Planning for a northern port for the Navy

First steps are under way:

Col. Rousseau, director-general of military engineering, is responsible for analyzing sites for a deep-water port and winter training school proposed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor.

And as he juggles everything from strategic requirements to ice movement to the routes of Arctic hunters -- not to mention lobbying by eager Arctic hamlets -- he's not unaware of the historic importance of building Canada's first new naval port since those at Halifax and Esquimalt, B.C., dating back more than a century...

There are sound strategic reasons to build some sort of naval facility in the Arctic, Col. Rousseau said.

By the time a vessel reaches Arctic waters from Halifax or Montreal, it needs to refuel. It can refuel from a naval tanker -- or a Coast Guard vessel, as was done for the first time on the recent exercise -- or it can refuel in Greenland...

But that means organizing a convoy of vessels instead of just sending one...