Across Nunavut, new emphasis is beingplaced on the importance and relevance ofInuit traditional knowledge in the contem-porary world. Increasingly, efforts are beingmade to record and document the knowl-edge, life experiences, and family histories ofInuit elders throughout Nunavut. A commu-nity-based Oral History Project in Igloolikprovides an example of successful ongoingwork in this important field.

The Igloolik Oral History Project is a col-laborative project run by the Inullariit EldersSociety of Igloolik in collaboration with theIgloolik Research Centre. The project had itsformal start in 1986 following a meeting ofIgloolik elders. At this meeting there wasgeneral agreement on the importance ofembarking on a project to record and docu-ment the traditional knowledge and oralhistory of the Amitturmiut – the Inuit livingin the Northern Foxe Basin area of Nunavut.The project would have the following goals:1) Inuktitut language retention (the elders

expressed great concern over the in-creasing loss of language skills amongthe younger generations, and felt thatrecordings would show how Inuktitutshould be spoken);

2) Create a record of how things were donein the past, for the benefit of future gen-erations of Amitturmiut;

3) Create a record of Amitturmiut familyhistories;

4) Record a body of accessible Inuit tradi-

tional knowledge to inform the largerworld, especially southern researchers(this point was based on a deeply feltsense that researchers in general, andbiologists in particular, tended to be dis-missive of Inuit knowledge).During this meeting the question of pay-

ment for interviews was addressed. Someelders felt they should be paid while othersthought that they should pass on theirknowledge free of charge. In the end it wasdecided that a fee, or honorarium, should beprovided, not to pay for the knowledgeoffered, but strictly to compensate the elderfor the time spent on the interview.

The project’s start coincided with thefieldwork of a researcher, Wim Rasing, whowas studying the administration of Cana-dian justice in Igloolik, and who later pub-lished his findings in a book, Too Many Peo-ple. Rasing conducted a series of audiotapedinterviews with Igloolik elders coveringaspects of Inuit traditional law and socialorganization. These interviews – numberingaround thirty – became the nucleus of theproject’s collection that has now grown toinclude almost five hundred interviews.Additions to the collection derive from twoprinciple sources: the project itself, andcopies of taped interviews donated by visit-ing researchers.

Over the years, funding for the projecthas come, piecemeal, from a wide variety of sources including federal and territorial

The Igloolik Oral History Project 1

Nunavik Research Centre:

Community-based Research

in Northern Quebec 3

Abandoned Mining Exploration Sites

in Nunavik 5

Tundra Northwest 99 6

New International Bathymetric Chart

of the Arctic Ocean 7

Is Arctic Sea Ice Rapidly Thinning? 8

Life at a 3.5 Million-year-old Beaver

Pond in the Canadian Arctic Islands,

and the Modern Scene 11

Horizon 14

What’s New 14

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I N T H I S I S S U E T H E I G L O O L I KO R A L H I S T O R Y P R O J E C T

John MacDonald

A draft page from the seal anatomy section of theInullariit Elders Society visual dictionary, showing theanterior part of the seal after skinning. Photo: InullariitSociety.

government departments and agencies,regional Inuit political and cultural organi-sations, charitable foundations, and privatedonations. Unfortunately, there has been noone source of sustaining funding and thecontinuation of the project from year to yeardepends largely on the continuing success offund-raising efforts. It is estimated that the“processing” of a single interview from therecording phase through translation, tran-scription and word-processing, to dubbingand archiving can cost upwards of $800.00a tape.

Igloolik Research Centre staff managethe project on behalf of the Inullariit EldersSociety. Major administrative tasks include:fund-raising, financial management, inter-viewing, translation, transcribing, manage-ment of the local collection, archiving, andthe provision of access to project materials.

From the outset it was decided to try tocover as broad a range of topics as possible.The choice of topics is determined variouslyby the elders themselves, by the staff of theIgloolik Research Centre, and, sometimes,by visiting researchers. This approach nec-

essarily involved a mix of interests which,by and large, proved highly productive ineliciting information which otherwise mightnot have been considered had the choice of topic rested with a single or even a fewindividuals.

Major topics covered to date – some ingreater depth than others – have included:personal and family histories; contact histo-ry (including the introduction of Christian-ity); social change; dispute resolution andsocial control; child rearing, traditionalmedicine and childbirth; spirituality andshamanism; hunting techniques; animalbehaviour and biology; skin preparationand sewing; tool making; sled and kayakconstruction; shelter construction; localgeography and place names; astronomy;snow-drift formation; weather conditions;navigation; and legends and myths.

Interviews are usually planned a day ortwo ahead of the actual interview session atwhich time the topic is agreed between theelder and the interviewer. This gives theelder time to prepare, and to engage in somerecollection in advance of the interview.Immediately prior to the interview a waiverform is completed and signed by both theelder and the interviewer. This ensuresinformed consent to the interview and

allows the elder to choose, from a number ofoptions, the conditions under which theinformation given in the tape will be ac-cessed. And, finally, prior to the interviewan identification number is assigned to theaudiotape, a number that will be used subse-quently on the translations, transcripts andcomputer files deriving from the interview.

Interview sessions usually last approxi-mately an hour. Apart from keeping theinterview within the bounds of the agreedtopic, or topics, ver y little structure isimposed on the session. A conversationalflow is encouraged in which the elder res-ponds to a question fully before the nextquestion is asked, usually based on somepoint raised in the response just given.

Every effort is made to have the audiotapetranslated into English as soon as possibleafter the interview. This ensures that pointsin need of clarification, particularly those todo with archaic or specialized vocabulary,can be checked while the interview is stillfresh in the minds of both the interviewerand the elder. In the course of translationspecialized terms are noted and explainedfully, either in parentheses within the text,or as footnotes. Usually the interview is word-processed concurrently with translation.

