Canadian International Polar Year - Oceans and Marine Life Polar Day

Transcription prepared by Media Q Inc. exclusively for INAC

DATE: 18 March, 2009

LOCATION: Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, QC

PRINCIPAL(S):
Dr. Wendy Watson Wright, Assistant Deputy Minister, Science Sector, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Dr. Louis Fortier, Scientific Director, ArcticNet
Dr. Mike Hammill, Researcher and Section Lead, Marine Mammals Biology Conservation, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Caroline Weetaluk, Community Researcher, Kuujjuarapik, Quebec
Samantha Darling, Students on Ice
Dr. Jan Bottenheim, Research Scientist, Environment Canada

SUBJECT: Oceans and Marine Life Polar Day, a Canadian International Polar Year (IPY) Event

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Dr. Wendy Watson Wright: …everyone to this special webcast in celebration of Oceans and Marine Life International Polar Day. Fourth International Polar Year encompasses 44 programs in support of two themes: research on climate change impacts and adaptation; and on the health and well-being of northern peoples.

The Government of Canada allotted $150 million for IPY over six years, of which 100 million is for scientific research. Canada's very large scientific commitment included six major IPY research program… projects led by my colleagues in the science sector of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. These projects focused on climate change in the Arctic and its impact on Arctic aquatic life and ecosystems.

Now, IPY research programs conducted from Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers provided insight into the current stage of the polar environment and the major role that oceans play… climate change… the course of our field research, DFO Science relied heavily on our northern guides and on research provide… the Polar Continental Shelf Project, which is a division of Natural Resources Canada. Although the second official season ended on March 1st, 2009, there is much anticipation for the science activities that will continue. The legacy of the fourth International Polar Year will be a new generation of polar scientists, innovative research, long-term Arctic monitoring networks, and an observational system that will continue to deepen our understanding of Canada's polar environment in the future.

Another priority for us in science at Fisheries and Oceans is recruiting and mentoring new talent. And I see some of our young new talent in the audience today. Arctic-based research projects include post-secondary students through the Northern Youth Mentorship Program. These initiatives will help ensure Canada has the expertise to carry out first-class fisheries and aquatic research in the years to come.

And the focus on Arctic carries on in other ways. In the recent budget, the Government of Canada devoted $2 million to undertake a feasibility study for the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. Additionally, Indian and Northern Affairs will receive up to $85 million to invest in maintaining or upgrading key existing Arctic research facilities over the next two years. Well designed and well maintained Arctic research facilities are of course essential for Arctic research.

Now, today's event is typical of the collaborative nature of International Polar Year and Arctic research. So let me tell you very briefly about our speakers. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: We have Dr. Louis Fortier with us. He is Scientific Director of ArcticNet, and perhaps Canada's best known expert on the Arctic. He leads an impressive multidisciplinary and international science program focused on climate change and adaptation from the Universite Laval. Louis and his researchers study climate change using the Amundsen, a Canadian icebreaker specially fitted for science with labs and a moon pool. You will no doubt see that in his presentation. I recently attended the ArcticNet science conference, and it is clear that, through ArcticNet and the International Polar Year, there is an entire generation of Canadian and international graduate students who not only study the Arctic, they are totally devoted to it.

We also have Dr. Mike Hammill from Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Mike's career in the public service should be inspirational to anyone under the impression federal sciences take place in cubicles. Mike is Mr. Marine Mammal… (Speaks in French). His office includes Hudson's Bay and James Bay, and his work includes tracking beluga whales using satellite transmitters. The findings of his IPY project will help improve the management of beluga, which are an integral part of the Inuit culture. The research is providing insights into the state of the Hudson Bay-James Bay ecosystem and how beluga will adapt to climate change. Because of their major role in the Arctic ecosystem, the health of the beluga is important to all Arctic life.

Dr. Wendy Watson Wright: …Canada we have Mr. Doug Bancroft, who is the Director of the Canadian Ice Service. The Ice Service is our leading authority on ice in Canada's navigable waters. High technology is at the heart of everything the Ice Service does. Their experts use state-of-the-art technology for the remote collection of ice and iceberg data. This includes radar imagery from satellites and reconnaissance aircraft. And coming live via satellite from the ice of the Beaufort Sea, we have Dr. Jan Bottenheim of Environment Canada, Senior Research Scientist and Lead Investigator on the OASIS Canada project, and his colleague Alexandra Stefan (ph). They will tell you about what they are doing with a sled called OOTI, a sophisticated, fully automated chemical laboratory developed by Environment Canada for extreme Arctic conditions.

And now I would like to turn you back to our Master of Ceremonies for today's events, my colleague Serge Labonte (ph), who is going to tell us about the special group of students who are going to kick off our Oceans and Marine Life International Polar Day event. So Serge, over to you. Merci beaucoup. Thank you.

(Applause)

Serge Labonte: Merci, Wendy. Thank you, Wendy. Before we go further, I'd like to tell everyone the e-mail address for question is ipdjpi@gmail.com. Again, it's ipd (for International Polar Day) jpi (for Journee polaire internationale) @gmail.com.

One of our team today is ensuring that traditional Inuit knowledge is integrated with what we learn from western science for the benefit of all people in the north. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: So I am very pleased that we are beginning our program today with some cross-cultural learning. We have an Inuit cultural performance of the student performers of the Nunavut Sibu-Nik-Savu (ph) Training Program of Ottawa.

Serge Labonte: …program for Inuit youth from Nunavut, who are preparing for career opportunity that are being created by the Nunavut land claim agreement in the new Government of Nunavut. In addition, they work with experienced singer and drummer to learn Inuit song, throat singing, drumming and dancing. Through performance like this one, the students are enriching our community with cross-cultural education about Inuit and Nunavut. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the performers.

Singer: (Off microphone): Throat singing is a form of music that was done traditionally between two women. The song… throat songs imitate the sounds of nature and the environment as well as you have some songs that's competition form. So we'll have one leader and one follower, where the leader makes a certain sound and the follower makes the same song right after, so they overlap. I'm going to call upon (inaudible)…

(Singing)

(Applause)

Singer: (Off microphone): I should also mention that throat singing, that you go on as long as you can till the first person either runs out of breath, laughs, or makes some sort of mistake (inaudible)… This one is called (inaudible)…
(Singing)

(Applause)

Singer: This next one is called The Love Song.

