RCI | English : Columns

Updated on January 23rd 2019 |

Canadian model Maye Musk, 70, attends the 2018 GQ Men Of The Year Party at Benedict Estate on December 6, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. Musk's modelling career has taken off since she let her hair grow in silver, and she's now the latest "face" of Covergirl. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)

HOW OLD?

Canada, like all G7 countries, is an ageing society. With a population of almost 38 million people, the the median age here is now 40.

Of the G7 countries, however, we’re still one of the youngest.

But by 2031 we will be in the situation that Japan finds itself in now, with a quarter of the population over the age of 65.

Headlines like these, from the 2016 Canadian Census, surprised many people, and present the challenges and opportunities we'll consider here.

* If you'd like to view some of the charts, you'll find them at the end of this post.

From the joys of embracing the process in good health as Maye Musk is doing, to the "staggering ageism" writer Sharon Butala has experienced, to the demands of the '100 million by 2100' group, to significantly increase immigration to support seniors, we'll look at how Canadians are evolving.

Centenarians, people over 100, are the fastest growing demographic in Canada now. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)

CENSUS AND CENTENARIANS

The fact that there are now more people over the age of 65 in Canada, than under 14, came as a wake-up call, following the census.

The demographic pyramids of the past have become demographic columns, and indeed now the columns are getting top heavy.

David K. Foot, originally from Australia, is the economist and demographer, who recently retired from the University of Toronto.

He first alerted Canadians to these developments over twenty years ago, with his "Boom, Bust & Echo" series of books, written with journalist Daniel Stoffman.

David Foot, author of "Boom, Bust & Echo,"at his home in Toronto on May 29, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim

In this new millennium, however, it is becoming evident this evolution is a global trend.

It is not just the countries of the so-called developed world that have experienced a drop in fertility; it is increasingly the reality in what we know as the developing world now as well.

Jonathan Chagnon is a demographer with Statistics Canada, the government agency that keeps track of the country’s facts and figures.

He says it’s not all bad news, that we just have to be prepared for this evolution. 

ListenEN_Clip_3-20181107-WME30

“Canada still has one of the youngest populations of the G7 countries. There’s only the United States who has a lower proportion of 65 and over, than Canada.” - Jonathan Chagnon

From government budgets to provide the healthcare services, to buildings and residences designed to accommodate more walkers and wheel chairs, and more communal living options, profound changes in our society are underway.

Many of the indoor shopping malls we frequent, particularly during the cold winter months, were redesigned in the last decade to provide more comfortable seating, allowing the elderly to rest as they make their way through retail spaces, and making seniors welcome to spend time there, or in the food courts, to break the isolation that is now recognized as so detrimental to the quality of life of an elderly person.

Even death is undergoing a revision. There's a social transformation taking place as Canadians consider the right they now have, to an "assisted death".

Funeral traditions and burial methods are also changing. In early November 2018, the first Salon de la Mort, at Montreal's Palais de Congres took place,

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from around the North

An interactive ebook focused on research in Canada's Hudson Bay area, and its wider connection to the Arctic, has been released in an effort to make climate science more accessible to the general population.

"Scientific information is quite often not accessible to the public or the policy makers  because none of them read peer-reviewed journals," said David Barber,  Canada Research Chair in Arctic-System Science at the University of Manitoba and one of the people behind the project.

"So we took it upon ourselves to translate these very jargon-filled peer-reviewed publications and put it into an accessible format so that people could have the up-to-date knowledge [that] the scientific world has about the realities of climate change," Barber told Eye on the Arctic in a phone interview.

Feature InterviewFor more on the challenges of communicating climate science, Eye on the Arctic talks with the University of Manitoba’s David Barber:

https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2018/12/FinalBarber.mp3

Interactive experience

The Expedition Churchill: A Gateway to Arctic Research ebook  is part of  Expedition Churchill, an outreach program from the University of Manitoba's Centre for Earth Observation and Science.

Churchill is a town of around 900 people in north-eastern Manitoba on the Hudson Bay coast and is well known for its polar bear tourism.

Project partners include VIA Rail, The Town of Churchill, the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC), Assiniboine Park Zoo and Travel Manitoba.

