Blog Hog

That's right, your read the title correctly, I'm being a blog hog on this post. Since I last wrote there has been a series of events that I would like to recollect for you (at least some of them anyways). And since it is pouring, freezing rain and exceptionally high winds outside today I can take some time to do it.

But rain is good! Because we were getting really sad that our pools were drying up. Making them really hard to sample...



First of all I would like to say that something has happened that we were all waiting for. I think you know what I'm talking about.... The Bears. The bears have returned! Thursday we were foiled in our plans to go to our study site and sample because we saw not only one bear but two. Both fortunately and unfortunately they were very far away, so I don't have any photos. But imagine a big white bear walking on the ice...that's what it looked like

When we saw the first bear we decided that it was far enough away and heading in the opposite direction so we could probably work at our site. The second bear we saw was a little closer and down wind so...we went to home hardware instead and then went looking for caribou. Which we ALSO found!


It was an animally day. We were just missing a wolverine.

One of the coolest things about being up here early enough is watching (extremely rapidly I might add) the transition from winter to summer. There really doesn't seam to be a spring. Once it warms up Everything just...changes.

A few days ago we were taking videos of seals on the ice...I hope to post this video but it is being difficult at the moment

A couple days later we got these pictures of the ice breaking up



Notice the itty bitty amanda in the bottom picture.

By the next day the ice was almost completely gone and the bugs were in full force! maybe the temperature today will slow them down a little.




The flowers are starting to bloom everywhere!




And two days ago the weather was warm enough that we actually went swimming! This of course wasn't in Hudson bay...we're just preparing ourselves for the bay dip in t minus 8 days.

This was in one of the pools on our bluff. Not a study pool of course, but the pool we like to call "The Lake" ...original name...we know.





We have a video of this too. We will have to post videos separately I guess.



To back track a little, on June 3rd I was lucky enough to get to go out with a tour guide/birder/local, Paul.


I was able to see a lot of different things. Including birds: white crowned warbler, yellow warblers, red poles, jeagers, tonnes of gulls (we saw them before too by the coast but now I can actually name a couple, such as the bonepart gull and arctic terns). We also saw lots of shore birds: Pacific loons, surf scoter, golden eye scoter, sea ducks, mergansers, phaloropes and lots of others too (I'll have to compile a list). And also there some really interesting birds such as: bald eagles, a golden eagle, a short eared owl, and sand cranes.

The guide also showed us a foxes den where there were three or four pups lounging in the sun. I was able to show these pups to the film crew that I was helping and they are hopefully going to add some footage to their documentary. This pictures a little blurry but there are two little pups in there.

Before the film crew left I was graduated to camera operator for a couple of interveiws. Operating the second camera I had the extremely difficult task of holding the camera still, turning it on...and off, and then at one point I got a little crazy and zoomed in. They may or may not use the footage but hey...it was fun to play with such an expensive piece of equipment. Ingrid seized the opportunity to catch me hard at work.

A couple of nights ago we were feeling a little ancy and made plans to escape from the research station for dinner. We went to the Lazy Bear Lodge with a couple of our new friends. Eating such things as Arctic Char, Caribou and some tasty Bison.

Here's a picture of the bison that Ingrid and I ate



Afterwards we went to Cape Merry where saw some more belugas and a pretty evening sun

We will be trying to catch up with all of the past events as soon as possible, this by all means did not capture everything that has unfolded. Things happen exponentially faster here than normal it seems.

Something a bit different

Well we have almost reached our one month mark here at the CNSC and it has been an eventful one for sure! We've experienced the challenge of setting up our rock pool study and are rewarded with new observations and questions about our chosen study system each day. We've also had the opportunity to observe seals, hear the blowhole sounds of belugas, climb icebergs, attempt to catch ducks, watch the sea ice melt before our eyes while the flowers begin to bloom, and even witness the return of the insects...yes they have arrived! From now on our pictures will most likely be filled with people in bug jackets with peculiar hats! Our sampling has been progressing nicely, aided by above 10 degree weather though I am hoping for some rain soon as water levels in the pools have been steadily decreasing. We have noticed an interesting evaporation gradient across our bluff and we are keen to see how this influences our salinity gradient. At the moment I am looking into setting up a series of evaporation pans to test what we are seeing in the pools in terms of water level.

We all feel that it is important to absorb as much as we can while we're up here, and expand our minds beyond our study site. We have continued to explore both the wild areas and the community of this fabulous corner of Manitoba. To learn more about the town of Churchill itself and ongoing projects, I suggest this blog: http://sustainablechurchill.blogspot.com. Last week we decided to learn a bit more of some of the history of the Churchill area with a trip to what is known as Dene Village.