Over the years, Louis Tapardjuk andLeah Otak, both of Igloolik, have painstak-ingly translated most of the project’s inter-views. This has ensured not only a broadconsistency in translation style but also agrowing ability on the part of these transla-tors to work confidently with the elders’material. Regrettably, many younger trans-lators have difficulty working with elders’interviews where they frequently encounterunfamiliar topics and vocabulary. This situ-ation is unlikely to improve until there areintensive training courses in place aimedexclusively at the translation and interpreta-tion of Inuit oral history documents.

As resources and time permit, interviews– or more often portions of interviews – are

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Michael Kwan (left) and Alix Gordon using acid to digesta tissue sample that will be analysed for mercury in theatomic absorption spectrometer. Photo: NunavikResearch Centre.

transcribed into Inuktitut syllabics in prepa-ration for eventual publication. This, forinstance, is the case with some seventyhours of interviews contributed to the pro-ject by the late Noah Piugaattuk. Numerousportions of his interviews, selected, sortedand compiled thematically, have been tran-scribed into syllabics, and, along with theirEnglish translations form the basis of a cur-rent book project that will portray the lifeexperiences and knowledge of Piugaattuk.

From the beginning of the project it wasdecided to deposit copies of all audiotapes,translations, and transcriptions with thePrince of Wales Heritage Centre in Yel-lowknife. All original materials are kept inIgloolik at the Igloolik Research Centre.When Nunavut establishes its own archivesthe project’s materials currently held at thePrince of Wales Heritage Centre will betransferred to the Nunavut archives.

The interview collection is accessed inthree ways: by listening to the Inuktitutaudiotapes, by reading the translations ortranscripts, or by viewing the files on a com-puter monitor. The latter method is pre-ferred when searching for information on aspecific topic. Using various word-searchprograms it is possible to locate quickly allreferences to a given topic occurring in theentire collection. Having done this, the userhas the choice of referring to the audiotapesidentified in the search, reading the selectedinterview printouts, or simply browsing theappropriate files on-screen.

The interviews are widely and increas-ingly used within Igloolik and beyond. Edu-cators and researchers, particularly thoseengaged in linguistic, social, and biologicalstudies, consult them regularly, as do re-gional, national, and international mediaorganizations. In Igloolik the tapes are cher-ished by family members, and broadcastfrom time over the community radio.

Conditions relating to the access of theproject’s materials have evolved over the

years. Generally, in keeping with the elders’wishes that their knowledge should be usedas widely as possible, unlimited access isusually permitted. Some restrictions, howev-er, have evolved to govern the collection’saccess by academic researchers, the mainone being that while the researchers areable to consult the entire corpus they mayonly copy portions of it directly relevant totheir specific area of study. Material from theproject used in academic publications re-quires citation of the elders’ name, togetherwith the interview number. Acknowledge-ment of the Igloolik Inullariit Elders Societyand the Igloolik Research Centre is alsorequired.

There is a growing emphasis on gettingthe material more widely circulated and, tothis end, consideration is being given to pro-ducing a CD-ROM of selected, edited, inter-views representative of the entire collection to

date. In addition, work is well underway oncompiling a visual dictionary, using digitaltechnology. The first volume of the dictionaryfocuses on animal anatomy and biology.

While the project is ongoing, unfortu-nately its scope is being reduced each yearby the passing of elders. About half of theoriginal thirty contributors have died sincethe project’s inception in 1986. Nevertheless,the interviews continue and, increasingly,younger elders are offering to record theirown unique perspectives and experiences forthe benefit of future generations of Igluling-miut and others.

John MacDonald is co-ordinator of theIgloolik Research Centre.

The Inullariit Society won the 1998Northern Science award for its oral histo-ry work (see Meridian, Spring/Summer2000).

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Experienced Inuit hunters can easily identifyanimals that are unfit to eat – most of thetime. But even the most observant cannotspot evidence of the microscopic pathogensthat infect some game. Since 1992 Kuujju-aq’s Nunavik Research Centre, operated byMakivik Corporation, has been offering Nuna-

vik Inuit the assurance that the food they eat isfree of Trichinella nativa, the microscopicnematode that causes trichinellosis.

Trichinellosis outbreaks are rare, butwhen it strikes the disease is serious andmay affect a relatively large number of peo-ple. In 1987, 41 Salluit residents contractedtrichinellosis after eating walrus, and suf-fered the typical symptoms: muscle pain,diarrhoea, vomiting, and swelling. Trichi-nella infect about 25% of northeast HudsonBay walrus, and while cooking destroys theorganisms, they can survive in raw or agedmeat (igunaq).

Before eating or distributing walrus meatto the community Nunavik hunters sendsamples to the research centre, whichemploys two biologists, a toxicologist, four

N U N A V I K R E S E A R C H C E N T R E :C O M M U N I T Y - B A S E D R E S E A R C H

I N N O R T H E R N Q U E B E C

A beluga whale swimming underwater at the NastapokaRiver (Eastern Hudson Bay) where it has been taggedwith a satellite transmitter, July 1999. This is a jointproject with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans andthe local Hunting Fishing and Trapping Association tomeasure the time belugas spend underwater (to correctpopulation estimates done by aerial survey) and todiscover where the whales spend their time offshore.Photo: Nunavik Research Centre.

The Nunavik Research Centre, showing the new sectionadded in 2000 (right) . The centre also houses acartography section that conducts land-use studies,creates GIS databases, and provides mapping services.Photo: Nunavik Research Centre.

wildlife technicians, and a veterinarian.Under veterinary supervision techniciansperform a Canadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA) diagnostic procedure for trichinellalarvae and pass the results on to the hunterwithin a day of the sample’s arrival at thelab.