Special tables on the VIA Rail service will allow passengers on the resumed Churchill passenger rail service to explore the book's interactive features, says David Barber. (Michael Woelcke/VIA Rail)

The book includes 10 chapters on everything from sea ice to the Arctic food chain and includes video, interactive graphics and audio of researchers explaining their science in plain language.

Besides the ebook, the Expedition Churchill project includes interactive kiosks across Manitoba and interactive tabletops in the VIA Rail passenger train between Winnipeg and Churchill.

"People from all over the wold travel [to Churchill] to see the belugas, the northern lights, to go birding on the Hudon Bay lowlands and, or course, to see the polar bears," Barber said.

"These tourists are a valuable component  of our  society in terms of their engagement and involvement with the whole climate change arena. We wanted to make sure that tourists understood what it was they were  seeing and what the scientific realities of climate change are in the North."

Hudson Bay, a model for High Arctic

The cover of the Expedition Churchill ebook. Understanding climate change in this region, can help people better understand how a warming climate will affect the Arctic Ocean, say researchers. (Courtesy University of Manitoba)

The research done in Canada's Hudson Bay area is especially important as a model for how climate change may affect the Far North, says Barber.

As an inland sea surrounded by a continent, researchers say Hudson Bay provides an important model for what might happen in the Arctic Ocean as the climate warms.

"Hudson Bay is actually a very good analogue of what the near future of what the High Arctic system looks like," said Barber. "And this ebook explores this concept providing details about how Hudson Bay functions.

"We learn from this sub-Arctic sea about what's happening in the High Arctic."

Passenger rail service resumes

An aerial view of Churchill, Manitoba, is shown on Wednesday, July 4, 2018.  (John Woods/The Canadian Press)

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from around the North. 

The First Nations Book Fair (Kwahiatonhk: Salon du livre des Premières Nations) gets underway in the Canadian province of Quebec November 22-25 to promote Indigenous books and authors.

Eye on the Arctic participated in Espaces autochtones, a show from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's French-language service Radio-Canada,  to talk about the popular books and reading recommendations from independent bookstores and publishers based in Canada's northern territories.

Here's the roundup:

Finding our Faces. (Courtesy Whitehorse Aboriginal Women's Circle)

Finding our Faces  

Publisher: Whitehorse Aboriginal Women's Circle

Books about the residential school experience continue to sell well and dominate Indigenous literature says Lise Schonewille, the buyer at Mac's Fireweed Books in Whitehorse, the capital of Canada's northwestern Yukon territory. Sugar Falls by David Alexander Robertson, They Called Me Number One by Bev Sellars and Speaking Our Truth by Monique Gray Smith are three books by southern Indigenous authors that the store recommends.

For those interested in Yukon, Schonewille recommends Finding our Faces from the Whitehorse Aboriginal Women's Circle, a book featuring photos and stories from former students of the Whitehorse Baptist Mission School.

Adeline Webber, a member of the Teslin Tlingit First Nation, and a student at the school from 1952-1960, initiated the search for photos and stories to create a  book for former students and their decedents. It launched in 2015 but was so popular that demand exceeded their initial run. As more people found out about the project, more people got in contact to offer their photos to the project. A second edition was published in October.

"This has been a difficult book for some but it's also treasured by survivors and their children and grandchildren, because this is the history. It’s important for all of us,” says Adeline Webber, the woman behind the Finding our Faces project. (Courtesy Whitehorse Aboriginal Women’s Circle)

Webber told Eye on the Arctic she hopes the book can also eventually be used in school programs.

"Many people here in Yukon told me after the book was published  that they hadn't even known that there had ever been a residential school in downtown Whitehorse. But that's the way it was. This has been a difficult book for some but it's also treasured by survivors and their children and grandchildren, because this is the history. It's important for all of us."

Tilly and the Crazy Eights 

Author: Monique Gray Smith

Publisher:  Second Story Press

Indigenous literature is more diverse than most Canadians realize and there are more writers and books to recommend than she has time to list, says Judith Drinnan, owner of the Yellowknife Book Cellar in Canada's Northwest Territories (NWT).

