POLAR BLOG
THE CANADIAN HIGH ARCTIC RESEARCH STATION’S LABS ARE BEING PHASED INTO OPERATION
The Canadian High Arctic Research Station comes online
WITH ITS CURVED LINES and airy interior spaces, the Main Research Building of the new Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) campus was designed to feel welcoming. Located in the Inuit community of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, it’s a place where scientists and Indigenous knowledge holders work together to understand the effects of climate change on the Arctic and other issues facing the region.
At the heart of the campus, which is operated by Polar Knowledge Canada (POLAR), are its scientific laboratories — a growth chamber for studying insects and plants, a genomics lab, an imaging lab and more. While most of the campus is operational, the labs are being phased into use as staff prepare specialized equipment.
POLAR biologists Ian Hogg and Simona Wagner are in charge of the laboratories. “It’s very satisfying to be enabling applied science research in the North,” says Wagner. “The main challenge is the location. In Cambridge Bay, all the equipment has to come in by air or water.”
Because transportation is expensive and easily disrupted by weather, self-sufficiency is key. “Every piece of equipment has some redundancy built in,” says Hogg. “If we need two microscopes of a particular type, we have a third as a backup.”
One of the more impressive research spaces is the necropsy lab, a 40-squaremetre, crane-equipped operating room, where veterinarians will perform research on everything from lemming to polar bear to whale carcasses. Wildlife health is an important area of inquiry at the CHARS campus, as wildlife is an essential food source for Inuit, and an animal’s condition reveals much about its environment.
The genomics lab, in contrast, will allow scientists to work at the molecular level, using DNA sequences to identify and study differences in animal and plant populations. For the time being, POLAR must send its DNA samples south for sequencing, but this may change. “There are new sequencing technologies that you can carry around with you,” explains Hogg. “We may soon be able to do this ourselves.”
Most exciting to Hogg is the potential for bringing visitors from the community, especially children, face-to-face with critical scientific research. A number of 2½-metre screens at the front of the facility will project feeds from the imaging lab, where microscopes hooked up to cameras are used to photograph specimens — plants, lichens, insects, mammals or skulls — at incredibly fine detail.
“Children are intensely curious and enthusiastic about the natural world, and when they see things of this nature they all have the same response,” says Hogg. “They’re absolutely in awe.”