The research centre’s facilities include ananalytical lab, a pathology lab, and a wetlab, offering plenty of scope for a variety ofresearch. In collaboration with CFIA, HealthCanada, and the US Department of Agricul-ture (USDA), the centre has initiated epi-demiological surveys on food-borne diseasesin the subsistence harvest. Researchers use aUSDA agglutination test to detect anti-Toxo-plasma gondii antibodies in plasma ofwildlife and to investigate the sources ofhuman toxoplasmosis, which can causeneurological disorders in newborns.

Centre staff are also working on botu-lism, caused by the clostridium botulinumneurotoxin, which thrives in anaerobic con-ditions. Standard Inuit methods of agingmeat or oil – which include placing it underrocks in a cache or in a sealskin bag buried

in gravel – allow air to circulate, preventingthe clostridium spores from flowering. Butincorrect aging in a sealed container like a plastic bag provides a perfect breedingground for the disease, especially if placed ina heated house or outside in the sun. Clos-tridium is common in soil, and the centre isconducting research to determine whether it is present at butchering sites, and also to find out what environmental conditions it thrives in.

For studying contaminants in countryfood, a major concern of Inuit since the

1980s, the centre has a trace metal analyti-cal laboratory, the first of its kind in theEastern Arctic. Two state-of-the-art atomicabsorption spectrometers perform electro-thermal and flame modes of metal analysisas well as cold vapour analysis for mercury.Specially equipped for trace-level samplepreparation, the laboratory has a Class M3.5clean bench, an ultra-pure water supply,and a HEPA filter ventilation system. A full-time analytic toxicologist manages the lab,and trains analytical assistants. A strict qual-ity assurance program ensures high dataquality.

The centre also does wildlife populationdynamics studies needed for wildlife man-agement, and its biologists have many yearsof experience conducting demographic stud-ies on fish, mussels, waterfowl, and beluga.They collaborate with government scientistsfrom the south in migration studies, satellitetagging of beluga, and goose banding. Tech-nicians at the centre determine the age offish, shellfish, caribou, and marine mam-mals – an important factor in predictingtheir future population status – by examin-ing layers of calcareous material depositedannually in thin sections of mammal teeth,in scales and otoliths (ear stones) of fish,and umbo (hinges) of shellfish. The centre isworking with the Department of Fisheriesand Oceans, with Environment Canada ongoose studies, and with the provincial gov-ernment on caribou and musk ox.

Research centre scientists do in-housestudies and provide environmental expertiseon contract to organizations like the KativikRegional Government. They undertake base-line studies for mining environmental im-pact monitoring, and stream enhancementto assist arctic char migration. They havealso been involved with a local project toraise arctic char.

The centre is very much a community-based facility. Hunters, highly observant and

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More than 600 abandoned mineral exploration sites likethis one lie scattered across Nunavik. Photo: RobertLanari.

Mineral exploration fever in the 50s and 60sleft its mark on many places in Nunavik.Before 1976 companies were not required toclean up their exploration sites; when theyleft, most abandoned everything – heavyequipment, buildings, fuel drums, and un-used acid – marring Nunavik’s landscapewith a hodgepodge of litter, and contami-nating the soil in many places.

In 1997, after requests from nearby com-munities, the Kativik Regional Governmentbegan cleaning up a few sites, assisted byfunding from Indian and Northern AffairsCanada. The project was interrupted in1998, resumed in 1999, and halted again atthe end of that year. The communitiesturned to Makivik Corporation, which agreed to take over the project despite lim-ited resources. Site cleanup is now inprogress.

In summer when the debris is free of iceand snow, workers travel to the sites by all-terrain vehicle and move it to hilltops. Theyreturn in winter and transport it to themunicipal dump by snowmobile. Thismethod costs less than using helicopters,and brings some economic benefit to thecommunity.

Once work began the inadequacy of apiecemeal approach to site restoration,working only when funding was available,soon became clear. Workers were discover-ing an astonishing amount of debris, andthe villages were reporting more and more

sites. In light of the need for systematic plan-ning Kativik Regional Government, MakivikCorporation, and Laval University estab-lished a joint inventory project to find andidentify abandoned mine exploration sites.In 2000 the Kawawachikamach NaskapiNation joined; and the project completed an

number and approximate size of sites but not the quantity of material or level ofcontamination. Determining the amount ofwaste requires on-site investigation.

Our Evaluation and Priorities Programwill evaluate 85 of these sites over the nexttwo years. The Kativik Regional Govern-ment, Makivik, Laval University, the Kawa-wachikamach Naskapi Nation, and Envi-ronment Canada created and partly financethe program, the remainder coming fromIndian and Northern Affairs Canada’sNorthern Ecosystem Initiative, and the Que-bec Ministry of Natural Resources. The pro-gram will develop site characterizations fortwenty-five priority sites and will investigate60 more, ranking each according to poten-tial environmental risk. In this context we will evaluate the potential of IKONOSremote-sensing technology for inventoryand characterization of mining and othersites.

We hope these efforts will soon result, atthe very least, in the creation of a restora-tion program for significant sites. We believethis project constitutes a fundamental steptoward sustainable development in theregion by reconciling mining explorationwith the exploitation of renewable resourcesfor subsistence or tourism.

Robert Lanari is Project Director for theMakivik Corporation, which speaks for Inuitregarding implementation of the JamesBay and Northern Québec Agreement.

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A B A N D O N E D M I N I N G E X P L O R A T I O N S I T E S I N N U N A V I K

Robert Lanari

exhaustive inventory of the entire regionnorth of the 55th parallel.