She says authors like Richard Van Camp, a Tłı̨chǫ writer from the NWT  town of Fort Smith, does everything from short stories and children's books to graphic novels and poetry. She also recommends work by Monique Gray Smith, a Victoria-based Indigenous writer of Cree, Lakota and Scottish ancestry, saying Gray Smith's most recent book Tilly and the Crazy Eights, a novel about of a group of elders from the Canadian province of British Columbia who take a road trip to the Gathering of Nations powwow in the American state of New Mexico, as a story "full of humour and life."

Feature Interview with Monique Gray Smith‏

“The marking team, they didn’t think  there would be enough interest (in Tilly and the Crazy Eights) because there wasn’t enough trauma in the book,” says Gray Smith of one publisher that rejected her manuscript.

People who are seriously injured are at greater risk of being hospitalized for a mental health disorder or of dying by suicide within the following five years, according to a new study.

The research involved over 19,000 people who were seriously injured in car accidents, falls or violence in the province of Ontario between 2005 and 2010.  They were 40 per cent more likely to be hospitalized with problems like depression, anxiety or substance abuse. Their rate of suicide was about six times higher than average.

Findings important for the injured and their doctors

The lead author of the study, Dr. Christopher Evans of the Kingston Health Sciences Centre says it is important for people who suffer major injuries, their friends and families to be aware of potential mental health issues so patients can get the support they may need.

“From the health care providers’ side...I think we need to be cognizant of these issues and look to develop our systems to have more vigorous approaches to identifying patients who are at risk and standardized processes for allowing access to mental health services,” says Evans.

He adds that, now that the health care system has become good at treating people for the physical aspects of severe trauma, it needs to ensure their mental health is treated as well.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Dr. Christopher Evans explains the results of his study on major trauma and mental illness.

ListenEN_Interview_7-20181115-WIE70

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from around the North. 

If left unchecked, acidification levels in the Arctic Ocean will have significant consequences for northern communities as well as the rest of the globe says a report released this week.

The report, 2018 Arctic Ocean Acidification Assessment, was put together by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), a working group of the Arctic Council,  and was released at the  2018 Arctic Biodiversity Congress in Rovaniemi, Finland on Wednesday.

The assessment was based on a series of case studies from different regions of the Arctic including Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway and the Barents Sea. In all cases, they projected unchecked acidification levels would have grave impacts on all areas in coming years.

"Overall, the case studies show that effects of acidification, in combination with other  stressors, are highly uncertain," said AMAP in a news release. "This uncertainty underscores the urgent need for  increased monitoring in the region, and for research that looks at the effects on species  of a number of environmental stressors acting in combination."

Areas studied for AMAP assessment

Alaska: Impacts of acidification on fisheries in different regions of the state

Barents Sea: Effects of fishing, climate warming and acidification on cod

Canada: Potential effects of climate change and ocean acidification on polar cod and the Indigenous communities that rely on the fish for country food

Greenland: Effect of acidification on shrimp fishing and socio‐economic implications of those changes

Norway:  How ocean acidification and  warming might impact sea urchin yields

Acidification impacts

Rising ocean acidification is primarily driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Changing ocean chemistry has a suite of cascading impacts: it can interrupt the food chain, alter predator-prey relationships and can even impact how marine life develops. The impacts of this in fragile environments like North, are particularly worrying, AMAP says.

"Falling ocean pH levels – which are  changing most quickly in the Arctic – are acting in tandem with other environmental  stressors, such as rising air and sea temperatures, to drive significant changes in marine  ecosystems, with impacts on the communities that depend upon them," they said.

Assessing environmental threats

AMAP, like other Arctic Council working groups, are made of up experts that come together to examine particular areas of concern in the North. AMAP's mandate is to assess polltion threats and their affects on Arctic peoples and the environment and to give advice to Arctic ministers on actions needed to respond and mitigate some of these threats.

The report released this week is an update to a previous 2013 AMAP assessment.

Around four-hundred and fifty experts are attending the Arctic Biodiveristy Congress in Rovaniemi.

The conference ends October 12.