(Singing)

(Applause)

Singer: This next one is a competition song. It's called (inaudible)…

(Singing)

(Applause)

Singer: (Off microphone): And this last one's called (inaudible).

(Singing)

(Applause)

Singer: (Off microphone): The song we're going to sing for you guys is called (inaudible), and it's a celebration of the return of the sun. It originates from North Baffin. And we'll have David Hiquok (ph) drum dance for…

(Singing)

(Applause)

Singer: (Off microphone): (Inaudible)

Serge Labonte: Don't go… don't go away. Don't go away. I have some little gift for you for thanking you for that great presentation. So come over, please. Thank you very much for taking the time in your March break to do that for us, so in a token of appreciation here…

(Applause)

Serge Labonte: Now I would like to introduce you to someone I've known for a very long time, Dr. Louis Fortier. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: Louis is the project leader for the Canadian Research Icebreaker Amundsen and the Scientific Director of ArcticNet, a Canadian network of centres of excellence dedicated to the study of the transforming coastal Canadian Arctic. Dr…

Serge Labonte: …the most significant international science effort underway in the world today. It involve more than 100 researcher from 27 Canadian university, five federal department, who in turn collaborate with research team in 11 other country. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: Trained at Laval and McGill universities and a NATO post-doctoral fellow, Louis Fortier holds the Canada Research Chair on the response of the Arctic marine ecosystems to climate change at the University Laval.

Serge Labonte: …the officer of the Order of Canada and the Honorary PAG(?) from the University of Manitoba. (Speaks in French without interpretation.) Louis, you are already famous, but I give you 15 minute to live up to your reputation. Dr. Fortier.

(Applause)

Dr. Louis Fortier: (Speaks in French.)

Translator: I have known Serge for a very long time. And may I have maybe the first slide, and we'll begin… go right on to the presentation.

Dr. Louis Fortier: OK, as we… (Speaks in French.)

Translator: As we all know, the planet is getting warmer. And one of the places on the Earth which is getting warmer more quickly than elsewhere is the Arctic. This where the Inuit live. And we use the Arctic as a barometer of what is going to come in the coming years and centuries.

Dr. Louis Fortier: On this slides you see the… the anomalies of temperature for the… the year 2005. It's a… it's a general map of the… of the… of the planet. It's a… you see South America, North America. And you can see that the… the warmest colours, corresponding to the highest anomalies in temperature all occur in the high Arctic. So the Arctic is… is warming very quickly compared to the rest of the world, and very much quicker than we expected it to… to warm up. And one of the first consequences of this warming will be the… the shrinking of the sea ice cover, the icepack, the… the thin layer of ice that covers the… the Arctic Ocean. And this ice cover, we often think of it as something static, like a skating rink or whatever, but it's actually extremely dynamic and thermodynamic. So you can see on this animation for 2005, again, the… the building up on the ice in October, in the fall, and then in the winter time you have those huge fluxes… rivers of ice flowing on the two sides of the Greenland. And then, as the… the spring and… and summer come back, the… this flow of ice will stop and the icepack will shrink back to about eight million square kilometres of… of sea ice. This is what happens at the end of the summer, in September. The ice will… the ice extent will reach its… its… its minimum. So scientists have been looking at the minimum ice cover in September over the last 50 or 60 years, and what we… we have been seeing is of course a… as predicted by most climate model, a reduction of the… in the sea ice cover. You can see this is one of the most obvious sign of the warming of the Arctic system. And you can see that, starting in the year 2000, things have accelerated. And in 2007 and 2008, we were seeing extremely concerning conditions in the… in the Arctic, with a massive reduction of the sea ice cover.

So the Arctic sea ice is… is disappearing much faster than expected. The… the rate exceeds the… the predictions of the most pessimistic climate models. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: And the disappearance of the sea ice is one of the many symptom of the warming of the cryosphere, that is the coldest part of the planet, and especially what we… we observe is the disappearance of a number of dimension of the glacial world. For example…

Dr. Louis Fortier: …the Arctic. So the ice shelves are much thicker ice formation among the… the continental… along the continent, maybe 30 to 40, 50 metres thick. These are progressively disappearing very quickly. We also see the destabilization of the permafrost, on which all the buildings and infrastructures are built in the… in the Arctic, with obvious consequences for the people living there, like seeing their house toppling down into the… into the sea.

Another symptom which is quite concerning for the scientist is the… the beginning of the meltdown of the Greenland inlansis (ph). So the Greenland inlansis is this huge glacier that often is as thick as three kilometres on the… the island of Greenland. And the problem is that all this ice is above sea level, so if it melts the level of the sea will rise everywhere in… in the world, and some countries will… will disappear. So we think that these events could occur over a millennium or 1500 years, but if it is the same thing as with the sea ice, if it is going much faster than we expected, then we can… we going to be seeing problems by the end of this century with the… the rising sea levels.

So the… the thawing of the Arctic world will have major geopolitical, environmental and… and societal-economic impacts and consequences all across the… the world. And to study those… those impacts, we have developed in Canada a network of centres of excellence which is called ArcticNet. And one of the major tools of ArcticNet is the research icebreaker Amundsen, which we going to see on the next slide.

The Amundsen, you will see on this short presentation, if… if we can have it, is a extremely powerful tool to study the… the Arctic Ocean -- and not only the Arctic Ocean but also all the terrestrial ecosystem. And we also use the ship as a medical clinic to visit the different villages of the… of the Inuit world to take a measure of the health of the… of the people over there to try to follow what will be the impact of climate change and modernization on the Inuit of… of Canada. And the ship itself is… is about 98 metre long, and it's equipped with the… the best scientific equipment that you… you can think of. It's really state-of-the-art equipment with very modern laboratories to… to study all aspects of the ecosystems.

Our most recent toy is the ROV, the remotely operated vehicle, which is a submarine with a umbilical cord. Nobody… it goes into the submarine, but the submarine goes to the moon pool of the ship, the access well, and we can explore the bottom of the ocean as well as the… the under ice of the Arctic Ocean. We can see images of the… of… of the system while being deployed. And we find all strange sort of things on the ocean bottom of the Arctic. For example, this naked coral, which is about one and a half metre high, very special animals that we couldn't see yet until we had the ROV in… in position.