The history of Dene Village is one of tragedy followed by the perseverance of human spirit. There are several resources on the internet (ex.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayisi_Dene) about the events that occurred at Dene Village and a book to check out if you are interested in learning more would be "Night Spirits" by Ila Bussidor.

There is no way I could possibly do the story justice with my limited knowledge but in 1956 the Sayisi Dene who lived at (Little) Duck Lake, MB were relocated by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs to what was known as "Camp 10", near the cemetary on the outskirts of Churchill. Later (1967) they were moved again to what became to be known as Dene Village on what is now known as Goose Creek Road again on the outskirts of the town.This housing project was crowded, poorly planned and lacking many amenities. These Dene were completely cut off from their land, where they lived and hunted caribou. An estimated 117 people died during those years, many from violence and addiction related deaths. In 1969, the Sayisi Dene began the process of leaving Churchill and resettled at Tadoule Lake near the Seal River (north of Churchill). The healing process is ongoing for these people, but there may well be scars that never heal. I think this story serves as a reminder that we as Canadians need to be aware and prepared to take action on history that has happened in our own backyard. There is a monument at the old Dene Village site and it is one of the starkest and honest memorials I have ever seen. I would encourage any visitor to Churchill to go visit it learn a bit more about the history of this region.

Today we said good bye to one of our favourite CNSC volunteers and amateur aerial photographer, Kyle. We wish him good luck on his future adventures and I'll leave you with another one of his splendid images, this is Ingrid and I casually strolling down a beach..maybe the next time you see a picture like this we will be more scantily clad..bay dip in t-minus 11 days!And as always, we continue to watch for bears!

Roly-polies!

So you may have noticed that all our seal pictures up to this point have exhibited only a dot on the ice. Finally, we have some pictures - taken from a helicopter - that are slightly better in quality and maybe just a tad closer-up ;)


Aren't they sooooo cuuute?! These photos were all taken by Kyle, a volunteer at the Studies Centre who happens to be an amateur aerial photographer. He actually has his own company, AirShots Aerial Photography. We hired Kyle and sent him up on a helicopter to get a bird's-eye perspective of our bluff; the seals (and beluagas) were a side treat:

Da Bluff from above. You can see some of the bigger rock pools. To the left is a huge rock pool that we plan to go swimming in...when it is warmer(?). Off to the right is the Human Bridge crevice.

Belugas. From this angle, you can even see one of its blowholes.
More seals basking and being adorable.
I wish we could have all gone up! See, Karl, how thrifty and noble we are, sacrificing amazing once-in-a-liftime wildlife experiences for good aerial shots of your metacommunity system.

Anyway, tomorrow we start our fourth week of sampling. And seal-watching. Watchin them do the banana. Go, bananas, go go bananas!

No i do not have cabin fever.

Canada Day: Take 2

Today is a day for two posts. That's because today is extra special. And that's because... it's still CANADA DAY.

So, as Amanda mentioned in the latest post. We spent a night "out" last night. Which was a fun filled evening with fireworks social networking.

I was able to snap a few neat pictures of the fireworks even if they are a little out of focus.



This morning when we were returning home it felt like it was super early. But, believe it or not this sun Rise, I believe, was occurring at around 3 am.






This morning we went into town for the annual Churchill, Canada Day parade. It was pretty enjoyable and we were able to steal some of the candy from the small children that was being thrown from the floats.

The parade only lasted about 15 minutes but there were lots of interesting floats.

Small ones...



Fancy ones...


And GINORMOUS ones...



I CAN NOT believe how big the Tundra Buggies ARE in real life. It is crazy to think that they NEED to be this big for a Reason. A polar bear, apparently not deterred by this monstrosity of a vehicle, will come right up to it and stand on its hind legs with its head reaching the window. So that you could (hypothetically of course) reach out the window and pet it's face. I suddenly feel like we should be carrying a Bazooka gun in the field instead of a puny little shot gun...

But anyways, despite the tundra buggy possibly being the highlight of the parade there were lots of interesting people as well.

Dressed up ones...


And hugely tall ones...


There were also some funny spectators that I'm going to post pictures of....just because.



The rest of the day was spent in various directions. I helped out a camera crew who needed an extra person to hold things while doing an interview with a professor who is studying permafrost issues. It was fun! I never imagined there would be so much involved with a simple outdoor interview. But I got to be the person that the person being interview, stares at when answering the questions, while holding one of those big poofy sound things....the boom i think its called. Anyways, great experience.



Amanda and Ingrid went on another adventure to a "secret" destination, which will be revealed shortly I assume. And were also able to check out Cape Mary in town and see some Belugas come in. So we will definitely be checking that out again in the near future!

Overall, it was an excellent Canada day. Hope you all enjoyed yours as well!