Our project has successfully combinedindigenous traditional knowledge with thescientific approach. We have integratedinformation from interviews with key infor-mants in all villages with data from govern-ment sources; and in a small part of the areawe are experimenting with high-resolutionremote sensing for identifying sites.

The inventory has produced convincingresults, identifying 600 sites scattered acrossthe area, mostly in the Labrador and Unga-va troughs. Some are near villages, includ-ing major sites near Tasiujaq and Aupalukon Ungava Bay. The inventory shows the

constantly travelling over the land and seaice, are its eyes and ears. If they report aproblem, researchers investigate. The centrealso relies on their assistance for sampling.

Many Inuit have said that the way to

improving life in their communities lies inusing the best of Inuit knowledge alongsidethe best of southern knowledge. The Nuna-vik Research Centre provides an excellentexample of this principle in action.

For more information contact: Makivik Cor-poration, Nunavik Research Centre, P.O. Box179, Kuujjuaq, QC JOM 1CO. Phone: (819)964-2951, Fax: (819) 964-2230. E-mail:research @makivik.org.

John Davis (left), Assistant Deputy Minister of Science atFisheries and Oceans Canada, presenting a painting –“Icebreakers”, by Christopher Walker – to SwedishAmbassador Lennart Alvin at the Canada-Sweden ArcticScience Workshop held in Winnipeg in May. Photo:Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

What happens when foreign scientistsworking on global environmental issuesrequire information from the Canadian Arc-tic – information that Canadian researcherson shoestring budgets can’t provide? TheTundra Northwest 99 expedition provides anexample of how foreign countries with well-funded arctic science programs can take thelead in conducting priority arctic research inCanada.

In the summer of 1999 the expedition’sSwedish and Canadian researchers made atwo-way trip though Canada’s Arctic waterson the CGS Louis S. St-Laurent to gatherecological data. Using the icebreaker as abase for boat and helicopter excursionsashore, they gathered ecological data tocompare with information from a similarproject in Russia, the 1994 Swedish-RussianTundra Ecology Expedition.

Sweden covered most of the costs of Tun-dra Northwest 99, including the substantialbill for using the vessel and its equipment,while Canada contributed expertise crucialto the expedition’s success. Scientists fromFisheries and Oceans Canada, EnvironmentCanada, Natural Resources Canada, andCanadian universities worked with Swedishresearchers to supplement and improve thedesign of the programs, and to choose thesampling locations. Some participated in theexpedition itself.

The scientific programme included fivemain themes: interactions between plants,herbivores, and predators; biodiversity inthe arctic tundra; migratory birds in the arc-tic environment; freshwater ecosystems inthe High Arctic; and climatic change andpollution in the arctic tundra.

Terrestrial community studies looked at

interactions between plants, herbivores, andpredators. The relatively few species in thearctic make it ideal for this kind of research.

Tundra biodiversity studies examined awide variety of organisms on the same spot

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Nuuk

Iqaluit

Pond Inlet

Igloolik

Tuktoyaktuk

Prudhoe Bay

MAGNETICNORTH POLE

BanksIsland

VictoriaIsland

Devon Island

EllesmereIsland

ALASKA

GREENLANDResolute

Ringnes Island

Axel Heiberg Island

NORTHWESTTERRITORIES

NUNAVUT

QUEBEC

Bay Fiord

After twenty years a new InternationalBathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean(IBCAO) has been produced. All five coastalstates that border the Arctic Ocean partici-pated in making the map as well as Iceland,Germany and Sweden. This group con-structed a digital database containing alldata north of 64 degrees. Data coverage inthe older map at lower latitudes tended to befairly good where ice cover was not a hin-drance but at higher latitudes where ice wasmore prevalent, major features were notwell delineated. New data from recent ice-breaker and submarine cruises were mergedwith older soundings. These came fromnewly declassified bathymetric data collect-ed from US and British submarines and thepublic archives of a number of national datacentres.

The new bathymetric data provide anupdated description of the major features ofthe Arctic Ocean including the Lomonosovand Alpha ridges and the Chukchi Plateau.The East Siberian and Laptev seas are in-cised by paleo-river channels only tens ofmetres deep. The information contained inthis improved representation of the seaflooris expected to advance our understanding ofthe geological framework and the ocean cir-culation by providing constraints for geo-physical and oceanographic modelling. Itwill also be useful to coastal states in defin-ing the outer juridical boundaries of theircontinental shelves by providing a commondescription of the bathymetric features thatimpinge upon implementation of Article 76of the Law of the Sea.

Through Article 76, the Law of the Seaauthorizes wide-margin coastal states toexercise sovereign rights beyond the nor-mal 200 nautical mile limit. Bathymetricand geological criteria provide the basisfor defining the outer limits of extendedjurisdiction. This requires well-docu-mented assembly and analysis of a widerange of information in a manner con-sistent with the reporting requirements ofthe UN Commission on the Limits of theContinental Shelf.

H.R. Jackson and R. Macnab are physi-cal oceanographers with Geological Sur-vey of Canada, Atlantic.

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01 at the same time using a standardized sam-

pling technique, thereby making a uniquecontribution to the discipline.

Bird studies aimed at a comprehensiveinvestigation and analysis of migration ecol-ogy in high arctic Canada and Alaska. Be-cause the arctic is in some ways an extremeenvironment for migrating birds, this kindof research helps in understanding thestresses on migratory birds in general.

Lake ecosystem studies tested new theo-ries, developed in temperate climates, inarctic lakes.

Studies relating to climate change andpollution emphasized the role of arcticbioindicators as “early warning systems”and of the arctic as a global sink for pollu-tants. Because many of the expedition’s climate change scientists work together

through international research networks,their findings will become part of the cur-rent body of international climate changeknowledge.

