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PART VI: From the top of the world

Yielding the secrets of Canada’s harshest environment with a remarkable floating laboratory. Université Laval.

Sharon Oosthoek

Université Laval

Quebec

Environment

A small group of people stand on a vast expanse of ice, dwarfed by the red and white ice breaker beside them.

The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Amundsen, Canada’s research icebreaker, prepares to overwinter in the Beaufort Sea. Carrying state-of-the-art scientific equipment, the ship provides researchers with unprecedented access to the High Arctic. Spanning the natural, health and social sciences, international teams explore climate change, sea ice regime shifts, the opening of new sea-lanes, the challenges of mineral resource extraction, the fate of marine life from viruses to whales, and the health of Inuit. Coordinated out of Université Laval, the operations of the Amundsen document what the future holds for the ecosystems and people of the rapidly changing Canadian Arctic.

Image: Gérald Darnis/ArcticNet

View “PART V: It is rooted in research”
View “PART VII: To the depths of the ocean”
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