On the scene with Yellowknife RCMP

It's 4:45 a.m. and pitch black as I fumble to stuff my recorder and notebook into my bag. My work phone pings.

"Here," it says.

I run out the door and into an unmarked car. Before pulling away, Const. Elenore Sturko, the Yellowknife RCMP's media relations officer, and I go over a few things: whose faces I have to blur because they're undercover, when I'm allowed to Tweet and where my bulletproof vest is.

We cruise around for about a half hour. We have to kill time. I guess the RCMP briefing is taking a little longer than expected. Sturko regales me with tales of when she was an officer in B.C. and some of the other drug raids she's been on. She's interrupted by a text.

"We're good to go," she says.

We pull up to the RCMP detachment in downtown Yellowknife. Five other cars, all unmarked but one, pull out. We follow them.

"This is a stack," she says.

A stack is essentially a convoy. It's to make sure all the officers arrive at the same time. We race to Northlands trailer park about five minutes away. Everyone parks in front of a red trailer. Police start piling out of the vehicles.

I look around and they're everywhere. There's about three across the street. There's some about 200 metres up the road hiding behind some cars. There's two crouching below the trailer's porch.

Then a group of about seven officers wearing jeans, sweatshirts and bulletproof vests rush past the car. They run up to the trailer's door.

"Police! Search warrant! Police!"

With one bang the door is open. Then, silence. Sturko and I sit motionless in the car waiting for something to happen.

We sit that way for a few minutes until one by one the officers emerge with seven people in handcuffs. Two women are placed in the back of a police truck. The five men are put in the back of a white prisoner transport van.

One of the officers, who I later learn is the sergeant, walks overs to our vehicle. Sturko rolls down the window.

"Five minutes and then we'll go," he says.

Shortly after, we're back in our "stack" and racing toward Con Road. The sun's coming up now. We drive past where everyone else parks and turn a corner.

"Ready?" Sturko asks. I say yes but in reality I have no idea what she's talking about. Then she cranks the wheel as we speed into a U-turn. It's all I can do to hold back vomit.

When the car stops we're facing the front of a grey trailer. Once again, officers are everywhere. A group rush up the porch.

"Police! Search Warrant!"

One of them kicks in the door. Six people are arrested at this house. The sergeant walks out onto the porch with a smile on his face.

"That means it's successful," Sturko says.