The Tundra Northwest 99 Expeditionalso recognized that understanding the Arc-tic’s importance to humanity - and commu-nicating that importance to the public -demands a collaboration of different view-points and means of expression. Invitedalong was one of Sweden’s foremost com-posers, Karin Rehnqvist. Ms Rehnqvist drewinspiration from the trip for a major neworchestral work entitled Arktis Arktis!,which orchestras have performed in Swe-den and Scotland.

This past May the Canada-Sweden ArcticScience Workshop, held in co-operationwith the Government of Canada and theEuropean Union, presented some of theexpedition’s findings. It also included pre-

sentations by two Canadian authors, ElaineDewar (Bones) and Wayne Grady (TheQuiet Limit of the World), and a culturalevening featuring a performance by theWinnipeg Symphony of Breaking the Ice,and Between Sky and Sea, two movementsfrom Arktis Arktis!.

Tundra Northwest 99 was an imagina-tive and ambitious project, an excellentexample of international scientific coopera-tion, and a credit to those who planned it.Canadian scientists need the resources to beable to mount expeditions of this quality inour own arctic. Then we can invite foreignscientists along – instead of relying on ourwell-funded guests to take the initiative andfoot the bill.

N E W I N T E R N A T I O N A L B A T H Y M E T R I C C H A R T O F T H E A R C T I C O C E A N

H.R. Jackson and R. Macnab

Figure 1Changed ice thickness latter minus earlier submarineperiods, showing 29 submarine evaluation locations.

Global warming focuses attention on theArctic as an “early warning system” whereenvironmental changes may happen morequickly than further south. Some, likeshrinking glaciers and melting permafrost,are fairly easy to track. But others, likechanges to sea ice, are more difficult. Unlikeglaciers and permafrost, sea ice movesaround.

Historical records from whaling and

sealing logs provide a long baseline forassessing climate trends, but they generallyreport only on a loosely defined sea ice“edge”. Satellites have provided nearly pan-Arctic coverage year-round since 1978.

Passive microwave imagery allows us tomeasure the amount of ice in a given unit ofsea surface, and from there we can calculatetotal ice cover. Satellites can monitor icemotion fields and permit climate trendassessments of total areal extent. But deter-mining the thickness of the ice – and there-fore its total volume – is a greater challenge.

Only very recently have satellites beenable to monitor ice thickness. Most thicknessdata, apart from information from isolatedstations, has come from U.S. and Britishmilitary submarine sonar measurements ofsea ice draft. Though they cover more areathan records from isolated stations, theseobservations are still few and far between,and it is difficult to infer total ice volumefrom such limited data. To help estimatetotal volume and therefore average thick-ness, we use numerical ice-ocean modelling.

W A L K I N G O N T H I NI C E ?

Scientists have used satellite observations toestimate that from 1979 to 1999 Arctic seaice cover has been decreasing at nearly 3%

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Difference in ice thickness 1993, 96, 97, less 1958,60, 62, 70, 76

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I S A R C T I C S E A I C E R A P I D L YT H I N N I N G ?

Adapted from an abstract by Greg Holloway and Tessa Sou

Icethickness(m)

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–3.0 –1.8 –0.6 0.6 1.8 3.0

Figure 2Difference of 8-month-average windstress, later periodminus earlier.

per decade. Coming up with a figure forthickness change over wide areas of the Arc-tic has been more difficult. Estimates fromsubmarines and moored sonars – near theNorth Pole, in the southern Beaufort Sea,along a transect from Fram Strait to thePole, and along a transect from the AlaskaBeaufort to the Pole – are regionally limited.They suggest differing results, from no sig-nificant trends at the Pole or along the Alas-ka Beaufort to the Pole transect, to substan-tial thinning along the Fram Strait transect.

In 1999 a broader arctic basin study byDrew Rothrock of the University of Wash-ington captured media attention. Data from US military submarine cruises from

autumns of 1958, 1960, 1962, 1970 and 1976,when compared with subsequent cruisesduring 1993, 1996 and 1997, showed stun-ning changes to arctic ice. Over all the re-gions sampled, thicknesses had decreasedmarkedly from the earlier to the later peri-od. From the 29 locations where recordscould be compared, the ice was on average42% thinner, far beyond a 3% reduction perdecade.

What could cause such rapid loss of icevolume? The Rothrock study postulated thateither changing winds were blowing moreice down to the Atlantic, or warmer condi-tions were causing less growth or moremelt, or both – or perhaps that both windsand temperature were involved.

O R B L O W I N G I N T H E W I N D ?

In our study we used a numerical ocean-ice-snow model to try formulating a freshwaterand heat budget for the arctic ocean-ice-snow system. Then we forced the model –that is, we accounted for the mechanismsthat drive wind, weather, and the move-ment of water – with atmospheric datafrom 1948 through 1999. The results fellwithin the estimated 3% ice cover loss perdecade.

This was nothing like the rapid thinningthe submarines reported. We checked forshortcomings in the model and errors inforcing data: we sent “virtual submarines” tothe locations and the times (corrected toSeptembers) of the actual submarine cruises.

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Difference of 8-month windstress, 1993, 96, 97, minus 1958, 60, 62, 70, 76

Max.0523753 dyne/cm2–15 0 15

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Figure 3Timeseries of ice thickness averaged over 29 submarinesample locations.

Figure 1 shows the differences in averagethickness of the later three cruises fromthose of the five earlier cruises, and the 29locations identified in the Rothrock studyfrom which difference statistics were com-puted. At these 29 locations, total ice volumeloss is 45%, consistent with published results.But over the entire arctic, total loss is near12%.

While details of the thinning pattern dif-fer from observation, the overall picturesuggests a simple explanation: rather thaneither melting or export, the apparent iceloss was only a shift of ice within the Arctic– a shift that the submarines’ sampling pat-tern missed.

