Regional Perspectives

The operational requirements for helicopters varies significantly from region to region as a result of the sheer diversity of the environments in which the department’s programs operate. These links examine the program and operational environments that drive requirements for helicopter services on a region-by-region basis.

Because ensuring the safety of marine traffic through Marine Navigation Services (MNS), Marine Communications Traffic Services (MCTS) and Icebreaking account for 80% of the program requirements for helicopter support, they are the focus.

• Newfoundland
• Maritimes
• Québec
• Central & Arctic
• Pacific

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   Newfoundland Region

The Newfoundland region encompasses Newfoundland and Labrador which, together, have over 17,000 kilometers of rugged coastline and some of the most inclement and rapidly changing weather conditions in the country. Numerous, small fishing communities are dotted along the coastline. Supporting these, and the marine traffic that approaches Canada’s eastern shores, is a network of major lightstations, Differential Global Positioning System (D GPS) and Loran C sites, radio stations and repeater sights scattered in a broad pattern along an inhospitable shoreline. Canadian Coast Guard ( CCG) helicopter support for the region’s lightstations and short range aids to navigation are vital to the commercial fishing and marine cargo transport industries that operate throughout the region. As well, Labrador communities rely heavily on timely and safe re-supply by sea of their needs for food, fuel and clothing, and there is a relatively narrow window when supply by sea is possible. Re-supply and seasonal activation of lightstations therefore often involves helicopter/ship combinations, with the helicopter expediting offloading supplies brought to the station by ship. Finally, the CCG is required to support constitutional obligations regarding ferry services, which entail helicopter/ship patrols, icebreaking and harbour clearout operations.

CCG helicopters in the Newfoundland region operate from bases in St. John’s (Torbay airfield) and Stephenville. Torbay airfield is relatively close to the place of work and residence of most of the CCG personnel who use helicopter services (an inner harbour helicopter facility, which would be even closer, was rejected for safety reasons). The Stephenville base was developed in 1990 to respond to demand for navigational aids improvements and service requirements on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The St. John’s base has 2 helicopters, Stephenville is the base for 1 helicopter and together they provide support for the Newfoundland region.

The Newfoundland region illustrates well the contribution of both ship and shore-based helicopters to the delivery of the CCG’s program responsibilities. The region’s vast geographical reach, its ruggedness, isolation and weather make helicopters a fundamental component of the delivery of CCG services. Helicopters in this region:

• provide timely access to remote sites to perform inspection, construction, installation, maintenance or repair year round;
• minimize cost and time-consuming vessel movements in ice and to and from port when personnel, supply and material transfers are necessary; and,
• respond quickly to time-sensitive, safety-related tasking such as failures to short-range aids to navigation, pollution counter-measures, marine regulatory, and search and rescue.

    Support to Canadian Coast Guard Objectives

Ensuring the Safety of Marine Traffic (MNS and MCTS)

The CCG operates and maintains over 1,000 short range aids to navigation throughout the Newfoundland region. Together with the Pacific region, Newfoundland still operates crewed lightstations (and is the only region that still uses foghorns as a marine aid to navigation in support to local mariners). The region requires helicopters for re-supply and crew rotation at major lightstations (over half the region’s major lightstations are on islands or have no road access).

Servicing and supporting the region’s short range aids to navigation accounts for a very large share of the Newfoundland’s helicopter requirement, with its major lightstations (both crewed and uncrewed) being a primary workload determinant. Newfoundland’s major lightstations are concentrated in its eastern half, very few are on its west coast. There are no major lightstations in Labrador.

The relatively limited road network in Newfoundland means that virtually all major lightstations are remote and are routinely visited by a ship, or more commonly a helicopter/ship combination or helicopter alone. In the region, access by land or vessel is not the preferred approach. Many of the major lightstations are on islands, and helicopter transport is used to reduce travel time for technicians and maintenance staff. As well, lack of safe landing places in the vicinity of the lightstation restricts access by barge even if a ship is sent to the lightstation. Almost all the lightstations therefore have helicopter pads, enabling a helicopter or helicopter/ship combination to support their operations by:

• ferrying personnel to and from crewed lightstations, especially rotational lightstations;
• inspection and routine preventive maintenance of all equipment, instruments and structures;
• corrective maintenance (outage response) of equipment instruments and structures;
• construction and replacement of structures, removal of old equipment and installation of new equipment; monitoring of equipment at uncrewed lightstations; and,
• re-supply and garbage removal at crewed lightstations.

