Operation Nanook-Nunalivut 2026, the Canadian Armed Forces’ annual Arctic winter exercise, ran from February 10 to 27, 2026, around Yellowknife, Behchokǫ̀ and Whatì in the Northwest Territories. The Department of National Defence advised residents on February 9 to expect aircraft, armoured convoys, artillery and increased noise as Joint Task Force North set up near Yellowknife Airport.
Aircraft, artillery and a headquarters by the airport
Residents of Yellowknife, Behchokǫ̀ and Whatì were told to expect a noticeably larger military presence from February 10 to 27 as the Canadian Armed Forces launched Operation Nanook-Nunalivut, the winter centrepiece of its long-running Operation Nanook series.
Joint Task Force North set up the exercise headquarters near Yellowknife Airport, with a camp near Long Lake — including parts of Fred Henne Territorial Park — hosting Task Force Grizzly. The park stayed open to the public, who were asked to respect security measures. Activity also reached Edzo Airport and the NWT Power Corporation’s Bluefish Hydro Station, as military aircraft and convoys of armoured vehicles, artillery and snowmobiles moved around the region.
“Residents may observe a limited noise increase in the vicinity of designated areas during the operation,” the Department of National Defence said in its February 9 release, promising that all activity would take place in controlled locations, with minimal impact and no disruption to essential services, in co-ordination with local authorities.
Who was on the ground
The exercise drew infantry, artillery, engineers, signals, logistics and headquarters personnel, primarily from the regular and reserve forces of the 3rd Canadian Division and the Edmonton-headquartered 1st Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. They worked alongside local soldiers from C Company of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment — the Yellowknife Company — Joint Task Force North itself, and the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, the reservists who live and work across the North year-round.
Joint Task Force North supervised activities in co-ordination with the territorial government, local governments, the NWT Power Corporation and Indigenous partners. The exercise has now been held for 19 years, and, officials stress, continues to grow.
That growth is deliberate rather than reactive. The scenarios “are planned far in advance, and is generally not a response to any immediate changes in any global situation,” said Lt. Nathan Charbonneau, the task force’s public affairs officer. Still, the context is hard to miss: the exercise began a week after Canada opened its first consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, amid a continental argument about Arctic sovereignty — and it is designed to prove Canada can actually operate where it claims jurisdiction.
Why airstrips decide Arctic operations
Charbonneau singled out the unglamorous capability the whole exercise tests: logistics by air. “Having an airport or airstrip allows for better flow of logistics, especially here in the North — any airstrips are key infrastructure,” he said. Forces can build ice-based winter airstrips, he noted, but an established strip accepts a far wider variety of aircraft, which in a real emergency decides how fast help, fuel and equipment can arrive across distances with few roads.
National Defence describes Nanook-Nunalivut as demonstrating the Forces’ ability “to project and sustain forces in the High Arctic under the harshest conditions,” while testing new capabilities and interoperability with allies.
The largest edition yet
The April verdict confirmed the scale of what began in February. In its April 16, 2026 conclusion release, National Defence said Nanook-Nunalivut 2026 finished as the largest and most comprehensive winter Arctic operation in the Nanook framework: about 1,300 Canadian Armed Forces members, supported by nearly 200 vehicles and pieces of equipment, including two M777 howitzers, working across Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. Belgium, Denmark, France and the United States sent participants, Canadian Rangers among them, and one patrol covered more than 5,000 kilometres from Inuvik, N.W.T., to Churchill, Manitoba.
For Yellowknife, the February convoys were the visible part of that story: three weeks in which the North’s largest city hosted the headquarters of a national argument — that sovereignty in the Arctic is claimed not on paper, but by showing up in winter, every year, in force.
