger instructor. And we hear a lot about the Canadian Rangers. I know they live and operate in a lot of remote areas across Canada on all three coasts. And they’re pretty much everywhere. There’s like 5,000 of them. But speaking of military personnel going up north, everybody who’s been up there says the Canadian Rangers are the best; they know what they’re doing up there. What does the Ranger Patrol look like up north where you’re at?

WO Richard: So, like, it’s typically looking like as a normal infantry platoon. Like, with regards to the structure—like, you’re gonna have that patrol commander, you’re gonna have to patrol 2IC, you’re going to have a section that is going to have the section commander, the section 2IC and the section itself. Right? But the Rangers are an extremely agile and mobile group of people that are almost comparable to guides into the north. They can deploy in any type of condition anywhere in the north—which is incredible. Like I did some patrols that we were navigating to 600 kilometres with snowmobiles. I did some boat patrol where we were in Wekweètì and Gamètì where we used boats to go to where we wanted to go. So it’s pretty unbelievable to look at the efficiency that those people are having to deploy on the land.

Capt Orton: That makes me wonder, like, you know, if you’re looking at your average infantry section, for example, and the different vehicles they might use, there’s a lot of training that goes on there. Does any type of training take place with those mobility options? So are you doing snowmobile training, boat training? Or is it kind of just that everybody knows how to do it? And you just roll with it?

WO Richard: Oh, no, no. Like people are having multiple types of training. The one that we’re focusing more on is the C19, the weapon that they’re having—so we want them to be like, it’s a standard, they have to go with the shooting program of the CAF in order to get qualified on this weapon. Right? And it’s something that we’re monitoring into training as well. There’s first aid training, wilderness first aid, standard first aid, and you can get on a driving course, like we do, and the military—they’re in the military. Right? So, like, they’re doing the same type of training that we’re doing. So they are doing it all, but most likely what is happening with the Rangers is that they’re living up there. They’re living in the north. So they are the experts on how to live in their community in their area. And this is why they’re so useful for us—for the military as a whole. And they’re so useful to their community as well.

For example, Hay River Patrol, in the Northwest Territory around the Great Slave Lake. They deployed to do a Type 1 Patrol that we call and while they were doing that there was a crash—but there was like a hard landing for an airplane. And the boys and the girls, they went and they did a ground search and rescue to help recover those pilots and bring them back to safety. So they’re doing a lot of ground search and rescue. They’re also working a lot with the Search and Rescue Technician when they’re deploying. So they’re going to use them as well. So, like, they’re doing a lot of that. The Rangers are helping a lot the communities and the north as a whole.

Capt Orton: So, you mentioned you know, some of these patrols are pretty long distance—like, you know, in my mind, I think of a Dismounted Infantry Patrol or something like that you might cover like a couple of kilometres. But, you’re talking about these pretty vast distances. How far have you travelled? Where have you been as part of this task?

WO Richard: So, I went to the three territories in Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut—and the three of them are so different as a whole and I went, also, to hunt on the Canol Heritage Trail to put it out there. Which is something itself. But the Yukon—like it has so many mountains, is so different. So Mayo, Ross River, Faro, Carmacks, Carcross, Whitehorse, and this is just in the Yukon. And I’m forgetting, like, Watson Lake and a couple of them. Northwest Territories, Gamètì, Wekweèt, Behchokǫ̀, Yellowknife, Fort Res, Smith, Providence—like, it’s pretty intense with regards to these ones, Norman Wells as well, that is the entry of the Canol Trail on the north side. And there’s Nunavut, Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin, the Naujaat, Repulse Bay, Arctic Bay on the Baffin, Kimmirut, Iqaluit, Resolute Bay, that is on Cornwallis Island. So as a Ranger Instructor, you’re just deploying to all those communities and discovering them by yourself or with some colleagues or some friends. Right? It is just unbelievable. The first patrol that I ever did was in Chesterfield Inlet. It was minus 55 degrees, and we deployed 80 kilometres. Me and a couple of Rangers and it was quite an eye opener for me. Like looking at those aurora borealis the northern lights in the evening. It was phenomenal. Phenomenal. Couldn’t believe it.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s got to be quite the site. People. People work pretty hard to try and see that.

WO Richard: Yeah, there’s a lot of people that are paying a lot of money—and I’m getting paid to do it.

Capt Orton: Living the life of adventure, and this is not what we all signed up for. Right?

