Brig.-Gen. David Millar says planning will start in the next few weeks for a major sovereignty and emergency exercise in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, in the summer of 2010. (Patricia Bell/CBC)

The Canadian Forces plan to hold Operation Nanook, their major Arctic sovereignty and emergency exercise, in the High Arctic next summer, senior military officials said Tuesday.

It will be a change of venue for Operation Nanook, which takes place every August in Iqaluit. It is considered to be the Canadian Forces' largest annual sovereignty exercise in the Arctic.

The announcement came after Nunavut's deputy premier called on the military to hold more Arctic sovereignty operations in the territory at other times of the year.

"We welcome more sovereignty operations in the North, and possibly a little more during the mid-winter seasons," Peter Taptuna, the MLA for Kugluktuk, in western Nunavut, said Tuesday.

"I would even like to see one take place in western Nunavut."

The Canadian Forces currently deploy smaller sovereignty patrols in the High Arctic during the winter, as part of an exercise called Operation Nunalivut.

However, the winter missions are smaller than Operation Nanook, in which upwards of 700 military personnel took part in marine and air patrols earlier this month in and around Iqaluit, the territorial capital.

Brig.-Gen. David Millar said Operation Nunalivut patrols will circumnavigate Alert this coming winter, also heading out onto the ice of the Arctic Ocean.

Millar, who heads up the Canadian Forces' Joint Task Force North, said Operation Nanook will move to the Resolute Bay area in August 2010.

"The mayor of Resolute Bay approached me and asked if we would conduct an operation in the Northwest Passage," Millar said.

"Their gravest concern in the future are oil spills and the impact that that could have on the local environment and the people of Resolute Bay."

Millar said he has had some talks with the Canadian Coast Guard so far. Planning will start in earnest in the next few weeks, he said.

The High Arctic operation will focus on either a mock oil spill or a simulated search and rescue mission, giving military and government staff practice in responding to such emergencies.

The last military exercise to take place in the High Arctic was 2006's Operation Lancaster near Pond Inlet.