I could talk to you for hours about all the expeditions, all the work that we do on the… on the Amundsen. But maybe the best way to do it would be through a short video presentation of a few minutes that will show you not only what the scientists do on board a ship, but also how we connect with the Inuit people and… and the… the… the actions of… on the ship. So maybe it's going to give you a taste to develop a career in… in Arctic ocean sciences and… and to actually participate in those expeditions in the… in the future. If we can have the… the movie.

(Video Presentation)

Dr. Louis Fortier: As you can see, the scientific teams working on the Amundsen are quite young, a lot of young students, even students from high school who participate in the expeditions within the program School Onboard. Otherwise there are university students who just started their careers on the climate change and the evolution of the Arctic.

Few views of the… of the Arctic and the action on the Amundsen will have given you a taste, maybe an inkling to consider the possibility of developing a career in Arctic research. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Serge Labonte: (Speaks in French.)

Translator: Thank you, Louis. We will now take time to take a few questions from the audience. We even have a question from the Internet.

Serge Labonte: …as it's refer in the website on (inaudible) the Amundsen.

Dr. Louis Fortier: Yeah. So the moon pool is a… is actually a well that has been built through five of the seven decks of the… of… of the ship inside the ship. And of course the margin of the well is above sea level; otherwise every time that we opened the well, we would sink the ship. And so the engineers have… have thought of this… this question. And the moon pool allows us to deploy the instrumentation, the very delicate scientific instrumentation that we use on the ship, to deploy it through the… those decks and to access the Arctic Ocean without having to put those instrumentation outside in the very cold atmospheric temperatures that we… that… that we find there. So it's an extremely useful tool that we have on the ship. And the Amundsen is the only icebreaker… Canadian icebreaker, and one of the few icebreakers around the world that is equipped with a moon pool.

Serge Labonte: You're not done yet. I have… I have a question. This one's from Ottawa. It says, "As ice melt and the percentage of fresh water and temperature increase, how will the… this change ocean current that circulate through the north?"

Dr. Louis Fortier: The… the… the Arctic Ocean in general will… the… the… the circulation will… will increase, will accelerate. The… the problem of the… the… the melting sea ice is that it brings a lot of fresh water in the surface layer. And this may slow down one aspect of the circulation of the currents that we call the thermohaline circulation, which is the…the deep water that is formed at the surface when the ice is… is forming. So that… that water is very dense and has a tendency to sink at depth. And this is renewing the… the temperature of the… of the ocean across the entire world. So there is some concern that the melting of the Arctic sea ice will slow down the great conveyor belt of the thermohaline circulation and affect the climate of the planet even more than it is affecting it at this time.

Serge Labonte: (Inaudible)… one more question. In fact, a very prolific person had four questions, so I'll go for the one I think is probably the best one.

Dr. Louis Fortier: Alright. (Laughs)…

Serge Labonte: What is the magnitude of the polar ice cap melting? In other word, at the current rate, approximately how long would it take before an entire city will get buried under water? That's a good one.

Dr. Louis Fortier: Yeah, it's a good one. I think if I… if I knew the… the answer to that question, I could make a lot of money. But at… at… at this stage we have to… to understand two things. First of all is that the… the melting of the sea ice over the Arctic Ocean will not change the level of the ocean because the sea ice is already sitting on the… on the ocean. But the melting of the Greenland inlansis is a concern. As I said earlier, we think it's going to happen maybe in a thousand years or 1500 years that the inlansis of the Greenland would be totally melted. And if it melted totally, it would mean the sea level rise of clear… close to seven metres, which means that several cities, several areas in the world will be… will be inundated, like part of Florida and a good chunk of Bangladesh and… and places like that, which are very low on the… on the ocean. And… but of course we don't know exactly when it's going to happen. We think that by the end of the century we should have between 0.5 and maybe one and a half metre of sea level raise. But as we have seen with the… the… the sea ice melting, things can happen much faster than what scientists are… are (inaudible).

Serge Labonte: (Speaks in French.)

Translator: Thank you very much, Louis, for this excellent presentation. And I am pleased to give you this small token of appreciation, to… something to read during your long expeditions aboard the Amundsen.

You can go to the ArcticNet website after the webcast if you want to know more about ArcticNet. The url is www.arcticnet . -- no, it's not a dot; that's a dash -- ulaval (for Universite Laval) .ca. So www.arcticnet-ulaval.ca .

Now we'll move from this to marine mammal. I would like to introduce Dr. Mike Hammill of Fisheries and Ocean Canada, who will be joined by his Inuit colleague, Caroline Weetaluk. Mike has studied marine mammals since 1978, and has been research scientist and head of the Marine Mammal Section at Fisheries and Ocean Maurice Lamontagne Institute in Mont Julie (ph), Quebec. (Speaks in French.)

Translator: For the past five year, Mike has led the National Centre of Expertise on Marine Mammals at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. His current research involves studies on population dynamics for aging (inaudible)… spatial use and the movement of beluga in the northern Quebec, also known as the Nunavut region.

Serge Labonte: Caroline assisted Mike in his IPY research involving the pan-Arctic tagging of beluga, which blend traditional and western scientific approach. Caroline live in Kuujjuarapik, Nunavik's outermost village, a community of about 600 Inuit and Cree people on the east side of Hudson Bay. Their ancestor have occupied the area for 3000 year. The hunting of caribou, seal, beluga, and fishing are the main economic activity in Kuujjuarapik. Through hundreds of year of fishing, hunting and trapping, the elder gain a deep knowledge of the local ecology, including the movement of… and habit of beluga. Mike's IPYs project were to integrate that knowledge into its finding. The finding will help improve the management of beluga, provide insight into the state of the Hudson Bay-James Bay ecosystem, and how beluga will adapt to climate change. We will start with Mike presentation, and then he'll invite Caroline to join him to talk about the Inuit knowledge of beluga that… what… that was so important to his project. So Mike?

Dr. Mike Hammill: Thank you very much, Serge. It's kind of hard to follow Louis with that presentation that… Well, anyway. (Inaudible)… going to start with one on belugas. So belugas are… are important to the people in northern Quebec. They are hunted. OK. They are hunted as part of the subsistence economy. The skin is known as muktuk (ph), high… very high in Vitamin C. The meat is very good also, very high iron content, very low in fat. In actual fact, the… the Inuit diet for… for many components is… is actually quite lean. It's quite a healthy diet.