WO Richard: This is exactly right. And I was talking about that survival experience. Right? Because this is what I wanted to do. And I liked that example a lot when I went to Repulse Bay and Naujaat in the Hudson Bay. And we went on a traditional day and we went to hunt for caribou. And my patrol commander was with me and one of my other colleagues from 1 CRPG. And they show us a different way to dispatch a caribou, a barren-ground caribou—which is, like, taller than a dog but smaller than the mountain caribou. And we opened it, and we made a backpack out of his rib cage with the ligaments of the animal. And I was like “this is why I came over here. This is what I wanted to learn from them.”

But not only that. There’s always like those little little tips that you’re learning from them—how to do a clove hitch on a kometik in order to attach your equipment, because it’s like a kometik. It’s just a pallet of wood with two skis. Right? So you want to make sure that your kit is fixed over there, because you’re going to travel like 600 kilometres to 800 kilometres in snowmobiling. So you want to make sure that everything is tight, but the Rangers showed us how to make sure that everything was stable there. And after that, you’re becoming more efficient at it. So it’s just a fantastic, fantastic experience.

Capt Orton: It’s interesting that you mentioned the clove hitch, and the challenges in tying that. Because in a previous podcast, we talked to you captain Carl Pelletier from the 35 CBG Arctic Company Response Group, and he was saying how you can’t use plastic buckles and stuff—and you take it for granted. And those things just explode when it's like minus fifty. And you can’t just use plastic anymore. It’s not a thing.

WO Richard: Yeah. And I met Captain Pelletier from the RG when I was in Ottawa planning a conference for Op Nanook in Resolute. And, yeah, really, really good guy. And this is what it is. Right? Like you need to learn when you’re up here—how to just dress yourself, how to use the onion layers technique to dress yourself. When you’re warm, you want to undress yourself. When you’re cold, you want to put some insulation layers, and stuff like that. Right? So there’s a lot of stuff that we’re thinking that is easy down south—but over here, because of the climatic condition, it is way more interesting. I’ll say it like that.

Capt Orton: Yeah.

WO Richard: Or challenging.

Capt Orton: Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, you were talking about some people who would have been like “oh, gross, like ribcage, backpack. Why would you want to do that?” But the thing is, if you’re in a survival situation and you need material to function, you gotta do what you got to do. And having those skills can go a long way.

WO Richard: Yes. And this is what I like about and this is what I’m passionate about is how people used to live. This is how we built our country. Right? We went this way. And now with the recent technologies. Like, for the last, I don't know, maybe sixty years, we’re starting to lose all those little, little skills. But this is what I like so much about the Rangers is that they still have some.

I met some people that were born in an igloo. I was like, “wow”—I couldn’t believe it. They know how to build an igloo within two hours. They can make a house in the wilderness, by themselves using a pana—that they call this snow knife, just using this. I was finding it unbelievable. And also for the Inuit, there’s a lot of tradition. Right? And when you’re able to build your own igloo, when you’re going out of your first igloo that you’re building, the people are lining up on the side of the entrance and they’re applauding you like clapping their hands to welcome you into this new world. And now after that, you're considered to be a grown up, because you can build your own house, and you can survive out there on your own. It’s just unbelievable.

Capt Orton: So you’ve had deployments to Afghanistan, you’ve done a lot of what I would call maybe traditional army stuff. And now you’re up north and you're learning a lot of these unique skills. How does this stuff make you a better soldier?

WO Richard: It’s making me a well more rounded soldier when we’re thinking just about like the administration that we have to do as well for the patrols. Right? The community, the Rangers itself. Like when we're arriving over there, like I need to know the next of kin. I need to grab their emergency contact form. I need to know and understand how to do a 638 to use the equipment of the military. So I’m the QM—the quartermaster—as well. Right? I need to be good on the range to be a Range Safety Officer for the Rangers when we’re doing our PWT3 with the C19, the personal weapon training—the C19 which is the Tikka .308 that we’re using. So I think that this is helping me to do it. So I think the people that are coming over here are going to become well rounded, more well rounded. Yeah, I’ll say it like that.

Capt Orton: So, I think you’re coming to the end of your time up there. What would you have to say to the next person that’s coming in?

WO Richard: Is to be patient. That will be the first thing that I will tell them. To keep their eyes open and to seize every opportunity that is presented to them. You’re going to live a good time over there. That’s what I will tell them.

Capt Orton: You make me want to go up there.

WO Richard: Nice!

Capt Orton: I’m really into this. Sign me up.