Re-supply of crewed lightstations, which occurs on a 28-day rotation and involves the transport of crews and a month’s worth of supplies, makes use of a heavy-lifting (9 passengers or 1,800 lbs. payload), twin-engine machine. Smaller capacity helicopters are used for the inspection of several hundred minor shore lights and almost one hundred range lights.

     Icebreaking

The region has the longest ice season with harsh conditions. Newfoundland is the only Coast Guard region where ice is a year round hazard to navigation. Icebreaking and ice escort services, involving helicopter/ship combinations, operate continuously throughout the region, mainly on the Northeast coast in support of a ferry service to Fogo Island and commercial shipping to Botwood, during the period from January to April. The region also supplies icebreakers and one helicopter for the CCG’s summer program in the Arctic. Helicopters provide tactical ice reconnaissance to icebreakers that are actively conducting icebreaking operations. They provide the up-to-date information on ice conditions (its thickness, age, whether it is under pressure, direction of movement) necessary to make the best and most economic use of the icebreaker. Without such information, the ability to make sound decisions concerning how to deploy these multi-million dollar assets is compromised, putting at risk icebreakers, their crews and any ships they are escorting.

     Other Tasking

Harbours and Ports sites throughout the region must be visited every year, both for engineering and operational purposes. Over twenty of these have no land transportation to the site, and helicopters or helicopter/ship combinations are the only feasible means of accessing the site. Even when there is ground transportation, arranging to get to the site overland is so difficult and time consuming that helicopter access is both preferred and more economical.

Helicopters are also used in multi-tasked roles such as ferrying personnel from several different departments to a site when the helicopter is going to it on a CCG mission.

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   Maritimes Region

The Maritimes region includes New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Sable Island and the Bay of Fundy. The CCG helicopters in the region operate from airports at Dartmouth (Shearwater airfield), Charlottetown and Yarmouth, and at the CCG base at Saint John. In all cases, helicopters have been located at these locations because many of the region’s personnel who use helicopter services work at or near them, and they have the required technical facilities to support the work. The helicopter located at Charlottetown, which is equidistant to Dartmouth and Cape Breton, enables helicopter services to be provided to the Cape Breton area, which has its own technicians based at the Canso Canal but no helicopter, when services cannot be provided from Dartmouth.

The Shearwater airfield base has four helicopters, Charlottetown and St. John each have one helicopter, and Yarmouth has one to support the CCG technicians based there and to provide secondary SAR response, as well as to support conservation and protection in the area. 

   Support to Canadian Coast Guard Objectives

Ensuring the Safety of Marine Traffic (MNS and MCTS)

Maintenance of marine aids to navigation and telecommunications equipment by technicians who are transported by helicopter consume the largest number of flying hours logged by the region’s CCG helicopters.

Most marine aids in the Maritimes are remote and not accessible by road, despite the region’s sophisticated road system. The rugged coastline, with its high tides and steep rock faces are limiting factors that make MNS and MCTS sites inaccessible both overland and across the sea. Helicopter access is therefore the method of choice for rapid access for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.

Although all of the region’s lightstations are automated, there are a lot of them – 60 major lightstations and almost 700 minor lightstations, all of which must be inspected and serviced. Major lightstations are located along the rugged coast of Cape Breton, the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy and Prince Edward Island. Each major lightstation is visited several times a year for preventive maintenance and repairs, and helicopters are the preferred mode of transportation; they enable technical and construction crews to travel around the region with minimal travel times, and hence maximize the productivity of these crews.

The coasts of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island also contain radio stations and repeater sites, some of which are seasonally accessible by road and others which are accessible only by helicopter. Two of the CCG’s more isolated sites are on Sable Island (160 nautical miles offshore) and St. Paul$s Island (located in the Cabot Strait between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland). They, like many other sites, rely on helicopter support.