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone! Last night we went into town to view the town's fireworks display- quite the show! There seems to be something uniquely Canadian about watching fireworks on June 30 while standing on a patch of snow. We stayed in town until quite late- I think we missed the darkest period of the night because by the time we were on our way back to the CNSC it seemed as though the run was rising again, or perhaps it was just setting..difficult to tell sometimes.

So this blog post is a special edition and really should be titled- "Amanda explains zooplankton communities on Da Bluff." Ingrid has challenged me to give a brief explanation of my project on the blog for all the followers back home, so here is my attempt. So please "bear" with me...hahaha.

As children, many of us spent time imagining different ways of travel- flight, tunnelling through the ground, riding on the back of an elephant. Ecologists too spend their days envisioning how the tiniest of organisms get from place to place. Zooplankton are aquatic organisms, only the biggest of which can be seen with the naked eye, and yet they may help researchers understand how small organisms disperse from one location to another and how environmental changes may cause their movement. To better understand this we need a way to think about communities of plants, animals, insects and other organisms that allow us to see connections between them. Metacommunities are communities that are linked to each other; think of them as cities connected by 400 series highways versus cities or towns joined only by gravel roads, train tracks or stretches of water. For example, it tends to take less time and effort to drive straight on the 401 west from Toronto to Guelph then it does to take the train from Winnipeg to Churchill, MB (yes A LOT less time). This means that the interchange of people between Toronto and Guelph may be significantly higher on a daily basis than between Winnipeg and Churchill. You will have witnessed this if you are a daily commuter within the Greater Toronto Area. If you wanted to do a study on the community of people living in Churchill, you probably wouldn’t look at people living in Winnipeg. However you might very well study those that live in Guelph to get a better idea of who is coming into and out of Toronto.

This can be applied to an ecological angle as well. When scientists study metacommunity dynamics they are essentially studying how and why organisms “commute” from one community to another. So, metacommunities allow us to think of the inhabitants of one area in terms of the inhabitants of nearby and connected areas. Does easy access between one community and another influence what organisms are found in a community? Or is it more about the environment at a certain site? These are two of the key questions that I am addressing with my project up here in Churchill.

Instead of a highway dotted with cities, the metacommunity we are studying is a rock bluff along the coast of Hudson Bay that is covered in small rock pools; zooplankton being the inhabitants of each pool. Each pool possesses its own unique set of characteristics; some like the salinity (saltiness) of the pools may vary with factors like global environmental and climate change. Yes, this means that in an age where the environment dominates personal and political agendas, it may come as a small comfort that some of the world’s tiniest organisms are acting as watchmen, poised to tell us about changes in our environment. Through previous research we have found that salinity is one of the main environmental conditions that determine which species of zooplankton are found in which pool. There are certain species that are found in very saline pools and other species that are found in only freshwater pools. Other species seem to tolerate a wider range of salinity and are found in pools right across the bluff. And the really cool thing? Both salinity and therefore the zooplankton can be completely different between two pools separated by as little as a few centimetres. So here is what I want to know:

1. Do the communities of species present in the rock pools change as pools become saltier?

2. If the communities do change, is this impacted by a pool’s position relative to other pools?

Basically for the second question, I’m asking if the way a community responds to environmental change is influenced by the potential for organisms to enter a community from other nearby communities.

But why is this important? Well because it can tell us a lot about how organisms move from place to place which is essential for understanding or making predictions about many other processes in nature. As well the Churchill rock pools are a unique system in Canada’s north; they have relatively simple zooplankton communities which makes it easier to identify and count all of the species and they are in an area likely to feel increasing impacts of environmental change. Another cool fact is that work of this particular nature on rock pools is occurring in only a few other places around the world- Jamaica, Africa and Finland to name some.

So here is a simplified breakdown of our methods...

Firstly our bluff looks something like this: (aerial pictures coming soon!)

We have labelled and taken dimensions and GPS coordinates for over 60 pools on the bluff. From there we assigned pools to different experimental categories. We have several pools that are very salty and are acting as saline "controls"- which means we do not manipulate them, as well as pools acting as

freshwater controls. The remaining pools are classified as being near to saline controls or farther away. At three points in the summer we begin to add salt to the non-control pools to make them more salty and watch as the communities change over time. We use a piece of equipment that measures a whole slew of environmental variables including salinity to get an idea of the environmental conditions of each pool. We then take a sample of the zooplankton living in each pool using a special net. We take note if there are differences in the changes we see between the pools that are close to the salty controls and the pools that are farther away.

Finally we also record weather data for each day as well as changes in the depth of all the pools. This will help us to see if seasonal changes or things like precipitation or evaporation have an impact on our experiment. To measure evaporation from our site we have set up a "pan evaporation system." This is a large rectangle filled with a specific volume of water that we record water loss from. And that in essence is the project!

Ok, that was a long one! Time to get outside in the sun!