According to the model, wind blowingmore ice out of the Arctic accounted for 9%of the 12% ice loss, while thermodynamics(less growth or more melt) accounted for3%. On a cautionary note, these numericalvalues are quite specific to the particular

years of the submarine cruises. Twelve per-cent volume loss, while less than 45%, is nota valid representation of even a modesttrend.

Wind patterns over large areas are con-stantly changing and rearranging the Arcticice pack. Figure 2 shows windstress differ-ences between the years of the later subma-rine cruises and the earlier ones. Windstressis averaged over the first eight months ofeach year, the time of submarine observa-tion. Averaging over other periods (onlywinter months, for instance) produces qual-itatively similar pictures. The pattern in Fig-ure 2, like the pattern in Figure 1, is robust;different procedures might change only thedetails.

To completely explain the changes inFigure 1 we would have to get into the com-plex physics of the model – but generally,this is what is happening: differences inwindstress mean that winds blow the differ-ence in ice along and to the right, expellingice from the more central Arctic and drivingit into Canadian waters.

T I M I N G I SE V E R Y T H I N G

We can use the model to continuously moni-tor ice thickness at the 29 locations fromFigure 1; Figure 3 shows a time-series ofthickness averaged over those 29 locations.Circles mark the times of the five early cruis-es and the three later cruises. Let’s hypothe-size that the five early cruises each occurredone year earlier (September 1957, 1959,1961, 1969, and 1975) and the three latercruises each one year later (September 1994,1997, and 1998). This spreads out the base-line for detecting change. What would theresult have been? The submarine surveyswould have shown no change at all toaverage Arctic ice thickness. And so theactual results from the actual submarinesurveys appear to be a fluke of timing – cou-pled with a natural mode of Arctic sea icevariability.

Everywhere on the planet the environ-ment is changing constantly. Scientists havelimited ability to sample all those changes,and inferring too much from sparse datacan be misleading. But we can refine ourinferences with numerical ice-ocean model-ling and by analysing the effect on ice ofatmospheric processes, especially wind pat-terns. When we used these techniques wefound that sea ice did not rapidly diminish;instead, it moved.

Observations to date, together withmodel physics, imply only that the loss ofsea ice volume is not inconsistent with the3% per decade loss of ice area calculatedfrom three decades of satellite observations.That’s a modest rate – and it’s within therange of natural variability.

Greg Holloway and Tessa Sou are physi-cal oceanographers at the Institute ofOcean Sciences, in Sidney, B.C., Canada.

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Thick

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Average over 29 submarine test locations

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

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Beaver-pond site at about 1000 feet above sea-level,with the head of Strathcona Fiord in the background.Photo: R. Harington.

Strathcona Fiord fossil site, Ellesmere Island.

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Fishes, frogs, birds, shrews, rabbits, smallbeaver, other rodents, a forerunner of theblack bear, several weasel-like carnivores(including the first Eurasian badger fromNorth America, and an ancestral wolver-ine), a three-toed horse (the most northerly

droppings of this animal have been recov-ered, allowing us to determine in part whatthey were feeding on.

Many other fossils have been found atthe site, and help to indicate the kind ofenvironment that existed in the vicinity 3.5million years ago when the Arctic wasmuch warmer than present, but when itwas gradually cooling towards the last iceage (Pleistocene) which began about 2 mil-lion years ago. The warming of climateabout this time (3 million years ago) in-volved increased transport of heat north-ward by the Gulf Stream and North AtlanticDrift. Sea ice must have been substantiallyreduced or absent in large parts of the ArcticOcean during this interval. The warm cli-mate could have been caused by elevatedC02 levels, which would have increased sea-surface temperatures globally, or enhancedocean circulation – leading to increasedtemperatures mainly in polar regions. Julytemperature was up to 5°C warmer thanpresent at the beaver pond site. However, aspecimen of a tundra-adapted ground beetleCarabus truncaticollis suggests that theclimate was not much warmer than the pre-sent forest tree line. It is interesting that thissite could be considered an analogue for asimilar level of global warming forecast forthe Arctic by the end of the 21st century.

The face of the exposure discloses massesof mossy peat with sandy partings, freshwa-ter mollusc shells (at least five speciesincluding Gyraulus albus, perhaps the firstNorth American record of this Europeanspecies), insect remains (including attractiveiridescent beetle-wing covers), beaver-cutsticks, rooted tree trunks probably not morethan 3 metres tall, and a few boulders and

L I F E A T A 3 . 5 M I L L I O N - Y E A R - O L D B E A V E R P O N DI N T H E C A N A D I A N A R C T I C I S L A N D S

A N D T H E M O D E R N S C E N EC.R. Harington

ELLESMEREISLANDAXEL

HEIBERGISLAND

✪

Bay F iord

record of horses in the world), and a primi-tive deerlet, like the small living Asian muskdeer, occupied boreal-forest margin habitatnear what is now Strathcona Fiord on Elles-mere Island during the Pliocene (about 5 to2 million years ago).

The fossil site preserves remains of anancient beaver pond occupied by a smallbeaver Dipoides, one of the most commonmembers of the fauna. We know that thisbeaver (about two-thirds the size of the liv-ing beaver, Castor canadensis, and ances-tral to the giant beaver Castoroides ohioen-sis, that died out at the end of the last glacia-tion some 10,000 years ago) lived at the sitebecause a large part of a skeleton wasfound, and it has left many beaver-cut sticksand saplings. Indeed, an ancient feeding-pilehas been noted during the excavation,although no lodge or dam has been locatedyet. Another of the commonest fossils at thesite represents the rabbit Hypolagus: even

rocks – as well as the bones which aresometimes pressed between the layers ofpeat.

