CFS Alert

You can file this one under "places that are almost impossible for me to go visit", but I found a few pictures and web sites that do give a good idea of what it would be like, so my curiosity is ever-so-slightly satisfied.

CFS Alert is at the top of the world, and is the Northernmost inhabited place on earth.  It reportedly performs SIGINT, some research, and acts as a weather station. 

Map courtesy of Nasittuq

Unfortunately there is pretty crummy Google satellite imagery of the area, potentially due to the orbit such a satellite would need, which is also the reason normal satellite communication is not possible from CFS Alert.  Communications need to be bounces along microwave relays to Eureka before a communications satellite into view.

UPDATE:
It seems someone HAS made very limited imagery of CFS Alert available


View Larger Map

CFS Alert

Because of the lack of satellite imagery I wasn't aware of the layout, size, shape, or anything really, about Alert; and wouldn't want to ask many questions of anyone who's been there, since most of the operations of CFS Alert, while many are performed by non-military members, are hush-hush.  Therefore, I was thrilled to find pictures from the air already on the public internet!

Photo courtesy of Nasittuq (click for larger image)

Photo courtesy of Nasittuq

Map courtesy of Nasittuq

This is the best map of the base I could find; but it doesn’t include the fresh water source or Plessey Pusher CDAA array.
Map courtesy of Nasittuq (click for larger image)

Southwest view along the runway in the direction of the fuel depot seen in the distance
Photo courtesy of Nasittuq

Since I was having a hard time finding the general layout of the antenna arrays, I resorted to making a composite image from several screenshots of atlas.gc.ca 1:15000 imagery.

composite image created with imagery from atlas.gc.ca

I was quite surprised how much about CFS Alert could be found with Google; there isn’t anything "new" above, and my favourite CFS Alert video is below (also, not new).