Glen Brocklebank was fully aware of the Canadian Junior Rangers program before he moved to Chesterfield Inlet in 2001.
Brocklebank was an officer with an army cadet corps in the south and did his undergrad thesis at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., on trying to get the Canadian Junior Rangers program offered in urban centres.
Today, there is a Junior Canadian Rangers patrol in Thunder Bay and Brocklebank's thesis was used to help make the transition.
Brocklebank said there was a pretty active Canadian Rangers patrol in Chesterfield Inlet when he first arrived there, but they didn't have Junior Rangers.
He said he spoke to the Rangers sergeant at the time in Chester and helped bring the Junior Rangers program to the community.
“I was still attached to headquarters in Ontario for cadets and was told I would need to release unless I was going to spend my summers continuing with them and I needed my summers off after teaching all year,” said Brocklebank.
“The Rangers were recruiting here in Chester in 2003 and asked if I wanted to join. I was honoured at the invitation and got voted in.”
The Canadian Rangers is an organization whose primary duty is to help the community through search and rescue and other emergencies. The patrols have monthly meetings and go out on an exercise once a year. They also do other training or military operations in the North when they arise.
Brocklebank said the Rangers group in Chesterfield Inlet meshes really well.
He said he's learned a great deal from some amazing Rangers in the community and his sergeant has helped him broaden his navigational skills.
“I was already OK in navigation, but he's helped me excel at it. It wasn't long after when a group of Rangers went out on a search and they found the person, but it was almost 200 km away and they didn't have enough gas to get back to town.
“So, myself and a couple of other Rangers had to go to their location and bring them gas so everybody could get home.
“We actually had a field-training exercise two weeks before that happened. That's when the Rangers sergeant really pushed me to take a lead on navigating and getting to a certain point on the land. That gave me the confidence to go on the trip because it was a place that I'd never been before, in an area that I'd never travelled before.
“Initially I wasn't very confident, but the Ranger sergeant had worked with me on that area and gave me the skills and the confidence I needed to be able to do it.”
Brocklebank's current role within his Rangers patrol is working with Junior Rangers and Chesterfield Inlet has quite an active program. He said he likes the whole organization of the Canadian Rangers program.
“We're a component of the military, but don't function like the military in that we elect our leadership.
“We have the power to decide who our sergeants and master corporals are going to be. So, we have the power to determine our own leadership.”