The deposit contains some of the oldestArctic siliceous microfossils known. Severalfreshwater diatoms (minute algae) indi-cating water no more than 3 metres deepare present. Some of the diatoms lived onmosses and larger aquatic plants. They alsoindicate a shift from alkaline to more acidicconditions later in the history of the pond.

The Pliocene beaver-pond environment would havelooked somewhat like this burned-over larch forest --typical of the boreal forest at the headwaters of thePhillipova River in northeastern Siberia. Photo: R.Harington.

A 3.5 million-year-old larch cone, showing the excellentpreservation of some of the fossils. Photo: J.V. Matthews.

Overhead view of a beaver-cut stick projecting from thedeposits. Photo: R. Harington.

Microscopic bits of freshwater sponges areknown from the pond (e.g. Spongilla ispresently found in the Nuuk area of Green-land, and another of its species occurred inWest Greenland during the last 500 years).Also, siliceous plates of amoeba, cysts ofgolden brown algae, and phytoliths (silicabodies apparently originating from grassesand found in the upper part of the deposit)are known from the site.

Studies of microscopic pollen and larger

parts of plants (e.g. seeds, leaves and fruit-ing bodies) indicate that a boreal-forestmargin environment with standing waterand extensive grassy patches (microwear onthe deerlet’s teeth show that it was mainly agrazer, and remember the phytoliths men-tioned earlier) surrounded the pond. Larch(Larix sp., sometimes called tamarack) isthe only conifer identified from wood in thepond deposits. Alder and birch seem to havebeen the only other trees growing near thepond. Some of the wood is charred as aresult of forest fires (indeed, a study of char-coal from the site, now underway at Car-leton University, may indicate the incidenceof such fires), and has bark beetle groovesand galls. Perhaps this kind of boreal-foresthabitat is best exemplified by that in north-eastern Siberia, where larch, rather thanspruce is dominant. I recall a scene of burnt-over larch saplings in a marshy area nearthe source of the Phillipova River in Siberia

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that must be like the ancient beaver-pondenvironment. At least 10 species of mossesand 34 species of vascular plants are knownfrom the beaver-pond site. The vascularplants are dominated by wetland species(e.g. Carex diandra, Scirpus sp., Scheu-chzeria sp. and Menyanthes sp.). Theabundance of larch needles, short shootsand cones indicates that the pond was sur-rounded by an open larch forest.

The plant fossils suggest that the beaverdeposit is slightly older than an approxi-mately 3.1 million-year-old site on MeighenIsland (380 kilometres northwest of Strath-cona Fiord) and a good deal older than the 2million-year-old fossil site at Kap Køben-havn on the northern coast of Greenland,where only two vertebrate fossils have beenfound (Hypolagus and the modern hare,Lepus).

In fact, no other recorded sites of this agewith comparable faunas are known. Thesite is unique. However, it shares a few ele-ments with the similar-aged Hagermanfauna from Idaho (about 43°N compared toabout 78.5°N for the beaver-pond site),

Table 1

Preliminary list of vertebrate taxa represented from a Pliocene beaver-pond site

at Strathcona Fiord, Nunavut, Canada

Class Pisces – small perch-like fish – new genus and speciesClass Amphibia – frog?Class Aves – unidentified birdsClass Mammalia

Family Soricidae – Arctisorex polaris – new genus and species of shrewFamily Leporidae – Hypolagus cf. H. vetus – hare-like lagomorph

Order Rodentia – ground squirrel-sized rodentFamily Castoridae – Dipoides cf. D. intermedius – small beaverFamily Muridae – cf. Baranomys sp. – extinct mouseFamily Ursidae – Ursus abstrusus – primitive black bearFamily Mustelidae – Plesiogulo sp. – wolverine-like mammal

cf. Mustela sp. – small weasel (?)Martes cf. M. pennanti – fisher-like mammalMartes cf. M. americana – marten-like mammalMeles sp. – Eurasian badger, probably related to a northern Chinese Pliocene species

Family Equidae – “hipparion,” probably related to a northern Chinese Pliocene species – three-toed horse

Family Moschidae – Blastomeryx (Parablastomeryx) sp. – “deerlet”

such as the beaver Dipoides, the rabbitHypolagus, and the bear Ursus abstrusus.The hipparion (three-toed horse), badgerand some plants indicate a source in north-eastern Asia.

At present, the beaver-pond site is astiff, daily 300-metre climb above our campsite near the shore of Strathcona Fiord. Thefossils are collected under weather condi-tions varying from baking hot (rare) to bliz-zards (more common), and boxes of matrixare packed down to camp each day afterwork for eventual shipment to our labora-tory near Ottawa, where samples can becarefully screened and examined micro-scopically. However, most of the fossils areexcavated by trowel at the site.

The high-terrace sands and gravels con-taining organic remains, such as the beaver-pond deposit, occur in many places in west-central Ellesmere Island. These depositsaccumulated on ancient valley floors andbroad alluvial plains around mountains thatoriginated earlier in the Tertiary period (65to 2 million years ago). The deposits, nowseveral hundred metres above sea level anddeeply cut by fiords and modern stream val-leys, are not geologically deformed. Thebeaver-pond is underlain by about 12 metresof fine sand but largely covered by slumpedsediment to bedrock (shale and sandstone ofthe mid-Tertiary Eureka Sound Formation).It is interesting to look down from the fossilsite and see the Eureka Sound coal depositswith massive stumps of dawn redwoods(Metasequoia) across a gully to the south.The site is overlain by nearly 6 metres ofsand and 12 metres of loose pebble gravelcapped by boulders. Massive boulders canslide or roll downhill – another hazard ofour excavation.

