Northern Science Now

Thomas Lakeman
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Postdoctoral Fellowship)
Earth Sciences
Dalhousie University/Bedford Institute of Oceanography
Location: Beaufort Sea Region

The Canadian Arctic has evolved over millions of years from a forested landscape to modern tundra. Lakeman is using geological archives to better understand past environmental changes in the region. This information will help to more accurately forecast future environmental changes in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Kyle Elliott
2011-12 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Biological Sciences
University of Manitoba
Location: Coats Island, Kivalliq Region, Nunavut

Elliott has been passionate about the north ever since he was eight, staring up at a poster of Prince Leopold Island, Nunavut above his bed. His research explores the factors contributing to the long lifespan of the akpa, an Arctic seabird, as well as the consequences of that longevity, such as high levels of toxic contamination.

Andrew Hamilton
2011-12 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Environmental Fluid Mechanics
University of British Columbia
Location: Ellesmere Island, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut

Hamilton studies epishelf lakes, layers of freshwater that float above denser seawater behind ice shelves. He’s focusing on the Milne Ice Shelf off Ellesmere Island, the largest known epishelf lake in the Arctic. As the climate warms, many ice shelves in the region have collapsed, resulting in the loss of epishelf lakes. Hamilton uses a portable Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) to explore the role of the ocean in forming and sustaining epishelf lakes.

Brett Hamilton
2011-12 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Geology
University of Calgary
Location: Cumberland Peninsula, Baffin Island, Nunavut

Little is known about several large tracts of land in northern Canada, including Cumberland Peninsula on Baffin Island, Nunavut. In collaboration with the Geological Survey of Canada’s regional-scale mapping project, Hamilton is researching the region’s tectonic history. His work will be the first published study on the Cumberland Peninsula’s metamorphic geology.

Alysa McCall
2011-12 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Masters)
Biological Sciences
University of Alberta
Location: Churchill, Manitoba

McCall is studying the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population. She uses data collected from GPS satellite-linked collars and sea ice data from 1994 to 2011 to explore how changes in sea ice affect the movement patterns of polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay region.

Kristen Vinke
2011-12 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Masters)
Biology
University of Prince Edward Island
Location: Sahtu Region, Northwest Territories

In the Sahtu Region of the Northwest Territories, students work with researchers to monitor water chemistry and aquatic insects, indicators of water quality. Vinke is creating a biomonitoring program for high school students to improve the communities’ ability to conduct annual water assessments.

Naomi Harms
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Wildlife Disease Ecology
University of Saskatchewan
Location: Nunavut (East Bay Island, Cape Dorset, Southampton Island, Queen Maud Gulf Sanctuary, Baffin Island); Ungava Bay, Nunavik

Avian cholera has recently emerged in Canada’s eastern Arctic, killing large numbers of common eider at East Bay Island, Nunavut. Harms is researching the causes of the disease outbreaks and the effect of the disease on the eider.

Igor Lehnherr
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Postdoctoral Fellowship)
Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Waterloo
Location: Quttinarpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut (Lake Hazen and Skeleton Lake); Wekweeti, Northwest Territories (Snare Lake)

Lehnherr is studying water chemistry and sediments of Arctic lakes to understand current metabolic rates in the lakes and to reconstruct lake productivity over the past few hundred years. By understanding the past, Lehnherr hopes to better predict how environmental and climate change affects freshwater ecosystems in the Arctic.

Jeremy Brammer
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
McGill University
Location: Old Crow Flats, Yukon Territory

Brammer integrated community-based environmental monitoring, or local knowledge with scientific monitoring efforts. His objective was to develop a pragmatic approach to knowledge integration through monitoring tools and research techniques that facilitate communication between northern communities and institutionalized science.

Étienne Godin
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Geography
Université de Montréal
Location: Bylot Island, Nunavut

Godin is developing a model of permafrost gullying (the creation of ditches on the land) and the hazards of the process for infrastructure and the environment. He is studying the thermo-erosion of ice wedges, which leads to the degradation of permafrost, and the impact of gullies on local drainage networks. Godin will develop a heat transfer equation, analyze aerial and satellite photos, and conduct a drilling campaign in these gullies.

Kaitlyn Breton-Honeyman
2011-12 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Environmental and Life Sciences
Trent University
Location: Nunavik (Kangiqsualujjuaq, Quaqtaq, Ivujivik and Kuujjuaraapik)

Breton-Honeyman’s research is centered on two endangered beluga whale populations, which are slowly recovering from commercial whaling a century ago. She’s using Nunavimmiut (Inuit) knowledge and aerial surveys to contribute to our understanding of beluga ecology and habitat selection in the hopes of conserving and recovering the populations.

