'This is rugged country,' says Yukon premier on search for downed object

The search continues to recover an unidentified object shot down over the Yukon this weekend.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) shot the object down in Canadian airspace, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an announcement Saturday. He noted Canadian Forces personnel would be working to recover and analyze the wreckage.

Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai said Monday that recovery efforts are still underway. The object is thought to have come down in the area east of Dawson City and west of Mayo.

"This is rugged country for anybody," Pillai said in interviews with CBC. "Yukoners who have either hiked or hunted in that area would know, there's lots of elevation ... It's big country. So I would assume this will [take] quite a while to get in there and find it."

He said if anyone stumbles across it, they should get the GPS co-ordinates and call the RCMP.

Pillai met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday morning. In advance of that meeting, he said he expected they would talk about Arctic security as well as infrastructure projects and health care.

Pillai said he was fresh from meetings with other Canadian premiers about the importance of Arctic security when he learned the object had been shot down.

"It was timely," he said of those meetings, adding he's been bringing up such issues for months with other premiers and with the federal government.

Some of the discussions have revolved around modernizing the early warning system and enhancing aerospace radar systems with NORAD.

"I think in a broader sense, we have to take this into consideration. We know that over the next 20 years, the Beaufort Sea is going to be an area where we're going to see more shipping — potentially one of the most significant shipping routes in the world, in the future," he said.

"This is work we have to start now, for the safety of future Yukoners as well as Canadians."