What I wanted to look at with my project was to… to look a little bit at the movements of belugas, see where they go, what are they going, then also ask the people in the area what do you see. We do some interpretations of… of what's going on with one, two, three whales. We also see where these one, two, three whales go for one month, two months. But the people are there all year round. They're there 365 days a year; they're there for many, many, many years. So what are your observations that you see? Do they agree with what we see on the… on the telemetry? Or maybe a better way to put it, does the telemetry agree with what the observations say? If they don't, why not? Can we try and figure these things out?

So starting on the telemetry, what we want to do is attach satellite transmitters. These are two examples. We put them onto the back of the whales. The idea behind satellite transmitters, obviously they… they transmit a signal to a satellite. This is then retransmitted to a ground station. And in actual fact we can log on and with about… we get about a three- to a six-hour delay between when the signal's received at the station and when we can access it. So we can… we can find out where the whales are going when we're sitting in our office in… in Rimouski or Quebec City or Ottawa and they're moving around the Hudson Strait or northern… northern Hudson Bay.

The work that I started on many years ago with Caroline… we'd been working together. We just had a chat, almost a decade now. And it's… we're still going together as far as collaborating on work. And we started out at Little Will (ph) River on eastern Hudson Bay. That was the focus of trying to catch whales in that area. Whales are caught using a gill net that's put out from shore. It takes a while. We sort of wait around and sometimes, as the whales come in, we are able to push them into the net, or in other cases we have to wait until the whales swim by and then they go into the net and entangle themselves. This… Sorry? Then the… the whales… usually it's Caroline that helps us untangle them. They sort of get too confused and she sort of settles us down and gets us set straight, and we're able to get them out of the net after a while.

The transmitter's attached to the back. It… it consists of three pins going through what is a cartilaginous ridge that goes down the back. It's very much like piercing ears. Obviously it's a larger example of that. But these animals, we're looking at nine… nine feet long, three… yeah, about nine feet long, eight feet long. They're much larger than us. And essentially it's the same idea as piercing your ears, and then they're… they're carrying around this… the transmitter. The duration of the transmitter life can be anywhere from a month up to about seven months. We put on six this summer in July, and we still have two that are functioning at this time.
Just at the end, we get the whale all set up, we get the rope off the tail, and just check around, add some disinfection… disinfectant to make sure there aren't going to be any problems with infections afterwards, and the whale is released. And after a hard day's work, there's obviously, as any camp has, a little bit of R&R. I don't play cards because Caroline always beats me, and I hate that. So basically…

Here results, a bit hard to see. The idea when we put the transmitters on in eastern Hudson Bay we get this… this sort of fairly regular pattern of movement between in-shore areas. There's a deep canyon that just runs off the coast of eastern Hudson Bay. So the whales sort of move offshore for about five to eight days at a time, and then they come back inshore. So they… we don't know why they're doing this inshore-offshore movement. When they're offshore they're spending more time at the surface. They're more visible. But they're also… when they move inshore there seems to be more diving activity that's going on. And also when you have the inshore movement they're moving into the river estuaries. The idea of the graph below is just to show the regularity of this pattern, and it's really quite… quite astonishing.

Movements. Some of these beluga undertake very long movements. They spend the summer in the eastern Hudson Bay area, moving out as far as a hundred miles offshore, 160 kilometres, out to the Belcher (ph) Island area. And then they stay there until roughly about the third week of October. Once they decide to move, they move quickly, reaching the northern part of eastern Hudson Bay, up near a village called Ibuyavik (ph). They make that trip in about five days. It'd basically take you an hour to fly that in a dash-eight, maybe an hour and a half. And then they make the trip over to Quaktak (ph), which is just at the entrance to Ungava Bay. I don't know if I did this part right. Quaktak, up in this area. This takes about ten days. So they're going from this distance over to here in about ten days. Once they get past this point they move into what is called Ungava Bay. They seem to lounge around there. They spend about a month - probably feeding; we don't know for sure. But one of the things is that we see is extreme inshore-offshore movement during the summer, then their migration's very coastal. They hug the coastline until they get into Ungava Bay. Then you get a little bit further offshore, but this is because the ice is forming and the animals can't get as close to shore before. They may lay around in Ungava Bay for about a month, and then they generally move outside eastern Hud… or outside the Ungava Bay area down the Labrador coast as far south as… as Hopedale.

We had a couple of animals that stayed down here until the spring, and then their transmitters basically failed in February and March. So we… we don't know when they came back, but this is where they were spending the winter period. What are they doing there? Again, probably feeding. From what we get from discussing with the Inuit is that the whales seem to put on fat in the winter and then they lose weight during the summer. So at this time of year, during the winter, they're diving, and they're diving deep. What we see is the focus of… of the dives. All the positions are located over a deep canyon. This canyon's about 600 metres deep, and this is where the animals are spending most of their time.

Slightly different part… part of the project. The other aspect that we've been working on is we've been working in James Bay, one of the most southerly parts of the distribution of beluga -- not the most southerly district… part, but almost. We've been working there over the last two seasons, near the village of… of East Main. And here we get a different pattern of movements. So instead of the sort of… the summer inshore-offshore movement and then the fall migration up the eastern Hudson Bay coast out to Labrador to overwinter in Labrador, these animals are real home bodies. So these transmitters -- this is just one individual accounted for… included for today. So this animal has been tagged in July. He's hung around there in August, September, October, December. And basically he's moved up a bit, but not… not any kind of migration at all. So you've got two different groups of beluga, it seems. You've got some that like to undertake a very long migration, as what the animals in eastern Hudson Bay do, but then you also have another group in… in James Bay, which is actually a much larger population of animals. Those animals seem to overwinter in James Bay.

We don't just look at the movements. We want to see if we can figure our what they're doing under the water. So if we look at the red… the red trace, this is basically what they would be doing if we were considering just the surface deplacement… displacement, so the movement of these animals horizontally. But there's a whole other life that goes on as far as diving and looking for food, and we're still trying to work out analysis techniques to get at this. And you see that there's a lot more that we just don't understand as far as the feeding behaviour or their diving activity that's going on.

The transmitters provide us with information on… on the dive depths that they go to, swimming speeds, but also water temperature. And this is kind of interesting because this profile that's taken from a beluga in eastern Hudson Bay is taken near the end of… end of October. And we see, if we go down to about 25 metres' depth, we get a temperature of somewhere between one point… well, around 1.4 degrees Celsius. If we go into James Bay, actually a few days later, then… from eastern Hudson Bay, then we go down to about 25 metres, we see that the water temperature at that depth is about five degrees Celsius. It's much, much warmer. Maybe the beluga don't feel they have to leave the south James Bay area because it's not so cold. (Inaudible) is probably because, although James Bay does freeze over, there are some areas that remain open throughout the winter, and this is where they concentrate.

