A Dawson City Ranger will be one of 20 leaving on a snowmobile patrol this week into the northernmost reaches of the Arctic to fly the Canadian colours and exert sovereignty over the area.

Brad Whitlaw, his fellow Rangers and regular Canadian Forces soldiers are scheduled to leave Resolute Bay Thursday in a 'sovereignty patrol'. It's one of the first scheduled for the next five years as Canada's Arctic is facing more border disputes with the U.S., Russia and Denmark.

The Rangers, taken from units across the three territories, met in Yellowknife for several days to collect their gear and get to know one another before flying into Resolute Bay.

'This is very exhilarating for me to be able to go from Resolute to Eureka,' Whitlaw said in an interview from Resolute this morning after a shooting competition with his patrol partners. 'Of course, to be able to go to Alert would have been exciting, but this is quite fulfilling on its own.'

The Dawson City resident said he's worked in Tuktoyaktuk as a carpenter for a while, but even the patrol's starting point is much farther north and east than he's ever been before.

And as a member of the Dawson Rangers unit that reformed in 1991, being on the longest sovereignty patrol in history means a lot.

'I'm damn proud of it,' said Whitlaw of being selected out of the 1,500 or so northern Rangers, and the only Yukoner chosen for the job.

He found out a month ago he made the cut.

'Then when I finally did hear the word, I contacted all my friends and my neighbours,' he said. 'That's all I've been talking about and thinking about.'

Last-minute preparations in Resolute, the starting point for the 1,300-kilometre snowmobile trek, included shooting practice this morning and flying over some of the area they'll cover to check out ice and snow conditions.

Thirteen of the patrol members, including Whitlaw, will finish in Eureka. The remaining seven will continue on to Alert, a Canadian Forces base and Environment Canada weather station that holds the title as the world's most northerly inhabited settlement.

Canada is currently embroiled in four territorial disputes in the North, including one with the United States over the ocean boundary between Alaska and the Yukon. The area in question could be rich in resources such as oil and natural gas.

Another dispute is over a minuscule island halfway between Denmark-controlled Greenland and Ellesmere Island.

A $5-million joint war game between the Canadian air force, navy and army is scheduled for August, and high-tech satellite systems are also being looked at as a means to keep an eye on Canada's northern territory.

The long-range Ranger patrols started in 2002 when the Rangers trekked to the magnetic North Pole to celebrate the unit's 60th anniversary, explained Maj. Stewart Gibson, commander of the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group. He'll be leading the 20-man patrol.

Gibson looked at that expedition as something that could be done annually, and last year some of the 1,500 Rangers he oversees patrolled to Sachs Harbour on Banks Island.

'My commander has ordered me to conduct this patrol on behalf of the Canadian Forces,' Gibson said in an interview from Resolute, where he'd shortly returned from a flight to check out the patrol route.

They hammered out a plan that will see the patrols cover much of the Arctic over the next five years.

The soldiers will travel over frozen land, snow and ice on an assortment of Bombardier and Polaris snowmachines, each pulling between 135 and 225 kilograms (300 and 500 pounds) of gear each on five-metre sleds.

Along with military-issue parkas, boots, insulated pants and other assorted Arctic weather gear, the soldiers will sleep in canvas wall tents and cook on Coleman camp stoves.

Kerosene tent heaters and military sleeping bags easily good to -40 C will keep them warm at night.

Though they'll be taking their Ranger-issue .303 Lee-Enfield rifles, the soldiers don't expect to be using them against enemy forces perhaps just the odd polar bear.

First made in the First World War era, the Lee-Enfield has seen various modifications over its lifespan.

Because the bolt-action rifle is mechanically simple, it's better suited to the harsh Arctic climate than semi-automatic rifles that tend to freeze or jam up in the North, explained Gibson.

The 13 patrollers who finish at Eureka on April 5 will catch a plane back to Yellowknife.

The last seven will continue on to Alert, scheduled to arrive April 11 or 12, where two planes will pick up them and their gear and head to headquarters at Yellowknife, stopping in Eureka to pick up the snowmachines left behind there as well.

In the patrol starting April 1, the soldiers will head north across Cornwallis Island.

Ice and snow conditions look good between Resolute and Devon Island approximately 300 kilometres north, said Gibson, and the forecast is for clear, sunny weather.

'The last I heard, it's only -30.'

Crossing the islands will be relatively easy going, Gibson said, and there are only a few sections of loose, broken ice.

From Axel Heiberg Island to Eureka will be very easy travelling on a fjord, covered in old, smooth ice.

Laundry and hot showers and meals will be in store at Eureka as part of the preparations to push on to Alert.

Only seven soldiers will continue the trip because the route will take them through Quttinirpaaq National Park, which has delicate terrain and threatened species.

Between Parks Canada and the Canadian Forces, they settled on seven snowmachines because it would have less environmental impact than the full 20, said Gibson. Seven people was the minimum for safety.

Twenty are going on the start of the trip because that's how many would fit on the plane up to Resolute.