Laurier researchers maintain a number of research sites throughout Canada's North. Explore the interactive map.
Laurier researchers from a range of disciplines work in Canada’s North at dozens of research sites ranging from northern Ontario to one of Canada’s northernmost lakes on Ellesmere Island. The largest concentration is in the Northwest Territories (NWT), where the government of the NWT and Laurier have a longstanding partnership.
Our most developed and highly trafficked research sites are the Scotty Creek Research Station, near Fort Simpson in the southwestern NWT, and Trail Valley Creek Research Station, within the Arctic Circle north of Inuvik. Another frequently used site is the Hoarfrost River Homestead, east of Yellowknife, which has been used as a base camp for various researchers for more than 30 years.
Some research sites have permanent infrastructure and equipment, while researchers employ mobile observation, monitoring and testing equipment at other sites.
At all sites, Laurier researchers work closely with the communities whose traditional land they are on.
Laurier researchers maintain a number of research sites throughout Canada's North. Explore the interactive map.
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Consortium of communities, government, industry, non-governmental organizations and universities, working collaboratively to understand, predict and address the impacts of climate change and industrial expansion on shared water resources across NWT.
Understanding rates of forest recovery following wildfire, with applications for wildlife, forest, fire, and land use managers. The original aim was to quantify boreal and barren-ground caribou habitat quality and potential for recovery under the current and future cumulative impacts of permafrost thaw, fire history, and human development in the NWT, but this has expanded to include an evaluation of carbon stocks, permafrost-fire interactions, and impacts on other wildlife taxa.
Survey the muskox population within the Sahtu and Inuvialuit settlement regions, including data and photo collection.
A network of sites has been established where growth and water and carbon use are quantified at the tree and stand level. This will inform our understanding of climate change impacts on forest productivity.
The Chair is working closely with community partners to examine how food systems can support biodiversity, enhanced community resilience and improved food security and well-being. The Chair will support the development of opportunities that cultivate the interface between science and traditional knowledge in the North.
Research aims to learn from, enhance community capacity to address place-based priorities to inform climate change and food security action locally, regionally, and territorially. The approach includes crosscutting themes of Traditional Knowledge, Governance, Youth, Sex and Gender, and is grounded in Participatory Action Research.
Quantifying effects of mining activities on wetland vegetation and mycorrhizal fungi; Assessing success and analyzing options for restoration efforts.
Applying customized ground freezing systems to reduce infrastructure damage caused by permafrost thaw.
Building on existing citizen networks to design, test, and build data quality assessment and decision-support tools to better integrate citizen data with large-scale hydrological modelling.
Installation on transdisciplinary instrumentation at key locations across the NWT.
Establish baseline forest and wetland carbon stocks and rates of carbon storage, including proposed protected areas and use scenarios related to changing climate, disturbance and land use to explore the future of NWT forest/wetland carbon sequestration.
The NWT Thermokarst Mapping Collective is to establish a collaborative approach to develop and implement a mapping methodology; Development of improved models to assess permafrost vulnerability to thermokarst at regional scales.
Developing a vulnerability/susceptibility assessment for all NWT communities based on data generated by the NWT Thermokarst Collective.
To engage Indigenous NWT youth in hands-on science learning activities to build interest and skills in the scientific study of the impacts of land use and climate change on water and ecosystems.
Evaluate the incorporation of climate change into Canadian protected area management plans and identify best practices, to aid integration into NWT protected area management plans.
Establishing baseline conditions and trends for contaminants and climate for a community-based aquatic ecosystem monitoring program.
Field, lab, and modelling studies to identify, quantify, and predict mobility of natural source and legacy mine-source metals in headwater catchment-lake systems.
Combining biogeochemical data with the hydrogeomorphic variables for understanding lake distributions across the watershed.
Improving the quantitative understanding of carbon dynamics in Canadian subarctic freshwaters with a focus on protecting natural carbon sinks and processes governing the balance between carbon sinks and carbon sources to the atmosphere.
Partnership with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to assess overall health impacts of stress in the population currently living in proximity to Giant Mine related to historical and current activities at the mine site. This will inform on-going remediation and empower communities to address sources and consequences of stress.
Understanding flow levels in response to 2013-16 drought period, which increased expenditures on use of diesel fuel to generate electricity in Yellowknife and area.
Understanding how permafrost thaw alters dissolved organic matter and solubility/mobility of metals, which effects drinking water and ecosystem health.
Supporting local food strategy through Yellowknife Food Charter Coalition based on food systems approach. Assessment of the Yellowknife Farmers Market and assisting in the implementation of the Yellowknife Agriculture Strategy.
Working with the Tłı̨chǫ Government and the communities of Whatì and Wekweètì to identify food system vulnerabilities due to climate change and identify opportunities to draw on Traditional Knowledge and innovative practices to build food system resilience.
Evaluating vulnerability of the Wekweètì and Aklavik winter road duration to climate warming.
Examining the impact of changing snow conditions and Arctic Oscillation on winter foraging behaviour of Bathurst caribou and how that relates to winter shift in foraging grounds from boreal forest to tree line-tundra.
Examining subsurface temperatures and ground surface displacement for a range of materials used below roads in the NWT to provide guidance for optimal road materials for given environmental conditions and road use.
To develop a novel method combining remote sensing, and field data to enhance our understanding of how changing ice cover conditions may influence the aquatic ecosystems in the North Slave region.
Monitoring water quality and invertebrate communities in Frame Lake as rehabilitation efforts proceed. An aerator is scheduled for installation this summer. The aerator is meant to make the lake habitable by fish once again.
Improving knowledge of present and past hydrological and immunological conditions of lakes needed to inform their potential vulnerability and responses to climate change.
