Photo By Airman 1st Class Theodore Gowdy | U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Myles Krischel, a student in the 11th Air Force Arctic...... read more read more
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Alaska is home to a vast, majestic and ever-present wilderness. Even from the heart of the city, it can be seen on the horizon and true isolation is only a short drive away. 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. “There are so many dispersed sites that require our attention, but not everybody could get the training they needed for those locations.”
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. ART, and its amazing trainers, teach us that anyone can tackle being in Alaska, but that there are ways to plan and execute in the Alaskan wild that best protect us from danger and risk.”
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, there have been talks about expanding the requirement to the 3rd Wing as well. Ultimately, he hopes the course will become part of the standard in-processing for newly arrived Airmen.
The training Baird and his team provide is not limited to operational applications. He explained that it also frees Airmen up to participate in cold-weather activities or just feel confident in doing things during the winter.
“You could just be driving to Fairbanks for the weekend, and you slide off the road somewhere,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Dalyn Castillo, an ART cadre member. “You don’t know what you don’t know. So, if you’re prepared here, your chance of survival skyrockets.”
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, and the individual experiences of the cadre members are integrated into the lessons. Today, the course takes place over two days and includes 20 hours of instruction.
The class begins not in the woods, but in a warm basement classroom. Knowledge is the real foundation of the course so there are several briefings for students to introduce basic concepts and underline the risks of prolonged exposure to the elements. 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.”
Not everyone has difficulty with the knots, of course. The class is made up of a diverse group of Airmen of different ranks, different jobs and varying degrees of outdoor experience. U.S. Airman 1st Class Kyndal Clark, one of the ART students, grew up in Florida and was assigned to JBER for her first base. She was looking forward to the course but admitted that the cold was a concern.
U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Kyle Little, on the other hand, 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. As an introductory survival course, personal equipment is not a requirement. 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. Once they arrive at camp, they’ll receive sleeping bags.
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. The instructors gave the class a scenario and explained that the goal in a survival situation is to be recovered. Students use emergency blankets as well as rocks, logs and boughs to create highly visible shapes that could be seen from an aircraft.
Once at the campsite, the first order of business is a demonstration of two shelter-building techniques. In the end, half of the class will construct a single-pole shelter, and the other half will make one with no pole. Regardless of the style, they’ll need to make them an appropriate size.
“You want to have the pole at about hip height,” explained Roseberry, the ART cadre member leading the demonstration. “You want enough room for you and your partner to sleep but not too much room. Your body heat and breath can’t warm a huge area.”
The students are shown how to make a fire using only their six-inch knife and a ferro rod. With the knife, logs are split into smaller and smaller pieces to be used as kindling and tinder. Eventually, small sticks are shaved with the knife to produce thin flakes of wood. Then the ferro rod 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..
“You may be thinking, there are easier ways to start fires,” said U.S. Airman 1st Class David Hundrieser, an ART cadre member. “Yes, that’s true. This firecraft is really a metaphor for the whole training. This is what you have to do when everything goes wrong. You should prepare as best you can, so you don’t find yourself in a survival situation.”
According to U.S. Senior Airman Keithsran Khem, an ART cadre member, fire is a nicety but not a necessity for survival. Staying warm through movement is much easier and more efficient and that finding shelter and water should take precedence.
After the firecraft, everyone eats dinner and gets ready for bed. The sleeping bags issued to the class are specially rated for cold weather and cover the whole body. A drawstring around the face hole can be cinched tight so that only the occupant’s mouth is exposed. The instructors explained that if you breathe into the bag, the moisture from your breath will build up in the bag and freeze, making you much colder.
The second day of training begins with a trek back to the top of Camp Madbull for a series of briefings, this time more specific and in-depth, on cold-weather survival. Then the class returns to the campsite for more hands-on instruction.
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.
“It’s important to choose fresh snow from the topmost layer to avoid contaminants,” explained U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Heflin-Vasquez, the noncommissioned officer in charge of logistics for Arctic Resiliency Training.
Once the class breaks down their shelters and packs up their gear, they begin the final walk back to the top of Camp Madbull to meet the bus. 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.
| Date Taken: | 12.11.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.12.2025 19:18 |
| Story ID: | 554093 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 18 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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