Nunavut researchers turn to citizen scientists

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There are over 60 words to describe sea ice in Inuktitut.

For Nunavut hunters, the words are essential when traveling across a frozen ocean highway with a snowmobile or a team of dogs.

At Pond Inlet, on the north side of Baffin Island, Andrew Arreak spends much of the time compiling these words and their meanings. He says he plans to share his list with the community and local schools to help people stay safe.

<who> Image credit: CP “src =” https://news.google.com/files/files/images/Nunavut%20850.png “style =” margin: 5px; “/></p> <p>“I’m trying to get those words right so they know what to expect when they’re out on the ice.” </p> <p>Arreak is in charge of Nunavut’s work at SmartICE, an organization<strong> </strong>based in the Nunatsiavut region and Newfoundland and Labrador. It combines local knowledge of marine ice with modern technology, using sensing devices to determine ice thickness and collect ice condition data, for use by communities when they go out on the ice.</p> <p>While SmartICE has continued its research across the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to its Nunavut-based staff, scientists and other southern researchers have been locked out. out of the area this year.</p> <p>“SmartICE didn’t miss a beat during COVID,” says Trevor Bell, a professor at Memorial University in St. John’s Church, NL, who founded SmartICE.</p> <p>He says research has always been set up to run locally.</p> <p>“We put our monitoring tools in the hands of community members from the start. They will be able to process and generate sea ice information … without any intervention from us.</p> <p>“It has worked with communities for communities in the north. That benefit is evident in a year like this. ”</p> <p>Nunavut is a center for year-round exploration, but especially in the summer. In 2017, for example, the Nunavut Research Institute approved 136 research projects involving 662 people.</p> <p>In March, Nunavut ‘s chief public health officer restricted travel into the land to residents only. Travel between communities was largely unrestricted, with the exception of locks in the spring and November.</p> <p>Milla Rautio, a researcher with Université du Québec, had been traveling to Nunavut every summer since 2014 to study changes in Arctic lakes around Cambridge Bay and Victoria Island. </p> <p>This year, as a result of the travel restrictions, Rautio turned to community members to conduct her research. She sent sampling equipment to Cambridge Bay and led a small remote research team. </p> <p>“I got everything I needed and even more.”</p> <p>Rautio says collecting Nunavummiut samples means she could continue the research all year round. </p> <p>“Instead of me and my students going to Cambridge Bay once a year, usually in August, doing this sampling of sampling, we now have the opportunity to understand what’s going on in my head. north all year round, ”she says.</p> <p>“I didn’t have to go alone.”</p> <p>Rautio worked for years to establish links with students and other community members in Cambridge Bay. She says these connections have been crucial to her ongoing research in the midst of the pandemic. </p> <p>Thanks to local knowledge, Rautio’s research team discovered something she is unlikely to have encountered. A lake that was once clear for fishing near the community had suddenly turned.</p> <p>“I’m not sure I would have known about this without them.”</p> <p>Heidi Swanson, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, usually spends time in all three areas in the summer studying fish. She also did her research with help from residents this year.</p> <p>“In Kugluktuk (Nunavut), our northern research partner was doing a better job than ever before,” Swanson told the Arctic Net annual conference on 9 December. </p> <p>Like Rautio, Swanson has established links in several northern communities. </p> <p>“Where relationships are stronger, we have had a more appropriate capability.”</p> <p> </div> <p style=

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