   Icebreaking

Most of the commercial shipping coming into Canada steams through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with the highest density of foreign tankers transiting the Bay of Fundy and the Cabot Straight. The region has a large active icebreaking area (five helicopter-capable icebreakers are devoted to icebreaking and ice escort throughout the region). During the winter, the icebreakers and shipboard helicopters operate as a team to facilitate the movement of ships through ice infested waters. During the summer, they enable the efficient and cost-effective re-supply of Arctic sites.

Helicopters also fly ice surveillance patrols from shore bases to provide data to the Environment Canada ice specialists who, in addition to conducting scientific research, must assess ice thickness and strength to determine when hovercraft from the Québec Region can usefully be deployed for icebreaking along the region’s rivers. These patrols are also vital to fisheries management to help it determine when fishing seasons can be declared open (for some species, the season may open as soon as the ice clears, and this has to be predicted several days in advance to enable fishers (and MNS) to get ready).

   Other Tasking

Typically, the region supplies two helicopters for summer Arctic operations, namely navigation aids servicing and maintenance, escort and re-supply. These activities, which start in early July, usually commit the helicopters until late October.

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   Québec Region

The Québec region encompasses the province of Québec, principally along the St. Lawrence River and the Saguenay, to the western sector of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Magdalen Islands and Bird Rock, as far north as Ungava Bay and as far west as James Bay, Hudson Bay and the Belcher Islands. In total, the region encompasses almost 6,000 kilometers of coastline.

The CCG’s helicopters in the Québec region operate from a permanent base in Québec City (8 helicopters) and seasonal and year-round forward bases (Riviére du Loup, Mingan, Chevery, St. Augustin, Blanc Sablon, Heath Point, Anticosti). The permanent base at Québec City is adjacent to the CCG’s main base in the region, and is close to the centre of the south-west/north-east axis of the St. Lawrence.

As in the other regions, helicopters:

• provide timely access to remote sites to perform inspection, construction, installation, maintenance or repair year round; 
  minimize cost and time consuming vessel movements in ice and to and from port when personnel, supply and material transfers are necessary; and,
• respond quickly to time-sensitive, safety-related tasking such as failures to short-range aids to navigation, pollution counter-measures, marine regulatory, and search and rescue.

   Support to Canadian Coast Guard Objectives

Ensuring the Safety of Marine Traffic (MNS and MCTS)

The Québec region includes 36 major lightstations and over 550 minor lightstations, all of which are automated, and many of which are not accessible by road in the region’s North Shore and in Northern Québec. In addition, there are over 850 fixed short range aids to navigation sites and about 20 radio and repeater stations.

The St. Lawrence River is Canada’s principle artery of maritime commerce. The Port of Montréal, the largest of the public ports and harbour facilities in the region, is a major terminal for commercial navigation on the St. Lawrence, and must be kept open year round. This, in addition to the numerous outports along the North Shore and the Gaspé Peninsula, create a year-round requirement for CCG services.

In the Québec region, ensuring the safety of marine traffic absorbs about 50% of the total helicopter flying hours, with the major lightstations and MCTS sites being the primary workload determinants. About half the major lightstations are visited four times a year for preventive maintenance. MCTS sites are visited once a year on a routine basis, and more often than that if emergencies arise.

   Icebreaking

Icebreaking for flood control is a significant CCG responsibility in the Québec region (approximately half the CCG helicopter flying hours logged in support of icebreaking are logged by the Québec region). It is a seasonal service performed to minimize the threat of flooding in the St. Lawrence River lowlands from Montréal to Isle d’Orléans and elsewhere in eastern Canada. Since its inception in 1904, icebreaking has been conducted during the winter freeze-up period from early December to April. Without icebreaking for the purposes of flood control, there would be annual ice jams and severe flooding in low-lying areas every year. Historical records show that annual flooding reached heights as much as 46 feet above mean summer water levels in the affected areas of the St. Lawrence River Valley and its tributaries.

During relatively dry (minimal snowfall) and mild (limited ice accumulation) winters, the ice problem is minimal. During winters with heavy snowfall or severe cold, the ice jam situation can become critical. For instance, in 1993, some 39,450 people were displaced and assets worth an estimated $1.5 billion (not including municipal, industrial and agricultural producer losses) were damaged when an ice jam affected the St. Lawrence and its tributaries.