Feature Interview

Finland’s Environment Minister Kimmo Tiilikainen (pictured right in 2016 with Dutch State Secretary for Infrastructure and the Environment Sharon Dijksma in Brussels) hosted a two-day Arctic Environment Ministers’ meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland this week.(Emmanuel Dunand /AFP/Getty Images)

Listen here for Eye on the Arctic‘s conversation with Finland’s Environment Minister Kimmo Tiilikainen for more about the conferences that took place in Finnish Lapland this week and the environmental issues facing the Arctic:

https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2018/10/Finland_AC_ministers.mp3

Write to Eilís Quinn at eilis.quinn(at)cbc.ca

First published on www.

Iconic Canadian landscapes found

If you love art, and if you love detective stories, and especially if you love the artworks of Canada’s iconic Group of Seven. Then you’ll want this book.

Back in 1977, Jim and Sue Waddington began a journey that has taken them year after year to some of the most majestic and awe-inspiring sites in Canada.

ListenEN_Interview_2-20200203-WIE20

That was when they began their travels to locate the exact and often remote spots where some of Canada’s most iconic paintings were created.

View from the spot where FH Varley painted "Squally Weather, Georgian Bay-1920- the painting shown on the front cover, photographed by the Waddingtons (back cover-Goose Lane Editions)

These are the works of the various artists who made up the famous Canadian “Group of Seven”.

By hiking, canoeing, and as the artists themselves sometimes did - camping in the wilderness, the Waddingtons have located a great many of those views that inspired the artists.

While many of the works were inspired by the vast regions of central and northern Ontario, others were much farther afield on both coasts and up into the Arctic.

Jim and Sue Waddington, have spent decades travelling across Canada to find the exact spots where the artists of the Group of Seven sketched and created their works (supplied)

Guided by their research into the painters own travel writings, and those of others who knew tham, and aided by local residents own stories of the artists stays in their area, the couple have managed to locate many of thes difficult to find spots

.

"The little falls" J.E.H. MacDonald 1918

"The little falls" located in the Algoma region of northern Ontario, photo by Jeff McColl 2011.

The book features the paintings, and a photos of the actual scene taken as much as possible from the exact vantage point of the artist himself often more than a century earlier.

In capturing on film those places, one can also see how the artist then interpreted the scene before him.

Adding to the most marvelous book is the text describing the story behind the painting and the Waddington’s efforts to find the location

additional information

Facebook- Waddington- Footsteps

Goose Lane Editions: Following the Footsteps of Group of 7

Environmentalists are urging Canadians to avoid single-use plastic, to recycle more and they want the government to take strong action to reduce plastic waste.

A survey found that in 2017, 71 per cent of Canadians order takeout food more than a few times a month and almost half buy cups of coffee daily. This generates huge amounts of plastic waste.

Canadians take out a lot of food and coffee generating tons of plastic waste. (iStock)

‘In landfills...for hundreds of years’

“We know that single-use plastics overall make up around 40 per cent of Canada’s plastic waste. And a lot of that is...delivery food containers, plastic bottles, coffee cups and that sort of thing,” says Ashley Wallis, plastics program manager at the advocacy group, Environmental Defence. “So that’s a lot of plastic that’s being used for maybe only a few seconds but will sit in landfills or the environment for potentially hundreds of years.”

Consumers can help

Many of the plastics and styrofoam in particular are not recyclable. Wallis says when Canadians order out, they can refuse items like plastic cutler and small packaged condiments. Sometimes, when ordering out or buying food in bulk, they might bring their own containers and some stores encourage this by offering small discounts.

Calls for a national strategy

Wallis says restaurants and other businesses can help by using plastic products that contain no toxic substances and can be recycled. She notes that Canada has a patchwork of recycling protocols, with each municipality having its own rules. It’s estimated that only 11 per cent of plastics are recycled. Wallis says the Federal government should develop a national strategy to limit the use of plastics and increase recycling.

(photo Environmental Defence)

Ashley Wallis says Canada must use less plastic and recycle more.

ListenEN_Clip_3-20181026-WME30

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from around the North. 

The successes of cultural tourism in Canada's southern Aboriginal communities are providing an important roadmap for development of Indigenous cultural tourism in the North, a sector expected to grow significantly in coming years, say northern communities and tourism organizations.

