Canadian Forces Station Alert (), often shortened to CFS Alert (), is a signals intelligence intercept facility of the Canadian Armed Forces at Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. Located on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, Alert is the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world. It takes its name from HMS Alert, which wintered east of the present station off what is now Cape Sheridan, Nunavut in 1875–1876. The entire population of Baffin, Unorganized, part of the Baffin Region, the Statistics Canada name for Qikiqtaaluk, resides here. As of the 2016 Canadian census the population was 62, an increase of 1,140 per cent over the 2011 census. History Alert Wireless Station Alert, then in Canada's Northwest Territories, was first settled April 9, 1950, when the first staff for the Joint Arctic Weather Station (JAWS) arrived and began construction. Since the beginning of the JAWS project, the Canadian military had been interested in the establishment at Alert for several reasons: the JAWS facility extended Canadian sovereignty over a large uninhabited area which Canada claimed as its sovereign territory, and furthermore, its proximity to the Soviet Union made it of strategic importance. Alert is closer to Moscow (c. ) than it is to the capital Ottawa (c. ). Thus, the possibility of using the site for intercepting radio signals was deemed to warrant a military presence. In 1956, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), which was expanding its presence throughout the high Arctic with the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line radar network, established a building uphill from the Department of Transport's JAWS station to house "High Arctic Long Range Communications Research", or signals intelligence operations. In 1957, Alert Wireless Station was conceived as an intercept facility to be jointly staffed by personnel from the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the RCAF. Five additional buildings were constructed: a mess, three barracks, and a power house and vehicle maintenance building, in addition to the existing operations building, built in 1956. The operations building housed the radio intercept and cryptographic equipment. On 1 September 1958 control of the station was transferred from the RCAF to the Canadian Army and it officially began operations. Canadian Forces Station Alert The following decade saw a dramatic expansion of the station with a correspondingly greater number of personnel stationed there. The 1 February 1968 unification of the RCN, RCAF, and army to form