Lauren MacDonald
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Biology
University of Waterloo
Location: Wapusk National Park, Manitoba

MacDonald is studying shallow lakes in Wapusk National Park to identify drivers of landscape changes such as climate warming and rapid increases in the Lesser Snow Goose population. The information MacDonald gathers with help to better predict how the lakes will respond to climate and wildlife changes in the future.

Barry Robinson
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (PhD)
Ecology
University of Alberta
Location: Coxe Islands, Melville Peninsula, Nunavut

Robinson is monitoring a population of peregrine falcons breeding in the Coxe Islands, Nunavut. As the peregrine falcons’ prey may be affected by climate change, Robinson is investigating how the supply of prey affects the arctic peregrine’s forage selection and breeding behaviour.

Harneet Gill
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Masters)
Environmental Studies
University of Victoria
Location: Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories

Gill is investigating the ecological impacts of the Dempster Highway on plants, soil and permafrost in the Yukon's Peel Plateau. She is also working with youth from Fort McPherson to use videos, photos and audio to compile a web-based map of environmental changes.

Geoff Kershaw
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Masters)
Environmental Studies
University of Dalhousie
Location: Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories

Kershaw is researching the impact of the oilsands on ecosystems downwind of the industry by analyzing pollutants captured in tree cells and the suppressed growth of those trees. Kershaw is working in partnership with the Clearwater River Dene First Nation.

Petra Villette
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research (Masters)
Zoology
University of British Columbia
Location: Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory

Live-trapping to collect data can cause stress and disrupt animals’ normal activities. Villette is studying the feasibility of using motion detection and digital film cameras to estimate the population density of small mammals in the boreal forest. She's also collecting data on how these animals behave around live traps.

Sara Kuleza
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Dept. of Biology
University of Saskatchewan
Location: Wolf Creek watershed, Yukon Territory

Kuleza is studying how the increase in soil temperature and nutrients due to climate change affect native tundra plants in the Yukon. She’s also examining how much these climate change factors allow for the invasion of boreal plant species to the tundra environment.

Anjali Karve
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Faculty of Forestry
University of Toronto
Location: Kapuskasing, Ontario

Karve is exploring how the commercial removal of tree and plant debris from Ontario’s northern boreal forest for biofuel production may impact small mammal ecology and behaviour.

Marco Raponi
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Environmental & Life Sciences Graduate Program
Trent University
Location: Ontario (Auden and Nakina)

Raponi is researching how insect harassment may exacerbate habitat loss for woodland caribou in a 100-kilometre expanse of managed boreal forest northeast of Lake Nipigon.

Lori Schroeder
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Dept. of Renewable Resources
University of Alberta
Location: Aishihik, Yukon Territory

Schroeder is studying the impact of reintroduced wood bison on native grasslands in southwest Yukon. Wood bison are considered threatened nationally under the Canadian Species at Risk Act; however they are hunted locally in order to protect the landscape. The landscape contains relatively rare grassland ecosystems, which are relicts of the last Ice Age and house endangered plant species found nowhere else on earth.

Scott Williamson
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Dept. of Biological Sciences
University of Alberta
Location: Ruby Range, Yukon Territory

Williamson is measuring how the reduction of snow cover and increase in shrub cover, as a result of climate change, affect tundra albedo (i.e. reflectance of sunlight on the earth’s surface) in the southwest Yukon. His project will identify which landscapes are rapidly changing and which are showing resilience.

Krista Sittler
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Natural Resources and Environmental Studies
University of Northern British Columbia
Location: Besa-Prophet watershed, Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, British Columbia

Sittler is studying the influences of prescribed fire on habitat choice and resource partitioning by elk and thinhorn sheep in the Muskwa-Kechika region of the northern Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. Her goal is to gain knowledge on the role that fire plays in driving the interactions among two ecologically important species in a world renowned predator-prey system.

Ayden Sherritt
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Environmental and Life Sciences
Trent University
Location: Lake Winnipeg and northeastern Ontario

By examining GPS data of the locations of three different woodland caribou populations, Sherritt hopes to determine the influences of both human disturbances and natural features on caribou fidelity. His research will also provide a basis for hands-off method of monitoring population health.

Josef MacLeod
2012-13 Recipient: W. Garfield Weston Fellowship for Northern Conservation (Postdoctoral fellow)
Biology department
Laurentian University
Location: “Ring of Fire”, northern Ontario

MacLeod is surveying the understudied lakes in the “Ring of Fire” region of northern Ontario to collect information on physical and biological variables to provide a means for comparison in the face of future development in the region.