Regular "ice" patrols by helicopter, as well as icebreakers and satellites, provide information on the current ice conditions along the river from Montréal to Québec City. Daily helicopter ice patrols are flown from Québec City and from Trois-Rivières (from the deck of an icebreaker). The information from these patrols is analyzed by Environment Canada and used to produce "ice reports" which are similar in nature to weather reports and forecasts. The CCG uses the ice information to strategically position icebreakers in trouble spots. Wind shifts, sudden warm spells, the more predictable annual spring thaw, and "speeding" ships cause virtually all the ice jams. The CCG pre-deploys several icebreakers and one hovercraft along the St. Lawrence River to keep ice jams under control and water flowing. This is partially due to the long transit times, i.e., it takes an icebreaker eight hours to transit from Montréal to Québec City in open water. Icebreakers are pre-positioned at Sorel, Trois-Rivières, Québec City, Tadoussac, Matane, and Sept- Îles.

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   Central and Arctic Region

Central and Arctic is the CCG’s largest region of operations, stretching from the Ontario-Québec border in the east to the Arctic Circle in the north and west. Encompassing Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon North Slope and territorial marine waters, the region covers 64% of Canada, is bounded by 71% of Canada$s coastline and contains about 65% of Canada$s marine waters and 67% of the country$s fresh water. The majority of Canada$s population lives in this region, and it is home to the majority of pleasure boat owners and recreational fishers, as well as a significant proportion of commercial shipping. Most of Canada$s domestic tonnage is registered and operated out of this region. The Great Lakes, in addition to being a key commercial and recreational waterway, represent the water supply for approximately 30 million people.

Environmental conditions in such a vast area vary widely, from the relatively temperate conditions between lakes Erie and Ontario, to the sub-Arctic and Arctic conditions of James and Hudson Bays.

The CCG helicopters in the Central and Arctic region operate from a main base in Parry Sound. 

The region does not have an icebreaker capable of operating in Arctic waters, and therefore does not send one to the Arctic each summer. Its helicopters, consequently, do not participate in Arctic shipboard operations, so that it is able to retain a fuller complement of helicopters for shore-based support activities during its peak operating period from May to September. 

Helicopters are a fundamental component of the delivery of CCG services throughout the region.

   Support to Canadian Coast Guard Objectives

Ensuring the Safety of Marine Traffic (MNS and MCTS)

The bulk of CCG operations in Central and Arctic centre on the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the St. Lawrence River, the St. Mary’s River and the Detroit/St. Clair System, all of which are important both for commercial shipping and for recreational boating (Central and Arctic has the country’s busiest recreational boating area). The region experiences an annual freeze up over much of its waterways, so that many categories of the region’s approximately 8,400 short and long-range aids to navigation must be commissioned and decommissioned every year.

From their shore-side bases, and in joint ship/helicopter operations, the CCG’s helicopters ensure:

• timely access to remote sites to perform inspection, construction, installation, maintenance or repair;
• costly and time consuming vessel movements to and from port are minimized when personnel, supply and material transfers are necessary; and,
• rapid response to time-sensitive, safety-related tasking such as failures to short-range aids to navigation, pollution countermeasures, marine regulatory, and search and rescue.

Helicopters are particularly valuable in supporting the rapid and efficient movement of personnel and materiel throughout the region during its peak periods at the start and ends of the shipping/boating season, when a large number of navigational aids must be commissioned and decommissioned, respectively. The region has over 50 major lightstations, all of which are automated, and all of which must be commissioned in the spring/early summer and decommissioned in the fall. As well, these stations must be inspected, maintained and kept up throughout the summer. Helicopter transport of construction crews and construction material across difficult terrain speeds up maintenance and construction projects.

Most of the region’s minor lights are commissioned and decommissioned with helicopter support. Without this support, commissioning and decommissioning trips would be made by slow-moving trucks, which would necessitate deploying more personnel throughout the region, in closer proximity to the aids (i.e., at more bases). With helicopters, a relatively smaller complement of technicians operating from central bases is able to accomplish the work in the required time period.

