{"id":101602,"date":"2025-08-27T20:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T20:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/101602\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T20:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T20:17:13","slug":"canadas-biggest-arctic-research-entity-is-10-years-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/101602\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s biggest Arctic research entity is 10 years \u2018young\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polar Knowledge Canada reaches decade milestone of teaching Canadians about the Arctic<\/p>\n

One of North America\u2019s leading Arctic research entities just turned 10 years old.<\/p>\n

Or 10 years \u201cyoung,\u201d as one of its scientists says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still growing as an organization,\u201d said David Hik, chief scientist and vice-president of research at Polar Knowledge Canada.<\/p>\n

The federal agency was created in 2015 to advance Canada\u2019s knowledge of the Arctic. It was tasked with creating and managing the country\u2019s biggest northern scientific research hub, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, or CHARS, in Cambridge Bay.<\/p>\n

The station was officially completed<\/a> in 2019, after several years of construction and a North of North-like competition between Cambridge Bay, Pond Inlet and Resolute Bay to be the host community.<\/p>\n

Cambridge Bay won out over the two other contenders thanks to good transportation access, said Jeannie Ehaloak, Polar Knowledge Canada\u2019s director of strategic communications. She was a Cambridge Bay hamlet councillor back when the station was first proposed.<\/p>\n

The roughly $35-million-a-year operation now employs 57 people, about half of whom are Inuit.<\/p>\n

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The station has created \u201ceconomic opportunities\u201d for the hamlet, Ehaloak said, with more restaurants opened and private housing built.<\/p>\n

As Arctic sovereignty and security have become the talk<\/a> of the times in national politics, interest is growing in the work the station does.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that context, I think people are increasingly aware that we\u2019re here,\u201d Hik said, adding that Arctic infrastructure projects<\/a> cannot be implemented without the knowledge that can only be gained through long-term research.<\/p>\n

And CHARS\u2019 work in the past decade can be helpful to meet this moment.<\/p>\n

On boats or snowmobiles or through satellite research, the station\u2019s staff examines the condition of the permafrost, sea and freshwater ice to determine how it will impact roads and large infrastructure.<\/p>\n

That information could be used in planning what Prime Minister Mark Carney has called \u201cnation-building\u201d infrastructure projects like Grays Bay road and port<\/a> and the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link<\/a> in Nunavut.<\/p>\n

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They also monitor the environment and the population of different Arctic animals, making Cambridge Bay a place with the best-documented diversity of Arctic species, Hik said.<\/p>\n

Polar Knowledge Canada \u201cis the organization that could help to ensure that we have a long-term commitment to providing the relevant information to inform our decisions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the Arctic region is huge, and scientific research cannot happen in just one place. So as part of its work, Polar Knowledge Canada helps bring in researchers from different corners of Canada and the world.<\/p>\n

In recent years, it has collaborated with scientists from the U.K. and across North American research stations. Its annual $7-million grant program helps fund Arctic guardian programs and smaller Inuit-led climate initiatives across Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really at the heart of what we\u2019re trying to do \u2014 prioritizing the work that\u2019s important to people in the North, to communities and Indigenous organizations,\u201d Hik said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo we\u2019re really looking forward to the next 10 years and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polar Knowledge Canada reaches decade milestone of teaching Canadians about the Arctic One of North America\u2019s leading Arctic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-101602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}