Looking eastward from the site, you cansee the near-perfect arc of an end morainejust behind our camp. It is easy to imaginethe massive snout of the glacier that leftthese high mounds of rubble just before itmelted back some 8,000 years ago. On its

margin are clearly marked raised beachesindicating a rapid rise of land during the lastfew thousand years.

Well-preserved remains of sea shells,marine mammals (such as seal limb bonesand narwhal tusks) and rust-coloured pum-ice – drifted over the sea following volcaniceruptions in Iceland – characterize theancient beaches. On some of the beaches arelichen-covered tent rings, caches and trapsof paleoeskimos. Farther in the same direc-tion lies the gleaming Ellesmere Island icecap, scalloped by glaciers, with occasionalnunataks (mountain tops surrounded byice) looking like the horns of a viking hel-met. Plants are generally sparse on theregional tundra – mainly arctic avens, pur-ple saxifrage, and grassy tussocks (which

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Left mandible with teeth of a small extinct beaver(Dipoides). Photo: R. Harington.

impede walking). Sometimes herds of musk-oxen and rarely, small bands of pale greyPeary caribou may be seen. Snow geese feedon the ponds behind the moraine, and low,fast-flying oldsquaw and eider ducks whistleover the camp, while long-tailed jaegers andglaucous gulls circle overhead, looking forprey. Turnstones and red knots, the mostcommon shorebirds, often nest locally.

The boreal-forest margin environment ofthe ancient beaver pond stands in markedcontrast to the stark tundra landscape nowsurrounding the fossil site, and may provideuseful clues to changes that may occur inour Arctic Islands should recent predictionsof rapid global warming come true.

C.R. Harington,Curator of Quaternary Zoology Emeritus,Canadian Museum of Nature (ResearchDivision)

2 0 0 1 C A N A D I A N P O L A R

C O M M I S S I O NS C H O L A R S H I P

W I N N E R

The 2001 Canadian Polar CommissionScholarship ($10,000) has been awarded toMarie-Andrée Fallu, a PhD candidate ingeography at Laval University. Ms Fallu is a

specialist in paleo-environments. She is cur-rently studying freshwater diatoms (micro-scopic algae) and chironomides (insectswhose larvae develop at lake bottoms) inNunavik and Labrador lake sediments forclues to the effects of climate change. Wecongratulate Ms Fallu and wish her all thebest in her research.

H O R I Z O N

Indigenous Peoples and ForestManagement in Fennoscandia andCanada10–12 October, 2001International Conference Jokkmokk, Swedenwww.sapmi.se/forestconference

Lisbeth BlindConference CoordinatorPhone: 46-971-320-25Fax: 46-971-320-37E-mail:lisa.blind@same.net; andGeoff QuaileGrand Council of the CreesTel: 1-613-761-1655Fax: 1-613-761-1388E-mail: gcquaile@gcc.ca

Alliance for Marine Remote SensingWorkshop:

14

is published by the Canadian Polar Commission. Materialmay be used with appropriate attribution.

© 2001 Canadian Polar Commission

Canadian Polar CommissionSuite 1710, Constitution Square360 Albert StreetOttawa, OntarioK1R 7X7

Tel.: (613) 943-8605Toll-free: 1-888-POLAR01Fax: (613) 943-8607E-mail: mail@polarcom.gc.cawww.polarcom.gc.ca

B O A R D O F D I R E C T O R SWayne AdamsRichard BinderJulie CruikshankJean DupuisPiers McDonaldPeter Johnson (vice-chair)Mike Robinson (chair)

Remote Sensing & ResourceManagement in Nearshore andInland Waters22–24 October, 2001Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canadawww.waterobserver.org/workshop-10-2001/index.html

Conference: On Thinning Ice –Climate Change and New Ideasabout Sovereignty and Security inthe Canadian ArcticCanadian Arctic Resources Committee andthe Centre for Military and Strategic Studiesat the University of Calgary25–26 January, 2002, Ottawa

Melissa DouglasCanadian Arctic Resources CommitteeTel.: 1-613-759-4284, ext. 247info@carc.org

Impacts of POPs (persistentorganic pollutants) and Mercury onArctic Environments and Humans:Arctic Monitoring and AssessmentProgram Conference and Workshop21–24 January, 2002Polar Environmental CentreTromsø, Norway

AMAP ConferencePolar Environmental CentreNO-9296 Tromsø, NorwayPhone: 47-777-502-10Fax: 47-777-502-01E-mail: AMAPcon@npolar.nowww.nilu.no/web/amapconf/

13th Inuit Studies Conference 1–3 August, 2002Anchorage, Alaska

N E W M E M B E RA P P O I N T E D

The Minister of Indian Affairs and NorthernDevelopment, Robert Nault, has named former Yukon Government Leader PiersMcDonald to the Board of the CanadianPolar Commission.

Piers McDonald was Yukon governmentleader between fall 1996 and spring of 2000.He spent 18 years as a Member of the Leg-islative Assembly and served as Minister of

Education, Community and TransportationServices and Finance. He and his wife OfeliaOndrade have three children. Mr. McDonaldhas worked as a private businessman sinceretiring from politics last year.

I N D I C A T O R S O F C A N A D I A N

P O L A R K N O W L E D G E

“Indicators of Canadian Polar Knowledge1999” (June 2001) is available in print from

the Commission, or on-line at www. polarcom.gc.ca/pdf/indicators_report_en.pdf.

A N T A R C T I CS U B G L A C I A L L A K E

A N D D E E P I C EW O R K S H O P

The Antarctic Subglacial Lake and Deep IceWorkshop report (July 2001) is available inprint from the Commission, or on-line atwww.polarcom.gc.ca/pdf/workshop_en.pdf.

W H A T ’ S N E W