   Icebreaking Support

Ice breaking is not a significant determinant of helicopter activity in the Central and Arctic region, but helicopters are used to conduct spring ice surveys to determine how fast ice is clearing and when operations to commission aids will have to begin.

   Other Tasking

Distinctively, the Central and Arctic region performs a significant number of Navigational Waters Protection activities. While many sites where this activity is performed are accessible by road, this is not always efficient. Using a helicopter, a Navigable Waters Protection inspector can visit 20 to 30 sites a day. Consequently, Navigable Waters Protection activities, in conjunction with support to the CCG’s MNS and MCTS programs, account for almost 80% of helicopter activity in the region.

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Pacific Region

The Pacific region’s area of responsibilities includes the coastal waters of British Columbia between the states of Washington and Alaska and 320 kilometers west into the Pacific Ocean. The region encompasses 27,000 kilometers of coastline throughout Yukon Territory and British Columbia, with a main area of operations along the coast of British Columbia and Vancouver Island – a distance of about 900 kilometers from north to south.

The CCG helicopters in the Pacific region operate from bases in Victoria and Prince Rupert, and a forward deployment base at Port Hardy. Four helicopters operate out of the main regional CCG base at Victoria. Two helicopters are stationed at Prince Rupert, adjacent to the main CCG offices and facilities at that location, and serving the needs of CCG personnel for helicopter support. 

Locating helicopters at the extreme southern (Victoria) and northern (Prince Rupert) extremities of the region’s main areas of operation ensures planning flexibility and reduces job duplication and facilities. As well, when helicopters are dispatched from the bases, they normally stop along the way to unload freight and/or personnel.

   Support to Canadian Coast Guard Objectives

Ensuring the Safety of Marine Traffic (MNS and MCTS)

Helicopters from the region’s two main bases service a terrain that is both mountainous and very rugged and that, because of the prevailing offshore winds, has adverse and unpredictable weather most months of the year. The complete lack of a road system along the coast and in the Queen Charlotte Islands means that helicopters are the only practical means of transportation to isolated crewed lightstations, mountaintop repeater sites and numerous navigation aids along the coastline. In total, the region has almost 50 crewed and automated lightstations, numerous radio beacon and repeater sites and hundreds of navigation aids. These lightstations, beacons and aids ensure that commercial shipping from the Pacific Rim and Canadian fishing and pleasure vessels that sail the waters of the Pacific Region operate safely in a demanding and unpredictable environment.

The primary driver of requirements for helicopter services in the Pacific region is service and support to the region’s major crewed lightstations (including supporting the department’s crewed lightstation rejuvenation program). The overwhelming majority (95%) of these lightstations, which are concentrated along the west and east coasts of Vancouver Island and the north coast British Columbia, are accessible only by helicopter. As in Newfoundland, helicopters:

• ferry personnel to and from the lightstations for monthly crew rotation, re-supply and remove of garbage; 
• enable inspection and routine preventive maintenance of all equipment, instruments and structures; 
• ensure that corrective maintenance (outage response) of equipment instruments and structures is done in a timely manner; and, 
• support construction and replacement of structures, removal of old equipment and installation of new equipment.

As in Newfoundland, re-supply of crewed lightstations, which occurs on a 28-day rotation, and involves the transport of crews and a month’s worth of supplies, makes use of a heavy-lifting (19 passengers or 4,000 pound payload), twin engine machine, which is particularly well suited to the open water and inclement weather flying conditions common to the region. Stationed at Prince Rupert, this S61-N helicopter provides support to remote lightstations in the northern half of the region, as well as providing an important secondary SAR capability.

The demand in the Pacific Region for helicopter services is the highest in the country, and helicopters are an integral part of the region’s activities.

   Icebreaking

While the Pacific region does not need to conduct icebreaking operations during the winter months, it does provide icebreaker/helicopter services for summer Arctic operations. Arctic re-supply, construction and maintenance are efficiently supported by ship/helicopter teams (one helicopter may support activities from several ships).

   Other Tasking

There are about 160 harbours and port sites in the region that are visited every year for operational and engineering purposes. Helicopters support annual inspections.

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