Archived Projects

Both traditional knowledge and scientific investigations suggest that the vegetation in the Mackenzie Delta region is changing. These shifts are likely the result of warming and increased disturbances (e.g. fires, permafrost slumps, roads, and infrastructure). The combined effects of disturbance, both natural and from industry, and climate change on vegetation will have significant consequences for delta wildlife and the environment. Because both warming and altered disturbance regimes are expected to increase in the future, there is a critical need for base-line data and long-term environmental monitoring that can inform decision-making in the region.

The South Slave Research Centre is working in partnership with Smith’s Landing First Nation (SLFN) to conduct a community-based climate change study at a set of islands on the Slave River in an area known as the Cassette Rapids. The Cassette Islands Climate Change Project will take place throughout the summer of 2015 and will use Dene knowledge to study the impacts that climate change is having on local food security and health. The project will also bring together elders, youth and researchers in the process.

The sky is an important part of the northern world, full of wonder, heritage, and wisdom. People have used it as a map to navigate great distances on land and water, and also to trace their histories and teachings since time immemorial. Like many other cultures, northern Indigenous peoples have a long and intimate relationship with the sky, drawing stories, wisdom, philosophy, history, and teachings from the sun, moon, stars and aurora. This project aims to enhance curriculum at the community level by documenting local and regional knowledge of the sky and helping to facilitate intergenerational learning that might otherwise be lost with the passing of older generations.

llisarvik is a small drained tundra lake on Richards Island, 130 km north of Inuvik, NWT, at the Beaufort Sea coast. Illisarvik is northern Canada's longest-running field experiment. It was conceived by Dr. J. Ross Mackay in the 1960s as a research program on the behaviour of aggrading permafrost. Illisarvik is an Inuvialuit word meaning “a place of learning”.

In an effort to showcase available technologies for the production of renewable energy in northern communities, a demonstration project was installed at the Aurora Research Institute (ARI) in Inuvik. The system was built entirely from components readily available on the market and showed how individuals or communities could set up renewable energy sources and save on their energy costs.

This project aims to look at bio-accumulation of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in a northern food-chain: vegetation – caribou- wolves. These compounds are emerging contaminants of concern in the Arctic, and they have been found in relatively high concentrations in caribou from the Canadian north.

Healthy Foods North (HFN) is a community-based, multi-institutional, nutritional and lifestyle intervention program that began in the Beaufort Delta region of the NWT and in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut in 2006.

Information about all research and exploration in the Northwest Territories (NWT) has been collected since at least the 1950s. Licensing first began with the federal government, then in 1984 the territorial government took over the responsibility with the implementation of the NWT Scientists Act. This data is now compiled and stored by the Aurora Research Institute, the organization responsible for administering the NWT Scientists Act. This branch of the ACE project seeks to improve the public ease of access to historical NWT licence information, which will increase its usefulness. The ACE tool will also allow users to layer, view and manipulate many geo-referenced data sets together; which can provide additional insights for people looking to do research, operations, and education in the NWT and the broader Arctic.

Over the past four years, Environment Canada scientists have been working closely with scientists from the University of Guelph to develop a new approach to study how changes in the pattern of living organisms in the biosphere can be used to diagnose causes of environmental change. DNA from environmental samples (soil, water, benthos and air) is amplified and sequenced, and the resulting sequences compared against a global library of pre-identified material. This permits rapid and accurate analysis of all taxa present within a sample, across all major groups of life (bacteria, fungi, protists, plants, invertebrates, vertebrates).

Space weather, fuelled by energetic particles and radiation from the Sun, can cause massive power outages, pipeline corrosion and radio blackouts, and can degrade GPS positioning and increase radiation dosage to airline pilots and passengers. The radiation can penetrate spacecraft and spacesuits, damage equipment and bombard satellites, wreaking havoc with electronic systems.