Winter in Whapmagoostui

We are enjoying working in what is a winter wonderland here in the Great Whale River region of northern Quebec. The days are chilly (-25 to -35 celsius), but Val Langlois has been able to add another series of data to her seasonal survey of viruses in thaw ponds. A new member of the ViDEL team, Thomas Pitot, is on the hunt for giant viruses.

The death throes of a lake

One of our principal study sites, Milne Fiord, has undergone a swift and dramatic transformation. A calving event between July 30 and 31 resulted in an approximately 80 km^2 chunk of ice detaching from the Milne Ice Shelf (see https://wirl.carleton.ca/research/ice/ice-shelves/calving-2020/ for the astounding images). The impact of this event on the microbiology of the epishelf lake is unknown, and, unfortunately, we could not be there to characterize them due to the pandemic. Next year’s samples from the lake promise to be fascinating after such an enormous perturbation.

The mighty Thores

The High Arctic weather gods were kind to us this year and we were able to spend 11 days exploring the beautiful and remote Thores Lake and glacier. This is the first time that the microbiology of this water basin has been characterized and we can’t wait to see what will be revealed. After Thores we were able to check in on some old friends, the sister lake of Lake A, creatively named Lake B, and the Milne Fiord epishelf lake, now down to 9 m in depth. The team this year consisted of Catherine Girard (UL), Elise Imbeau (UQAC), Pilipoosie Iqaluk (HTA Resolute), Will Kochtitzky (U of Ottawa), Denis Sarrazin (CEN, UL) and Alex Culley (UL)

Aerosols in the High Arctic

In July the ViDEL headed to the High Arctic again to explore viral ecology in the vicinity of Ward Hunt Island. This year, the team consisted of Catherine Girard, a Sentinel North post doctoral fellow who joined the team in January, Yukiko Tanabe, a researcher from the National Institute of Polar Research of Japan, Denis Sarrazin, field work coordinator for the Center of Northern Studies, Elise Imbeau, a masters student in Milla Rautio's lab at UQAC, and Alex Culley. As well as continuing previous work investing viral ecology in the Ward Hunt Lake catchment, we collected samples to investigate the diversity of viruses in aerosols in collaboration with Caroline Duchaine at UL.

Stuckberry Lakes

Weeks after graduating from UL, Catherine Marois, a new member of the ViDEL, packed her bags and headed to Stuckberry Point on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island to explore microbial diversity. The team, led by Dermot Antoniades, a professor in the Geography Department, was interested in describing the paleolimnology in a sequence of four lakes of different ages.

Back from the High Arctic

Another High Arctic field season in the books! Although we were able to get in and out of Ward Hunt exactly as planned, while on the island, an endless incursion of fog from the North restricted our helicopter time (an unsurprising, albeit disappointing turn of events). Nevertheless, the show went on, thanks to a veteran field team and great support from Parks Canada and PCSP.