With the increasing turbulence in the global security environment, comes the requirement for an increasing presence in the Canadian Arctic to respond to regional challenges and provide security. Such presence requires temporary and permanent installations, which must inherently carry with it some considerations for extreme load events, such as blast and impacts. In tandem with this is the expanding need to build more environmentally sustainable buildings, for which wood has been identified in recent years. However, questions remain on how wood responds to blast and impact loads when exposed to cold temperatures, typical of the arctic region. To respond to this gap in research, an experimental program was carried out to investigate the flexural behaviour of glued-laminated timber (glulam) subjected to impact loading under ambient and winter arctic temperatures. Dynamic testing was conducted using a drop weight impact hammer. For strain rates between 1.13 to 1.38 s^-1, an average dynamic increase factor of 1.23 on the maximum resistance at ambient temperatures was observed. The cold temperature beams were seen to experience a 13% increase in strength beyond their normal temperature counterparts under dynamic effects. Increasesin stiffness due to cold temperature were also observed under staticand dynamic loading.