That's the transmitters. That's the sort of high technology stuff. Now we'll go to low technology, which many people tend to overlook, but that's what is very important to help us try and understand things. So we've been working with Maqvik (ph) Corporation, and they've maintained a database with interviews with hunters over the years. And we've tried to go into this database and tried to compare the results with what we see from our satellite transmitters. So from the hunters a couple of points that I want to bring out is they're seeing beluga all in these areas throughout the summer. But the first point is their observations of belugas only go to about five miles offshore. We look at satellite transmitters and see that the belugas are going up to a hundred miles offshore. So again, just to repeat what the… I showed much earlier, we get this inshore-offshore movement. What you… what you don't get is this distribution all around the coast. There's no big explanation or very difficult explanation. Hunters don't want to go offshore because it's dangerous to hunt offshore. Also, the whales tend to be concentrated here so easier to access. So you understand why they get this perspective. The satellite transmitters, the same idea. We only equip animals in one area, so we get a good idea of what those few animals are doing, but it's a restrictive sampling (inaudible)… restricted sampling.

We go into the winter, the same idea. The satellite transmitters indicate all the beluga here, they're leaving and they're going out into Ungava Bay and down the Labrador coast. Well, that's quite interesting. The Inuit observations don't show any of that data in here, so you say wow, we've got something really new. But the Inuit are showing this overwintering of beluga off eastern Hudson Bay and in James Bay. We can understand a little bit because, again, this perspectives on how we're sampling and how we're catching animals, which is quite interesting, and I think this is quite important for trying to make decisions, so it's nice to have either two different points of view and try and understand why they differ. But what's also quite interesting is we've confirmation from two… two different sources. One is the satellite telemetry; the other is the local knowledge. And this sort of sets it up to say well, there must be… we must have something very solid as far as making interpretations here because, from two different directions, we make similar conclusions. That's about all that I have. I think I'll let Caroline speak a little bit for a couple of minutes.

Caroline Weetaluk: Hi. I'm Caroline Weetaluk from Kuujjuarapik, Nunavut… Nunavik. I've been working with Mike for… since 2000. And I've been interested in belugas for a long time. I've been watching them since I was growing up, but I'm interested in them because I want to know that are they… are we losing them or are we… you know, are they going to be gone forever, or…? You know, I just… I want my descendants to see them too, you know, my grandchildren or great-grandchildren, you know. That's how I see it. That's why I've been working with Mike about this, to… I still eat them, and you know, it's in my blood. I'll eat it. But I don't want to lose… lose the belugas. But we have to make sure there are going to be some in the future, or…

And then it's funny thing that our grandfathers used to work together, Mike and my grandfather… Mike's grandfather and mine. That was funny when we first met because we came from James Bay, and my grandfather used to live there. And that's how we started making stories. I mean, we'll tell a story, and he'd tell me a story. And that's… it's a big world but small world for us. But it's been good to work and… you know, if they know and we know, that's two different knowledge. That's how I see it, you know. If we work together we'll know much about it. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

(Applause)

Unidentified Male: (Off microphone): (Inaudible)

Serge Labonte: Yeah, we're done early maybe. No, but I think we'll have time for… for our questions.

Unidentified Male: (Off microphone): (Inaudible)

Unidentified Female: Any questions from the audience? Microphone, please. The interpreter cannot hear anymore. How is done the project? What are the projects with the mammals, all the fun they have on the sites. Yes.

Question: (Off microphone): Hi. Thank you for your presentation. Very interesting. My question is about your project together. For how many years you two you've been study belugas, and what do you think at the end… what will be the biggest conclusion of this study?

Dr. Mike Hammill: This particular aspect for field work will probably go on another year, and we'll be working on analysis. We'll either continue… try to continue in different areas or move into different aspects. We're already trying to get the hunters to help us on getting samples. What do they eat? When they're in… stopping in certain areas, is it because it's for reproduction? Is it for feeding, or… or what else? So this is… this is what we're trying to… to develop (inaudible).

A lot of this feeds into… well, one aspect sort of most immediate is management. We're concerned about how many belugas there are, trying to identify areas where we can increase protection or other areas where maybe it's OK to hunt them. So that's sort of the black-and-white answer. On a larger sort of more theoretical basis right now, we have temperatures. These can go into ocean forecasting models. Because often Louis has an excellent piece of equipment, a big ship, which is really good, but it's not there in the winter. These belugas are moving around there in the winter. And Louis has this really great ship, but it's only one in Canada. So he can be in Hudson Bay at one point of time, but maybe the next year the priority is the Beaufort Sea. We have belugas getting data on salinity and temperature. So it feeds into… into other studies as well.

The other aspects too, we expect that ice change… ice will change over the future. So what is this going to do? This may open up areas. Maybe the beluga in eastern Hudson Bay will reduce the migration. Maybe they'll start to stick around. I don't know. At the same time, other whales could move into the area, and this will increase… could increase competition for food. And then the… probably the… the big one, which I don't think is a big problem right now for eastern Hudson Bay, but if we did see a big decline in ice, there's always killer whales moving around. And if they were to move into the eastern Hudson Bay sector because of a decline in ice, this could cause some problems for our population.
Serge Labonte: Thanks, Mike. I think we have another question.

Question: Hello.

Dr. Mike Hammill: Hi.

Question: I guess I have a fun question. How do you prepare beluga meat for consumption, and what does it taste like?

Caroline Weetaluk: We dry the meat, or we boil it. It's real good -- for me; I don't know for you. Yeah, we smoke it too. Like… dry it and smoke it, and… real good.

Question: Have you tried it, Mike?

Dr. Mike Hammill: I… yeah. I prefer the muktuk (ph) over the meat, but (inaudible)…

Serge Labonte: (Off microphone): Thank you very much for your presentation, Caroline. Little token of our appreciation. Mike (inaudible)… Merci beaucoup. (Inaudible)…

Translator: Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Serge Labonte: Again, to learn more about the many science project underway at Fisheries and Ocean, please check out our science feature story on the web. It's at www.dfo-npo.gc.ca-science . Remember that. Just… just go on DFO website and look for Science. You'll find it.

