Research Projects - Past Projects (Archive)

HealtheSteps is a program that gives participants a personalized exercise prescription with simple goals for increasing their physical activity and improving their health.  The project aims to improve individual lifestyle behaviours and health, clinical practice patterns, investments in health technologies,...

The International Polar Year (IPY) is an international scientific program focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. The Canadian north, including the Northwest Territories, is a key region for IPY researchers from Canada and...

ARI has participated in a biodiversity assessment for the Northwest Territories (NWT) to assist with future land-use planning. The biodiversity project is a way to assess the variety of life at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels.  The first part of...

Gas hydrates are crystalline substances composed of water and gas, in which a solid water-lattice accommodates gas molecules in a cage-like, clathrate structure. Past research by the Geological Survey of Canada, under NRCan, has documented the widespread occurrence of gas hydrates...

In order to assess the feasibility of using wind energy in communities across the NWT, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) and the Aurora Research Institute (ARI) have been conducting wind energy studies in the NWT for nearly...

The Husky Lakes area is of great cultural and traditional value to the Inuvialuit. Situated between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk (Tuk), the Husky Lakes Watershed is a ‘true’ Arctic watershed, in that all waters originate north of the Arctic Circle. Fishing and hunting in...

In June 2012, ARI staff and 6 local field assistants, conducted breeding bird surveys in the Inuvik, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic regions of the Northwest Territories. A total of 182 individual surveys were completed on four routes along the Dempster Highway....

In 2010, the Aurora Research Institute (ARI) partnered with Environment Canada on the long-term Water Quality and Aquatic Ecosystems Health project. This collaboration, in effect until 2014, will result in new knowledge and data that will contribute to the conservation and...

Native plant species have the potential to be successful in the reclamation of northern habitats, because they are well adapted to local climatic conditions. This allows for better long-term survival, and fewer maintenance and fertilizer requirements. In the NWT, there...

The vision of AgNorth is to develop scalable modular farm stations that will be able to grow a full complement of nutritional foods and provide economic development opportunities and food security in remote and isolated communities of the NWT.