The Government of Northwest Territories’ Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC), and Northwest Territories Tourism (NWTT), recently signed a memorandum of understanding to develop Indigenous cultural tourism in the territory and includes new annual investments of up to $257,000.

The majority of the 2018-2019 funding will be directed towards workshops and marketing, many geared towards growing local businesses to be able to better handle visitors from southern Canada and international visitors, as well creating greater awareness about what's NWT has to offer.

Many of the approaches are inspired by successful tourism initiatives of southern Aboriginal communities like Wendake, a Huron-Wendat community in Quebec, Klemtu, a Kitasoo/Xai'xai community in British Columbia (B.C.) and Haida Gwaii, formally known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, now home to several successful tourism businesses owned and run by members of the Haida Nation, also in B.C.

A muskox in the Northwest Territories' proposed Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve. (Courtesy Lutselke Dene First Nation)

The NWT Dene community of Lutselkʼe, home to around 300 people,  is one of the communities to receive part of the recently announced funding. It will go to the development and testing of visitor day packages. Several communities members have already travelled south to Klemtu to learn from their example.

"What Klemtu has accomplished is incredible," Andreina Cambronero, Lutselkʼe's Tourism Development Officer told Eye on the Arctic over the phone. "Their unemployment rate is 5 to 10 per cent. Everything they do is sustainable from land use planning, to monitoring visitor impacts. They're a great model of how eco-tourism can work in small communities like [Lutselkʼe]."

Klemtu is located on the pacific coast of British Columbia. Like Lutselkʼe, it's also a fly-in community. But since the revamping of its community-owned Spirit Bear Lodge around 2010, eco-cultural tourism in the community has taken off.

Community by-in, community ownership

John Czornobaj, the general manager, says Klemtu's success is an example that could be replicated, even in the North.

"We have a lot to share with each other,"  Dzorbobaj said in phone interview. "Even though we're in B.C., we have the same infrastructure challenges as the North. We're a fly-in community, we have a small population. But the most important thing is community by-in, that's the key to success.  It has to be community-owned."

Keith Henry, the president & CEO of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, says these kinds of exchanges are key to growing Indigenous cultural tourism in Canada

"The reason we signed the agreement last week in the Northwest Territories is based on some of that ongoing mentorship,"  Henry told Eye on the Arctic over the phone from Vancouver. "We've been doing best-practice missions, (like) to Wendake, with (northern) communities or entrepreneurs. We have our upcoming Indigenous tourism conference in Saskatoon on October 30 & 31.

"People are coming from around the world to see what we're doing in Canada."

Feature Interview

“We’re in a time of reconciliation, and tourism is one of the best ways to get people face to face and getting to know each other,” says Keith Henry, the president & CEO Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada. (Courtesy Keith Henry)

Besides infrastructure updates, the Royal Canadian Police will also initiate new regional operational models in five Yukon communities: Faro, Ross River, Haines Junction, Burwash Landing and the Destruction Bay area. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from around the North. 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Government of Yukon announced new plans this week for policing infrastructure in the territory.

Besides renovations to police buildings in the communities of Faro and Ross River, a new detachment building is planned for the community of Carcross in consultation with the Carcross Tagish First Nation and Yukon's departments of justice and highways and public works.

Costs are expected to run around $11-million.

"It's important for us to address ageing infrastructure with respect to how we deliver police services here in the territory," Tracy-Anne McPhee, Yukon's justice minister, told Eye on the Arctic in a phone interview on Friday.

"(The government and RCMP) have really tried to put our heads together to make sure that we are coming up with creative ideas to address policing issues here in the territory."

'We need creative ideas': Yukon justice minister

Yukon Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee and Scott Sheppard, the Yukon RCMP commanding officer chief superintendent, at the Yukon policing announcement this week. (Courtesy Government of Yukon)

For more on Yukon’s policing plans and the importance of keeping the community policing model in Yukon, listen to Eye on the Arctic‘s conversation with Yukon Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee:

https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2018/09/Yukon_McPhee.mp3

New operational models

Besides building rejigs, new regional operational models will be put in place in five Yukon communities: Faro, Ross River, Haines Junction, Burwash Landing and the Destruction Bay area.