OK. Now we'd like to switch to… the focus from Arctic whale to ice, Student on Ice, to be precise. As Student on Ice offer uniques expedition to the Arctic and the Antarctic, they are inspiring a new generation of student and teacher with learning opportunity at the end of the Earth. They have been very active during International Polar Year. And I'm pleased to welcome Samantha Darling, who is going to introduce a video on this polar adventure. Samantha?

Samantha Darling: Thank you. Hi. I'm Sam. I'm representing Students on Ice. Unfortunately, Jeff Breen (ph) wasn't able to make it today, so I've been voluntold to be here instead just to say a couple of words about Students on Ice. As was mentioned, we do Arctic… Arctic and Antarctic expeditions with high school and university students to try and encourage awareness about Arctic issues and Antarctic issues and climate change in general. We generally take around 65 to 75 students and 35 researchers and scientists on our expeditions. We just concluded our university expedition, which was the first of its kind, at the end of February. And so we're going to be continuing on kind of developing that aspect. We've been lucky enough to gain funding from IPY to sponsor ten students on our Arctic expeditions. The most… well, the next one will be happening in July. So if there's anyone who's interested or needs more information, go to our website .

Fortunately, we've had a lot of generous sponsors who've enabled us to say that 75 percent of our last Arctic expedition were fully funded students, and we're trying to increase that to a hundred percent as soon as possible. Students apply from around the world. Thirty-two countries have been involved in the past, and we're hoping to up that number as much as possible. And our alumnae are very active, both in Arctic issues and in youth empowerment in general. Isabella Bay is an issue that has come to a… well, to a head, I guess, and decisions have been made about Isabella Bay in the past six months. And our alumnae were part of that initiative. Bailey Siminuk (ph) and Jenna Dixon (ph) were very active in promoting the conservation of Isabella Bay.

And so I'm here to introduce a video that is kind of a perspective of IPY and SOI and the students and what they think about the initiatives that are happening and Arctic issues in general. So please enjoy.

Video Presentation:

Unidentified Female: Welcome to the International Polar Year.

(Numerous unidentified people speak in various foreign languages without interpretation.)

Unidentified Students: Welcome to the International Polar Year.

Unidentified Male: The International Polar Year is a coordinated effort which has changed the course of science during the last 125(?) or so years.

(Song)

Unidentified Male: The International Polar Years have really helped science to mature and helped us to look at things in an integrated fashion, as opposed to looking at the sciences in isolation. And this International Polar Year is going to take that to an all new level.

Unidentified Male: This International Polar Year is looking at things in a very different way to the last IPY. There's more social part to it than… than before. There's the outreach program, for example, in where you should integrate with the native communities up north, and also look at the problems that face the whole world, and where the biggest signals are in the polar… polar regions and where maybe the biggest changes are in the polar regions.

(Song)
Unidentified Female: This International Polar Year is supposed to leave a legacy behind. And I think one of the things that northerners have been saying for quite some time now is that, in order for it to leave a legacy, then it has to involve the north and its people. Before, when researchers and scientists used to come up, they just studied the… the environment and the people, and then went… and left, and they never really knew what was going on. So it's very important that the perspective of the Inuit and other aboriginal peoples is… is taken into the process, make it an integral part of the knowledge that's being built through these IPY projects. So the challenge is to really figure out a way of bringing those two knowledge bases together so they work together.

Unidentified Male: All the ice is melting away. Their… their… maybe their habitat is changing. They maybe can't go hunting anymore because the species decreasing due to climate change. So definitely they have a different perspective about climate change as we have.

Unidentified Female: Our young people from Nunavut, Nunavik, Newfoundland, Labrador, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alaska, we… we can learn so much from other people around the world, and… as well as the… the students from other parts of the world can learn from us. When we learn about each other, we're no longer ignorant.

Unidentified Female: I think it's really important for the youth to carry on the knowledge of our land because the elders, they won't always be there, so we have to learn it from them now or from the teachers and instructors before things start to fall out of our hands.

Unidentified Female: The students around the world, they have different cultures and they come from different places, and they have different views on the problematic areas, and they think differently. So if I only talk with the Chinese students, maybe we just focus on the same things (inaudible)… only in China. But now I'm here with so many international students, and I can see the world more widely.

Unidentified Female: So I think once students have that understanding of interconnection and interdependency, they then have a better understanding of… of how to move forward with strategies to protect the planet, but also to create societal well-being.

Unidentified Male: Our education system at all levels, from the knowledge of the native peoples of the north to the formal school systems in different countries, or the… how they all can take into account an understanding of the overall picture of our planet. It's not just a globe spinning in space, with a globe… which we are passengers. But we don't steer it, we don't spin it; we go… we go along, and it works its own way. And how do we live on this spinning globe, which has a whole range of… of living things, from bacteria to bowhead whales, and increasingly more and more humans who don't really hook onto the other things? And we hope the kids will hook on better than we did.
Unidentified Male: I am hopeful and I am more than hopeful; I'm confident that we will make our environment a better place than it was. I hope that my children will also be a part of such a great movement like the International Polar Year.

Unidentified Male: Having this experience makes me think what else can I do, other than in my community, but around the world globally. It sort of planted that seed in my mind, and it's starting to grow.

Unidentified Male: I think the legacy of the next generation is probably one of the most critical outcomes of the International Polar Year because they're the ones that are really going to be… pass the torch to carry on the next several decades of polar research. But it wouldn't be the same if we didn't have these incredible people that come along, these scientists that have spent their life studying the… the planet's polar regions.

Unidentified Male: I was involved in the last International Polar Year, and I… that's when I went down to the Antarctic, in 1957, and started, I guess, my polar career.

Unidentified Male: During 1948, I guess it was, I got the invitation to go there. So I went down as the senior geologist on the… what became the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic expedition. And we stayed down there for three years.

Unidentified Male: Working with young people, you know, this is the next generation of voters. To be environmentally aware of our planet and… and perhaps the next generation of scientists, environmental scientists. And so if… if you feel as I do, that we might make some contribution to their changing directions, or at least becoming more sensitive to our world, then it's time well spent.

Unidentified Male: And I think the way the world's problems are going to get solved in the long run is if we have that communication. And it has to start with the youth. And this really does it. It is just amazing how well it works.

