Comfortably numb: Arctic Resiliency Training prepares Airmen for the cold

Alaska is home to a vast, majestic and ever-present wilderness. Outdoor recreation is a way of life here, but as winter sets in, the freezing temperatures can be a serious risk to life and limb. For those stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, these are also the daily working conditions.

Through the 11th Air Force, JBER provides Arctic Resiliency Training, a 20-hour hands-on course that teaches Airmen the basic skills they may need to survive in arctic conditions. This training is designed to make sure Airmen are ready for wherever the mission takes them.

“Operationally, there was a huge limiting factor when it came to people being stationed in Alaska and going to various parts of Alaska, from King Salmon to Eareckson over on Shemya Island, to Utqiagvik,” said Arctic Resiliency Training Program Coordinator U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Tanner Baird.

Baird explained that this program was created in response to the absence of training in this area. He said, they wanted to prevent losing Airmen to a lack of knowledge and the concepts that are covered throughout the course are basic but have real life-saving potential.

The success of this program and its relevance to U.S. Air Force personnel stationed at JBER has not been lost on Col. Lisa Mabbutt, commander of JBER and the 673d Air Base Wing.

“Our priorities in the 673 ABW — Ready Airmen and Soldiers, Ready Base, and Ready Community — are truly designed to ensure each Airman, Soldier, and family member living and working on JBER is actually ready to live here in Alaska, and be successful in the field,” said Mabbutt. “Arctic Resiliency Training takes our Airmen, who otherwise may not have spent time in wilderness, and plunges them into a survival experience in the very landscape in which they live and work.”

Her belief in the program is so strong that she recently made the ART course mandatory for the entirety of the 673d ABW. According to Baird, he hopes the course will become part of the standard in-processing for newly arrived Airmen.

The course was introduced in 2021 and was inspired by the Cool School curriculum put on by Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape experts at Eielson Air Force Base. There have been many adjustments to the curriculum as the program has grown and expanded. Today, the course takes place over two days and includes 20 hours of instruction.

The class begins not in the woods, but in a classroom. The topics include heat transfer dynamics, the clothing layering system, shelter site selection, signaling and a medical brief on the effects of hypothermia and frostbite.

Students also learn to tie knots like the square knot, slip knot, bowline and trucker’s hitch. All four of these are used later in the course for building shelter.

“It’s generally a frustrating lesson,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Pandora Roseberry, an ART cadre member. “If you’ve never done this sort of thing before, you don’t know how to use your hands.”

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Kyle Little grew up in Anchorage and has been an avid outdoorsman for years. He was open to learning new skills but was mostly grateful the course exists.

“This is great. For what their goal is, to bring the most inexperienced person up to a standard,” he said. “This is all good stuff, and it might spark someone’s interest from here on out.”

After the knowledge portion in the morning, the class turns their attention to their gear. Students are required to bring with them the winter gear issued during their first winter on base. It includes a seven-layer system that they can adjust as needed to the conditions.

Everything else they need is issued during training. Each student gets an assault bag with a shovel, knife, ferrocerium rod, reflective belt, signaling mirror, and piece of Tyvek to use as a barrier with the ground. Students are also paired up with partners and issued a ruck sack containing sleeping pads and the tarp they’ll need to construct their shelter.

The whole group is bused up to Camp Madbull, a 300-acre training area in a remote part of the base. This is the final staging area before the class loads up their sleds with their gear and begins the roughly one-mile walk to the campsite. Along the way, the group stops near the airfield to practice their first skill, ground-to-air signaling, with a scenario that includes the goal of surviving and being recovered. Students use emergency blankets as well as rocks, logs and boughs to create highly visible shapes that could be seen from an aircraft.

The students are shown how to make a fire using only their six-inch knife and a ferro rod, which is used to produce sparks around 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. Once a flame is produced, it must be carefully fed and manipulated until it’s self-sustaining. It’s hard work but it has a purpose.

Throughout the course, there is fresh water available to all students for their consumption as dehydration is actually a serious concern in freezing temperatures. However, ample available water is a luxury in a survival scenario, so the cadre demonstrates a couple of ways to harvest water from snow.

Once the class is complete, everyone is, understandably, cold and tired but the cadre is hopeful that there’s also a feeling of accomplishment at having made it through.

“We want to show you that you can do it and have the confidence to do it. And then, that will create a feeling inside you that says, ‘Hey if I could do that, I can do anything in this world,’” said Baird.