Two Junior Canadian Rangers from Northern Ontario are among 10 Junior Rangers from across the Canadian North who have won Canada Company bursaries to assist with their education.
Both received a plaque recognizing their leadership and citizenship and a cheque for $1,000 to further their educations.
The first of the new Canadian Ranger C-19 rifles have started to be distributed in Northern Ontario.
The first two deliveries were made to Ranger patrols in Constance Lake, near Hearst, and Peawanuck, near the Hudson Bay coast. The C-19 is a specially designed .308 calibre, bolt action rifle, that is replacing the venerable .303 Lee-Enfield Mark 4, which has been in service with the Rangers since 1947.
“We’ve been looking forward to getting the new rifle for a long time,” said Sergeant Neil Neegan in Constance Lake. “We are glad to be getting them.”
Canadian Rangers have successfully rescued a fisherman whose disabled boat faced being swept out onto Hudson Bay in deteriorating weather conditions.
The fisherman left the small Cree community of Peawanuck to net fish a short distance from the mouth of the Winisk River.
Members of the local Canadian Ranger patrol are participating in the emergency evacuation of Kashechewan First Nation because of fears of flooding from the ice-jammed Albany River.
The Rangers, who are part-time army reservists, spent much of Friday assisting vulnerable evacuees onto planes taking them south to Kapuskasing.
Canadian Rangers have completed a successful search for a stranded snowmobiler whose machine broke down near the Hudson Bay coast during a severe cold weather alert.
“It was pretty cold,” said Master Corporal Mike Koostachin of Peawanuck. ”When we found him I think it must have been 45 to 50 below with the wind chill.”
The Ontario Provincial Police asked the Canadian Army for assistance when Marcel Metawabin failed to show up at his home in Peawanuck after leaving Fort Severn by snowmobile for what should have been a trip of about nine hours.
A last minute decision to submit a poem for a writing competition has won a Junior Canadian Ranger from the remote Cree community of Peawanuck a prestigious Indigenous writing award.
“I’d wrltten a couple of poems before,” said Junior Ranger Nova Gull, 16. “And then I wrote (the winning entry) and everyone liked it. At the last moment, we decided to enter it for the competition.”
That required typing it out, putting it an e-mail to Timmins, where it was printed, and rushed to a mail box just before the midnight deadline for entries.
Canadian Rangers have completed a challenging search and rescue mission to save the life of an overdue trapper who fell through lake ice along with his snowmobile.
“It’s first time the Rangers have had to search for me,“ said the trapper, James Chapman, who is a retired Ranger sergeant. “It was a relief to see them.”
He went through the ice in an area about 50 kilometers south of Peawanuck, a small Cree community near the Hudson Bay coast. He was on his way to his trap line.
A remote community in the Far North of Ontario now has its own Canadian Ranger patrol, only four months after Rangers from other communities flew to it to help during a youth suicide crisis.
“I’m excited, the community is excited,” said Chief Johnny Yellowhead of Nibinamik First Nation. ‘It’s a historic moment for my community. We’ve been wanting the Canadian Ranger program for a long time. They can do a lot for us.”
Nibinamik, also known as Summer Beaver, is a fly-in Oji-Cree community of about 350 people, located 500 kilometers north of Thunder Bay.
Six Canadian Rangers from five Northern Ontario First Nations played a prominent part by raising the official flag of the Invictus Games at the spectacular opening ceremony of the Games in Toronto, watched by an international television audience of millions of viewers.
Four Junior Canadian Rangers from Lac Seul First Nation, near Sioux Lookout, holding tall Maple Leaf banners, were part of the military cadet honour guard.
A group of Junior Canadian Rangers from Attawapiskat learned how to start fires and put them out with a fire extinguisher during a weekend visit to Moose Factory on the James Bay coast.
“It was awesome,” said Junior Ranger Dalton Shisheesh. “I enjoyed myself. It was fun but I also learned from it. We all did.”
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