WO Richard: Awesome. Yeah, like this is a unique place to come. Like, if you want to live the adventure. It’s the last frontier. Right? It is the wild north and the wilderness is unbelievable. Also, on the civilian side, if you like to hunt, fish, if you like the wilderness—it’s a good place and even for the people that like to be in the city, Yellowknife is a big city. They have like 20,000 people. We have McDonald’s and Walmart, Canadian Tire. So we have everything. Like the schools are good for the children. No traffic—like, come on, you know.

Capt Orton: It’s good living.

WO Richard: It’s unbelievable the life in the north.

Capt Orton: You know, your town is a town when you have a Walmart in it.

WO Richard: Exactly. Like this is my factor, right?

Capt Orton: That’s right. Awesome. Well, hey, thanks so much for telling us about your story. It was really interesting. And I hope to have the chance to talk to you again sometime.

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WO Richard: Awesome. Me too. It was a pure pleasure. Fantastic. Thank you so much for giving us that opportunity.

Capt Orton: Yeah, it’s our pleasure. That was Warrant Officer Maxime Richard from the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

Listen, folks, safety brief time. I like riding motorcycles—and tons of you out there do. I just want to say, if you ride, be safe out there. And if you don’t, look out for people who are. Every year, people get back on their bikes and soldiers get hurt. So stay sharp out there. And stay safe. Orton out.

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Capt Orton: All right. It’s funny so I was a private in Afghanistan with 2 VP in '08 and we ripped out with the Van Doos roughly around the same time when you were there.

WO Richard: Yes. On FOB Fabulous.

Capt Orton: Yeah. FOB Fabulous. Yeah, exactly.

WO Richard: Yeah, I was there.

Capt Orton: When I saw your picture, I thought you were the section commander—because he was a blond guy, like you, with a beard. And I was like, I was sure it was you. But it wasn’t. But we were probably there at the same time.

WO Richard: But now that wasn’t 2008. Yeah. And I was on FOB Fabulous. I wasn’t section commander at that time. I was a corporal.

Capt Orton: Yeah.

WO Richard: But in 2010, I was the section commander over there.

Capt Orton: We had this Van Doo section commander. And he didn’t speak English. And I was the only guy there who spoke French. So I was like, it was like this sergeant and then my sergeant and I always had to translate for them because they both didn’t understand each other. They’re trying to do the RIP.

WO Richard: Yeah, yeah. This is how we did in those early years. Right of Afghanistan where like, not everybody was speaking in English at that time. So we’re having translators in both teams. Right?

Capt Orton: Yeah, it’s not easy. Yeah, so tell me about that hunting on the trail by the way. How did that go?

WO Richard: Oh, yeah, the hunting on the Canol Trail it is right in between Norman Wells and Whitehorse. And it is just like a trail that they built in 1947 after the Great War and they wanted to bring the oil from Canada to Vancouver to be able to have some for the boats for for everything that we need. Right? Yeah, I wanted to bring that oil—and, like, they maintained that trail for quite a while and after that the project just went down and they found another route to bring the oil and which was alright. But, like, this it became one of the most pristine areas to go hunt in North America.

Capt Orton: Wow!

WO Richard: So you’re going there. You’re having tags like from dall sheep, wolf, wolverine, grizzly bear, caribou, mountain caribou—like you have a rainbow in your hand. And you just go out there and it is like beautiful, beautiful. I went there, and I travelled from Yellowknife to go into the trail with one of my buddies. And we went quading and we just found animals and it was just phenomenal with regards like when you’re not going into your stand waiting for the animal to come because you’re baiting it. Like, you’re actually hunting the animal and trying to find it, you know. So, like, for me, and for a lot of people that are big into that. Is this like the Olympics of hunting like in your life? Right?

Capt Orton: Yeah, exactly.

WO Richard: Yeah.

Capt Orton: Man, it’s funny. Like, I always wanted to do—especially when I was in Shilo, —I always wanted to do hunting. But I never really—I never took the time to get into it. But, like, I have a lot of friends that are into it, and I get it like it. It sounds like a really good time. And I love backcountry camping. I’m a portaging guy, so I love it. So I get it. It’s like, you’re just way out there. And there’s animals everywhere. And it’s just beautiful. So I get it.

WO Richard: Yeah, and it’s the same for the fishing. Like there’s a lot of people that are going on the East Arm of the Great Slave Lake. And they go find like 60 year-old trout in that league that are humongous. Sergeant Gallant found a 51 inch pike, 51 inch pike.

Capt Orton: It’s insane!

WO Richard: Yeah. Oh, yeah—it’s just crazy.

Capt Orton: Man.

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WO Richard: I know. It’s really really good for this.

Capt Orton: You’re going to eat a while for that.

WO Richard: Yeah!

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