Unidentified Female: Well, I think the students are really curious. And so it isn't really that hard to get them drawn, lying on the ground, and they look and they look and they really discover.

Unidentified Male: It's nice talking to the students because they're pretty sharp, and… (Laughs)… it's not like talking to an audience of government people. These people listen, you know. We are, I think, at a turning point, and these are the people who are going to have to look after it in the future. There's no doubt about it. And I think they're capable of doing it. This is… this is what's encouraging.

Unidentified Male: I think the international nature of International Polar Year I think is one of the… the key components. And the polar regions represent, in many ways, a symbol of peace and understanding and international cooperation. The Antarctic is the only continent that nobody owns, and it's never had a war. The Arctic is also a place that's shared by the circumpolar nations. And of course the poles themselves touch everybody on the planet.

Unidentified Male: We realize as we're exploiting the Earth that we are not really conscious of the effect of our individual activities on other people in other parts of the globe and other inhabitants with whom we share this Earth.

Unidentified Male: I think it genuinely will happen is that this International Polar Year of 2007 and so on will have an effect on… on… on people in terms of climate change and sustainability.

Unidentified Male: To pass the torch so that they… just as in a relay race. In a relay, the person you're passing to has to be ready to take it or else it will get dropped. It is the duty of all of us to say enough about what kind of a race we're in and what are the rules of that race before we (inaudible)… pass the torch to.

(Applause)

Serge Labonte: Thank you very much for that great video. (Speaks in French.)

Doug is a leading authority on ice in navigable water in North America. He has been involved in climate science, and for this entire career in the public service. Doug hold a B.SC. in physic from University of Victoria, a specialized undergraduate diploma in meteorology from McGill University, and M.SC. in physical oceanography from the Royal (inaudible) College. Dougs, I'll let you the… the opportunity to introduce all your colleague that are in the Arctic. And by the way, we have the link.

Doug: (Speaks in French.)

Translator: Good afternoon to all of you. I'm very happy to introduce Professor John Buckingham, Jan Bottenheim.

Doug: …in the OASIS Canadian International Polar Year Project. OASIS stands for the Ocean Atmosphere Sea Ice Snowpack, certainly one of the better IPY acronyms. And we can you and your team. We have Jan on line, Sandy Stefan and Ralph Stabler, and a fourth person who I don't recognize. They're in the frozen Arctic as we speak, studying research on air pollution and ozone (inaudible). They're trying to find out how chemical pollution gets to the Arctic and how the Arctic tolerates their intrusion, and what impacts there will be to ecosystems should the ice of the Arctic Ocean melt. They are using a small, sophisticated, fully automatic chemical laboratory developed at Environment Canada for use in extreme Arctic conditions with temperatures plunging to minus 40. This out-on-the-ice laboratory, or OOTI, consists of sensitive measuring instruments mounted on a specially built sled, with a snowmobile towing it. So with no further ado, Jan and team, welcome to the webcast, and how is your work going?

Dr. Jan Bottenheim: Since we didn't get any hook-up from the ice, we had to come back to land. So that gives me the opportunity to right here introduce the other members of the team. So besides… behind me you see Stoyka Netchiva (ph), who can answer any questions in Bulgarian or Russian, if you so desire. We have Sandy Stefan, who is the expert on mercury and will answer questions in French, if so desire. Ralph Stabler is sitting beside me, and Ralph will answer questions in German. And to top it off, I will answer questions in Dutch, if you so desire. But to make it simple, we will stick to English for today.

We call this presentation OASIS in the Arctic. And what you see actually is a picture from us at work, not this year but last year, at Amundsen icebreaker. So next, it's a slide from our four (inaudible) workers, but they are actually doing the work in the field. If you go to the next slide, this is really what we are thinking about, which is our normal work. We… looking for pollution. So the question is what is pollution. And we give you some examples of pollution that you can find in the air. So next we see things like smoke, car exhaust, heating and cooling houses, dust, dirt, mercury, pesticides. Next, most people who live in the north believed their way of life would never be threatened actually by pollution, but unfortunately we know now they were wrong. So let's go to the next slide. Why has air quality, what's that got to do with it? Well, next we breathe… next, we breathe an awful lot of air. Actually, on average take in about 10,000 litres of air per day. Next, the winds. Wind blow, and they can take the pollution actually all around the world. Next, some of these pollutants can actually go from air into the ecosystem. So it's not just the air that we care about; we have to think in a holistic way (inaudible) the ecosystem, animals eat it and by interfering (inaudible) humans do.

So next, the question, that is, why should we care about the air in the Arctic? Well, let's go to the next slide. The pollutant can actually make it all the way to the Arctic. Next, you see here where you have these factories, and they spit out all kind of nasty things, but move… air just moves it happily along and it makes it out to the air… to the Arctic. Next, few pollutants are produced in the Arctic, but we find them there. So let's go to the next slide. And that gets us to where we're talking about. We're talking about the under-explored Arctic. And that is particularly the polar ice caps, one of the least explored parts of the Earth. Next. And that is where we're working.

Now, it's not all that easy to work in the Arctic. Next. Sometimes things go drastically wrong, and we actually lose equipment that could work on the ice, and the polar ice cap sometimes melts. So it breaks open and our equipment ends in the ocean. Next is slides that shows you basically our current set-up, how we make these sleds, how we make these measurements out from the air.

And next, well, to… just to point out that this is really great. It's fascinating work we do. It's very fulfilling. It's a lot of fun. There's excitement. There's adventure. And you meet an awful lot of great people. Next, there are also things that are not so great. First of all, of course, it's cold. It's very cold. It's physically very hard, and I tell you, after a day of work we are tired. It can be extremely frustrating. You can come against the strangest challenges, and it's also a factor that you're often away from home for quite a long time. Next.

Now, what here I am interested in in particular, and (inaudible)… things like ozone and mercury. And what I show you here is a graph, and on the horizontal axis you see the time period from early February to early May. And on the vertical scale it gives you the concentrations. So this is what we normally would expect. We would expect that this is pretty much a straight line. There's a little bit going up, but nothing special. Next slide shows you what we actually observed. So these things are not stable at all, and we don't see a very straight line. It's very confusing to see this. And if you look carefully, you will see that sometimes ozone and mercury completely disappear. We can't find them at all.

