During the first week of our expedition, a cruise ship ran aground in northern Greenland. The Greenland coast guard ship was too small to pull the cruise ship afloat. It was 3 days later before a Danish Coast Guard ship arrived. It re-floated the cruise ship and ensured that the passengers got to a settlement from which they could travel home. Luckily there were no casualties.
The Greenland, Canadian and US Coast Guards who share the responsibility for the waters of the High Arctic and Northwest Passage are acutely aware of the increased risk from more cruise ships travelling in these waters each year. There are no settlements of any size and no hospitals. Ships can be several days sailing away, even planes are 5 to 6 hours flying time away.
The US and Canadian Coast Guards and Canadian Royal Air Force conduct Search and Rescue exercises (SAREX). Le Commandant Charcot took part in a 2021 exercise and worked for 8 months with the exercise planners in order to take part in the 2023 exercise on 30 September at Herschel Island close to the US/Canadian border in Yukon.
Here is the address for the screen shot below if you are interested (I am sorry I have failed to post an actual link):
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Mentoring/videoid/899397/dvpTag/exercise/
Some young and fit passengers volunteered to join the crew members as casualties and evacuees. They spent the day in survival suits in newly designed bright orange "igloos" on the shore line. The rest of us thronged the decks with our cameras. I am one of those orange people on the top deck.
There were two C-130 Hercules aircraft, one each from the US Coast Guard and Canadian Air Force, an H-60 US Coast Guard helicopter, a CH-149 Cormorant Canadian Air Force helicopter, and a Canadian Air Force Twin Otter utility aircraft. Parachutists landed on the shore to help with the "injured" and supplies were parachuted in. A first responder was dropped from a helicopter onto the deck of the ship and air-lifted a "casualty". It was all very noisy and exciting!
This video is hilarious, but I don't wish to detract in any way from the wonderful job the team did, working in freezing conditions under the unbelievable downdraft from the helicopter. The serious wobble at the beginning was me trying and failing to hold the camera steady.