Webinars

On February 1st, APECS Canada led a 'create your own video' webinar. The webinar was run to prepare APECS Canada members for the PolarFlicks competition. The deadline for the competition is March 4. You could win a trip to CHARS the (Canadian High Arctic Research Station Campus)! You have to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and an early career researcher, and submit a 2 minute original video about any polar research subject. More details can be found at this link https://www.canada.ca/en/polar-knowledge/polarflicks.html The webinar was led by Julio Escarce. Julio has loved telling stories since childhood and has a passion for ensuring that facts are transmitted with the appropriate context for specific audiences. Figuring out how to explain climate change to 4,6,16,40 and 70-year-olds in a way that each can easily access and understand is a daily pursuit for Julio. 

Working with northern communities is a part of Arctic research in Canada. In this webinar, Dr. Jennifer Provencher (W. Garfield Weston Postdoctoral Fellow in Northern Research at Acadia University) discusses her experiences from her graduate and post-doctoral work as a natural scientist working with communities in Nunavut, Nunavik and the NWT. She talks about how early career researchers can engage with communities, co-develop research questions, and create meaningful training programs with communities. This includes a discussion of opportunities, mechanisms, and barriers to engaging in community collaborative research in northern Canada. She also expands on some ideas from a co-authored essay (Tondu et al. 2014, Arctic), and talks about specific examples of how she implemented these practices in her own work as an ecologist.

This webinar was made by APECS Canada as part of the annual Intercultural Indigenous Workshop (IIW) at McGill University on November 16th, 2017 (www.qcbs.ca/iiw) Topic: How to best engage with northern indigenous communities as part of research projects by Dr. Murray Humphries and Kakwiranó:ron Cook. Dr. Murray Humphries is an Associate Professor of Wildlife Biology at McGill University, the Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE), and the Institut Nordique du Québec McGill Chair in Northern Research - Wildlife conservation and Traditional Food Security. As a wildlife biologist, his work encompasses traditional and scientific ecological knowledge of wildlife in the food systems of Indigenous Peoples. Kakwiranó:ron Cook is an enrolled member of both the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne (New York/Ontario/Quebec) and Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation at Pine Ridge (South Dakota). As the Aboriginal Outreach Administrator, Kakwiranó:ron works collaboratively with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across Canada on- and off- reserve in an effort to connect with youth, prospective university students and their families to promote higher education and McGill University. More on Dr. Humphries: https://www.mcgill.ca/nrs/staff/academic/humphries More on Mr. Cook: https://www.mcgill.ca/deanofstudents/aboriginaloutreach/biography-kakwiranoron-cook

Brenda Parlee was invited by the Cold Regions Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON. Brenda Parlee is an Associate Professor of Agricultural Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta. This talk titled 'Social Construction of a Polar Bear Population “Crash” and the Importance of Recognizing Indigenous Knowledge Systems' spoke to many people's curiosity surrounding the topic of polar bear's. There is growing public concern about the impacts of climate change on Arctic ecosystems and the drastic implications predicted for polar bears.  Some scientists warn that world's polar bear populations could decline by over two-thirds by the year 2050.  This “polar bear crisis” has captured public imagination and has driven unprecedented dialogue and action on climate change.  However, the present-day “polar bear crisis” is one that has been socially constructed at a global scale to the dis-benefit of northern Indigenous peoples who have many generations of knowledge and lived experience of bears.  The global population of polar bears, which has been estimated between 22000 and 31000 animals, is in fact the highest it has ever been in sixty years of scientific research. Indigenous Knowledge holders across the Canadian north agree they are not seeing declines in bears and have much more evidence to suggest bear sub-populations are stable if not increasing, particularly in the Beaufort region. Guided by concerns and research carried out over many years by the Inuvialuit Game Council, this presentation reflects on the disjuncture between Traditional Knowledge and science, and the associated tensions between knowledge and power – specifically whose knowledge is being used in the governance of arctic ecosystems. Questions begin around 50 minutes.

APECS Canada policy webinar series

APECS Canada webinar series

The St. Elias Mountains of Yukon, Canada, are home to vast icefields, surging glaciers and some of the highest peaks in North America. Since 2006, Gwenn and her research group at Simon Fraser University have been carrying out glaciological field work in this area to investigate surface mass and energy balance, glacier response to climate, glacier thermal structure, ice dynamics and outburst floods. This webinar will highlight some of the research results, illustrate the role of funding and logistics in defining the research, and touch on the opportunities and challenges associated with field-based studies in this relatively remote area.