So the next slide brings the question why would this happen. Next. Well, we know now more or less -- and I say decidedly more or less -- that this is due to chemical reactions between ozone and bromine from sea salt. Next. And so that's just the question of what does that come from. Well, Arctic oceans. And it happens particularly in the spring, when the ocean has all different types of surfaces. You have old ice that's several years old. You have open leads(?), where there is actually open water, what has new ice, and these leads freeze up again. You build up things that are called frost flowers, very exciting little things, and you see them there on the front. And we have of course snow.

So the next slide brings us to the question that we investigate, is the disappearance of ozone and mercury, because this is a scary thing. It's indeed something that is totally unexpected. Next. So why would we worry about ozone anyway? Well, there's several reasons for it. Ozone is actually not just a bad land(?). In the stratosphere, for instance, at ten kilometres, it protects us against harmful radiation from the sun. It is also responsible for the removal of most pollutants that we actually pump into the air. That… but of course then we think about smog formation, and we know that that is very bad. We see that in summer times in the big cities. And finally, ozone is actually a very potent greenhouse gas.

Next is the question why we would worry about mercury. Well, mercury is a very toxic pollutant. And we know that it actually finds its way very easily to the Arctic, and it can easily accumulate. But high levels are found in country foods, and so northerners eat these things. So actually northern people are exposed to this mercury. So if we see mercury disappearing from the air, we start wondering. And I have to emphasize that we don't know the answer at this point, but we certainly wonder, if mercury disappears from the air, how does this happen and where does it end up.

So the next slide gives you some of the questions that we are asking ourselves when we do this work. Next, the first question we ask is are these effect like disappearing ozone, disappearing mercury, is that everywhere in the Arctic. Next, what happens when the ozone is gone? Because ozone is destroyed. And it's not coming back. The next issue is what happens if there's no ice left in the future summer, which is threatening to happen pretty soon. And I told you we need ice -- we know that -- to just get rid of the ozone. Next, what if that ice is open? Then we get more shipping. So what's that going to do? The next question is the one about mercury. Where does it go? Because contrary to ozone, mercury is not destroyed, so it has to end up somewhere. You can also ask, next, the question what will happen if there's more mercury coming into the Arctic. And again, is mercury… you have to next ask the question what will happen with changes in climate. That is the next issue. Next.

OK. OK. So let's go on to the next slide, where I summarize this short presentation. The Arctic is really a very unique region of the world. Next. It's cold in the winter. We have lots of ice and snow, but it's still alive. There are still things happening in the winter even, and certainly in the spring. Next, it's a very productive area in the summer. Large areas are green. It's sunny, long days, and there are many feeding species, such as whales and birds, etcetera. Next. We know that there are chemical reactions in the air that affected the position of these nutrients and pollutants to the Arctic. Next. However, from this part, the chemistry is extremely poorly understood. So there are lots of questions that we have to ask. Next, we know that the air and large regions of the Arctic Ocean in particular, and also in almost all seasons, is not explored at all. We… it's a very big void. So the next and summarizing comment is that the Arctic is undergoing major climate change, particularly in the summer. So we don't know really what's happening now, and we don't know what will happen in the future. So there is a fantastic challenge to do a lot of work in the Arctic area, and particularly in areas of the ocean, which is really the idea of the… the ocean… the OASIS project. Next. That is our presentation.

Doug: I have a quick question. That is in the very still Arctic air, particularly when it's minus 40, how do you avoid the snowmobiles towing the sled from emitting contamination that will give you false readings?

Dr. Jan Bottenheim: That's a very good question, Doug. The… the… the downward answer is that we turn the engines off as soon as we start making measurements. We also certainly have stimulated people to actually develop electrically driven snowmobiles. They're getting there, battery driven. It's an open area for a lot of development because you're certainly right, it does interfere. But then again, as I said, we just make measurements, turn the snow machines off. And in the OOTI system in particularly, we are aided by the fact that we run on batteries so we set this thing up and we go home, and stay away for as long as we can and let this thing run by itself, because it's completely fully automated.

Doug: Well, thank you very much again, Jan. I'm not too sure how we're going to give you the gift electronically. (Laughs)…

Serge Labonte: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, and give… a little gift for you that you can share, Doug. And if you want to stay on the stage here, and I'll also ask Mike and… and Louis to come up here for a quick snapshot. I'd like… probably Louis, I know that you are a bit tight for time, but I'm going to ask you… each of you in one minute to maybe tell us, after the International Polar Year, what's been accomplished, some of the challenges. Maybe if you can summarize that in a minute from your point of view.

Dr. Louis Fortier: From my point of view, from a very general overview… point of view, it's… we have to convince the… the… the policy makers, the… the politicians, that the… it's… it's going to be beneficial, it's going to be pay, it's… you're going to make a profit out of turning our economy from what it is now, based on fossil fuels, and turn it into a grain economy. Because what… everything we see now in the… in the Arctic, the… the meltdown and everything, it's linked to our emissions of greenhouse gases. And it's been demonstrated quite clearly in Europe that, at this time, you can actually make… underground virage (inaudible). That is, you can turn the economy into a green economy quite easily and make some money while doing it. And the industry is actually waiting for a clear signal from the politicians to… to make that… that turn.

Serge Labonte: Merci, Louis. Doug?

Doug: If I could see anything generally developing from International Polar Year, it would be reducing the uncertainty of what we expect the changes to be, and therefore to better inform so many complicated decisions that need to be taken at so many levels.

Serge Labonte: Mike?

Dr. Mike Hammill: From my perspective on Polar Year, it's getting the people that will be working closer together -- the people who live there and the people who come south… come from the south when the birds come in the spring and they leave for the south when the birds leave in the fall.

Caroline Weetaluk: And same for me. Working together is much easier to understand each other.

Serge Labonte: Thank you very much. At this point, if there is any question from… from the room that you want to ask to our… our speaker before they… they vanish in the Arctic for one more year… anybody from the floor? No? OK. Well, if not, thank you very much. I think we need to wrap up. We're getting a bit out of time in term of wedding and etcetera. I'd like to thank the… the federal program office for the International Polar Year and the staff of Fisheries and Ocean, Indian and Northern Affair and Environment Canada for putting our program together, as well as our guests from ArcticNet, Student on Ice, Caroline Weetaluk, the Nunavut Sabu-Nik-Sabut (ph) performer. To all of you watching on line and at the science centre across Canada, thanks for watching. Good-bye. Au revoir. Merci beaucoup.