Investigating the cumulative effects of harvesting on permafrost, hydrology, water quality, and vegetation by assessing site conditions before and after harvest. Exploring commercial forest harvesting for local biofuel production.
Finding new applications for modelling individual and population parameters from boreal caribou collaring data for conservation and planning needs.
Understand grayling resilience to environmental change and habitat use, particularly in relation to reproductive cycles, has the potential to impact management decisions for environmental protection and restoration strategies.
Characterization of water resource vulnerability to climate change in the Whooping Crane breeding area (Wood Buffalo National Park).
Addressing barriers that may limit the ability of communities to take advantage of potential agriculture opportunities. Created Enterprise, NT Agri-food strategy.
Improving understanding and prediction of water flow and storage processes in the thawing, peatland-dominated southern fringe of discontinuous permafrost.
Quantifying the flux and storage of water and energy through mineral soil uplands in low relief, discontinuous permafrost terrain.
Examining the impact of wildfires on peat, runoff processes and pathways, and the quality of water draining to downstream ecosystems.
A Dehcho-wide initiative to generate a fusion of leading-edge scientific and Indigenous knowledge on permafrost, and to use it to co-develop new predictive decision support tools and innovative risk management strategies to inventory and manage permafrost and adapt to permafrost thaw.
Establishing adaptation plan to ensure community food security and to build resilience through collaborative work. Continue to support on-the-land camps and foster youth engagement.
Community-based mapping and monitoring project enabling community members to record impacts of environmental change on the land. Fostering conversations and planning around harvester safety and the impact of change on culturally important sites.
Responding to community questions regarding fish population status and mercury levels in lakes through fish health and mercury level surveying.
Conducting climate change planning, share knowledge, and determine research and monitoring needs to enhance community adaptation.
Supporting indigenous communities and regional governments in their efforts to combine Traditional Knowledge and Western science for guardians programming, land-use planning, and environmental governance.
Gathered information on/of all health and wellness supports and services available/accessible to Dehcho First Nations members – to create multiple tools/resources for community members and service providers alike to use.
Examining existing documents to analyze what the Dehcho have said constitutes health and wellness, instead of conducting more primary research. This information will be used for health and wellness planning and visioning.
Rapid review of literature on promising and wise practices related to healthcare in rural Indigenous communities. This rapid review was done collaboratively with a Laurier undergraduate student completing a thesis.
Assessing vulnerability of community members to climate change impacts with a focus on harvesting practices, adaptation strategies. Creating community plan for adaptation and country food security. Continuing to support on-going community initiatives.
Studying how climate warming and direct human disturbance affects stream flow from high altitude basins.
On-the-land camps to support sharing of traditional and western scientific knowledge. Development of monitoring tools for Sahtú Guardians program.
Developing models to predict future changes in fish species distributions under climate change scenarios along the NWT North-South transportation corridor.
Cataloguing and collection of Traditional Knowledge about environmental and cultural aspects of the watershed and lake. Developing research and monitoring for on-going protection of Great Bear Lake.
Support the creation of a Youth Council and build the capacity of youth in Délı̨nę to contribute to decision-making, climate change adaptation and traditional activities.
Understanding past, present, and projected Great Bear Lake ice phenology and thickness. Investigating the interplay between ice condition variability and lake water.
Monitoring and modelling interactions between climate, vegetation, snow, permafrost, and hydrology to understand impact of climate change on aquatic ecosystems.
Documenting changes in water using past climate, remote sensing, and water data, along with continued measurements at long-term research watersheds.
To document methane fluxes from natural environments and exploration wells across the Tuktoyaktuk Region.
How invertebrates and fish will respond to climate change in lakes in the region.
Documenting the effects of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway in impacting streamflow during fall and winter, and the growth of river icings impacting the ITH.
Testing of novel-instrumentation to improve our ability to measure Arctic discharge in snow-filled channels.
Combining limnology and traditional knowledge to examine how the annual construction of ferry landings affects water quality and fishing.
Examining how road proximity influences lake water quality and biology. Results from this study will provide a better understanding of potential impacts to benthic invertebrates, water quality, and fish habitat, from the development of roads, and can be used to contribute to co-management resource decisions.
To establish biomonitoring program along the Dempster-Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Corridor (DITC) to study the effects of road development on stream ecosystem health.
Characterization of the impact of tall shrub patches on soil, snow, and permafrost conditions and the resulting impacts on tundra biodiversity.
An assessment of how climate change is affecting, and predicted to influence, ecological changes and the implications for park management, ecological integrity, and traditional lifestyles.
Examining the relative sensitivities of fish species to the toxic effects of metals and rare earth elements. Testing with NWT collected dissolved organic matter has continued with a focus on the mitigation of rare earth element toxicity to sensitive aquatic invertebrates. Studies are focused on the relationship between site characteristics and the toxicity mitigation capacity.
Aims to combine remote sensing and gridded reanalysis data with the acquisition of ground-based data to develop a gridded lake ice model.
Develop transformative, novel methods to retrieve near real-time ice thickness data using active microwave observations and remote sensing datasets to understand annual variability of ice formation on northern lakes.
Application of contemporary and paleoenvironmental approaches to identify cause and effect and to inform water resource management.
Tracking patterns and trends in contemporary lake conditions over space and time to inform water resource management.
Understanding how wildfire alters ecological integrity within the Athabasca river and tributary streams in northern Alberta.
This project brings together scientists from across the Arctic region to the ongoing and predicted change in the biodiversity and ecosystem services of Arctic freshwaters. The multi-scale assessment evaluates the current state of biodiversity and potential scenarios for change in response to continued warming.
Inform an evaluation of the potential cumulative effects of proposed development on boreal caribou and other wildlife species of concern in the Ring of Fire.