"Policing in Yukon continues to evolve," said Scott Sheppard, the Yukon RCMP commanding officer chief superintendent, in a news release on Tuesday.

"It’s important that we remain flexible to new service delivery models, so we can maintain our ability to respond to Yukon’s unique policing requirements. This can only be achieved through ongoing and honest discussions with our policing partners. Providing proper facilities for our employees will have a positive impact on the work we carry out in these communities."

RCMP in the North

The RCMP (earlier called the North West Mounted Police) has been policing Yukon since the 1800s. In this undated photo, the North West Mounted Police are shown in Tagish Post, Yukon. (National Archives of Canada/The Canadian Press)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are Canada’s national police force. The also provide policing in the majority of rural Canada and places without municipal law enforcement. The RCMP also provides policing in Canada’s three northern territories: Yukon, the neighbouring Northwest Territories and the eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut.

Sources: Government of Yukon, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The RCMP provides  policing to Yukon under contract.

The policing infrastructure investments announced this week are governed under the 20-year Territorial Police Service Agreement between Canada and Yukon.

There are around 36,000 people living in the territory.

Write to Eilís Quinn at [email protected]

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Former Canadian Mountie sues after developing PTSD while policing in the North, CBC News

Denmark: Nordics report high abuse levels against women, Radio Sweden

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from around the North. 

This week, we bring you another instalment of our occasional series looking at how climate change is affecting different parts of the circumpolar world.

Arctic climate change is one of the most important stories of our time, but limited field work means we may not getting the full picture, says the author of a study published this summer in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The study, Patchy field sampling biases understanding of climate change impacts across the Arctic, was done by consulting data bases and pulling out thousands of papers that examined either the Arctic or sub-Arctic.

The researchers isolated where in the Arctic the research was done for each paper and plotted it on a map.

"What we found, was, in a way, of course obvious, that the research performed across the Arctic is heavily, heavily, heavily clustered around a very few number of locations," said lead author Dan Metcalfe in a phone interview with Eye on the Arctic.

Important knowledge gaps in Arctic Russia, Canada

Metcalfe, a senior lecturer at the Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Sweden's Lund University,  said the idea for the research came from his own experiences working in Abisko Scientific Research Station in Arctic Sweden and seeing so many of the world's heavyweight Arctic researchers at exactly the same place.

"It's so weird, its seems like half of the European science community working on Arctic issues basically comes to this station, it felt like," Metcalfe said.

The Canadian High Arctic Research Station in the community of Cambridge Bay in Canada's eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut. Arctic research stations are important to science but more data needs to be gathered from isolated, hard-to-get regions of the North, says a recent paper. (Jimmy Thomson/CBC)

And while it makes sense that much of Arctic research be based around the few northern research stations, Metcalfe said this could be skewing what we think we know about the warming North.

"We think it's a problem because we assume that if there's clustering in space that also means that there's physical factors that are also biased. So we're likely also only sampling a small range of the full spectrum of variation in physical variables, in biological variables and chemical variables that exist out there in the whole Arctic."

Arctic Russia and Canada's Arctic archipelago are two of the areas least studied the research found.

What now? 

Metcalfe stresses that the research is not meant to point the finger at or criticize the important research being done at the world's polar research stations, but rather to indicate the areas of the North the scientific community needs to better understand.

Reindeer antlers on a landscape near the Swedish village of Abisko, a prominent Arctic research site. Better partnerships between Arctic Indigenous communities and researchers could help fill in scientific knowledge gaps, said Lund University's Dan Metcalfe. (Tyler Logan/Courtesy Dan Metcalfe)

Partnering with Indigenous communities could help address some of the missing knowledge, he says.

"Some of the areas not researched are areas that are very remote and hard to get to," Metcalfe said. "But in many of the areas there are people, the Indigenous people of the Arctic, people like the Saami for instance. Their knowledge could help fill in a lot of gaps that the scientific community has, if we did a better job of partnering with them."

Feature Interview

“We just don’t know what’s going on at these unsampled locations” says Metcalfe. “They may have a whole set of properties and processes which are rather special and that we’re completely missing out on.