Activities of the Geographical Branch in Northern Canada, 1947-1957

ARCTIC ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 246 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Keith Fraser

The Geographical Branch of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys was created in 1947. Under its terms of references, part of its responsibility is the collection and analysis of geographical information on northern Canada, in particular the territories under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In the decade since the Branch's inauguration, geographers have carried out various kinds of field surveys in the Canadian Arctic and subarctic, from the northern coast of Ellesmere Island to the Hudson Bay coastal plain in Ontario, and from the Alaska boundary to Labrador. These surveys have varied from parties formed entirely of geographers to individual shipboard observers or representatives on collaborative teams of scientists. The collection of basic information on the vast unknown expanses of the Arctic is peculiarly suited to the application of geographic methods. Utilizing the trimetrogon and vertical photography carried out since World War II, geographers have applied sampling techniques in interpreting larger areas, making intensive field studies of representative terrain types and expanding them by use of the air photos in delimiting, describing and analysing physiographic regions. Studies in physical geography have been the backbone of the work of the Branch in the Arctic. Air photo interpretation keys have been prepared for 14 areas: Alert, Eureka, Mould Bay, Resolute, Mackenzie Delta, Darnley Bay, Coppermine, Bathurst Inlet, Boothia Isthmus, Wager Bay, Southampton Island, Kaniapiskau-Koksoak Rivers in Ungava, the Hudson Bay Railway, and the Kenogami River. Reports on the human geography of various areas were included in the field reports and are mainly unpublished; several studies in historical geography also resulted from the field surveys. ...

ARCTIC ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Arctic Institute Of North America

Royal E. Shanks was born in Ada, Ohio on November 11, 1912. He lost his life on August 4, 1962 while swimming and studying a coral reef in a bay of the Caribbean Sea in Porte Limon, Costa Rica. He completed his M. S. in 1937 and received his Ph.D. degree a year later. From 1940 to 1946 Dr. Shanks held the post of Professor of Biology at Austin Peay State College in Tennessee with brief periods of service in both the Army and Navy. In 1947 he joined the University of Tennessee as an Associate Professor of Botany and became a Professor two years later. In 1955 a concern with environmental aspects of ecosystems led him to propose some fundamental studies in the most simple environments, those of the arctic regions. It was this interest that developed a close relationship and association between Dr. Shanks and the Arctic Institute of North America. From 1955 until the time of his death he received six grants from the Institute for the study of composition, structure, and productivity of tundra vegetation in northern Alaska. During his field studies in Alaska Dr. Shanks covered an extensive area on the northern coast of Alaska extending eastward nearly to the Canadian border and southward to the mountains and forests. Numerous publications have resulted from this research. Not only has Dr. Shanks made a considerable contribution to arctic research, but his ability has been recognized by his election to office in a number of scientific societies. A colleague of Dr. Shanks has said, "his manner was gentle, his activity great, his enthusiasm contagious".


Polar Record ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (98) ◽  
pp. 699-721
Author(s):  
Alan Cooke ◽  
Clive Holland

If the Treaty of Paris in 1763 secured the Hudson's Bay Company in its monopoly of Rupert's Land, it also, by the Cession of Canada, opened to British enterprise the river-and-lake routes, discovered by the French, from Montreal to the fur-rich country west of Hudson Bay. This instalment of our list covers the years of the Montreal traders' expansion into the North-west, their crossing of the Arctic watershed into the fur trader's Eldorado, the Athabasca district, their organization into the Hudson's Bay Company's formidable rival, the North West Company, and concludes with the climax of their north-westward surge, Alexander Mackenzie's arrival at the Arctic Ocean in 1789. This activity obliged the Hudson's Bay Company to change its policy of waiting for the Indians to bring their furs to posts on Hudson Bay and made them push inland to compete for furs with the pedlars from Montreal. In the meantime, the Moravians had established missions on the coast of Labrador, searches for a North-west Passage were directed away from Hudson Bay to the Pacific coast of North America, the first scientific expedition was sent to Hudson Bay, and the Indians were decimated by smallpox. Toward the end of this instalment, we begin to draw our southern boundary of “northern Canada” both westward and northward and to omit many expeditions and events of peripheral or minor importance, such as activities south of Saskatchewan River, or of regular occurrence, such as annual voyages northward from Churchill.


Polar Record ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 17 (111) ◽  
pp. 627-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Parker

The range of the barren-ground caribou in Canada includes approximately 700 000 square miles [1 812 993 sq km]: north from the forests of Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the Arctic Ocean and west from Hudson Bay to Alaska. Much of that vast expanse of stunted forests and tundra remained virtually unmapped until the ingress of the aeroplane in the 1930's.


Polar Record ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 12 (77) ◽  
pp. 157-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Godt

Prior to World War II, little contact was made with the Eskimo of northern Canada, other than by early explorers, missionaries, Hudson Bay traders and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With the war, a new importance was attached to the Canadian Arctic, and it became a strategic area. Men and equipment moved in, airstrips were constructed, large buildings were erected to house the men and machines, and almost overnight the twentieth century had arrived.


Polar Record ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 14 (92) ◽  
pp. 593-602
Author(s):  
David Judd

That sentence referred, in fact, to the impending transfer of the Arctic islands to Canada in 1879, but it could have applied, just as aptly, to the whole of northern Canada. The first part of it was largely correct; the second part is still a matter for conjecture, debate and experiment.Most of the Canadian Government's sporadic forays into the north from 1880 onwards were motivated by the reaction of politicians and officials aliens in the Arctic. There was nothing else in the north for a government to be concerned about. The fur trade was important to the Hudson's Bay Company, and it was to become important to many of the Eskimos, but had lost its pre-eminence in a nation where trans-continental railways and millions of immigrants were the priorities of the day. The great age of Arctic exploration was ending: a North West Passage was irrelevant in a world that was planning a Panama Canal. The whalers too would depart from northern waters, and the missionaries and the Hudson Bay factors would left to themselves.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1513-1531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oriol Rodríguez ◽  
Joan Bech ◽  
Juan de Dios Soriano ◽  
Delia Gutiérrez ◽  
Salvador Castán

Abstract. Post-event damage assessments are of paramount importance to document the effects of high-impact weather-related events such as floods or strong wind events. Moreover, evaluating the damage and characterizing its extent and intensity can be essential for further analysis such as completing a diagnostic meteorological case study. This paper presents a methodology to perform field surveys of damage caused by strong winds of convective origin (i.e. tornado, downburst and straight-line winds). It is based on previous studies and also on 136 field studies performed by the authors in Spain between 2004 and 2018. The methodology includes the collection of pictures and records of damage to human-made structures and on vegetation during the in situ visit to the affected area, as well as of available automatic weather station data, witness reports and images of the phenomenon, such as funnel cloud pictures, taken by casual observers. To synthesize the gathered data, three final deliverables are proposed: (i) a standardized text report of the analysed event, (ii) a table consisting of detailed geolocated information about each damage point and other relevant data and (iii) a map or a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file containing the previous information ready for graphical display and further analysis. This methodology has been applied by the authors in the past, sometimes only a few hours after the event occurrence and, on many occasions, when the type of convective phenomenon was uncertain. In those uncertain cases, the information resulting from this methodology contributed effectively to discern the phenomenon type thanks to the damage pattern analysis, particularly if no witness reports were available. The application of methodologies such as the one presented here is necessary in order to build homogeneous and robust databases of severe weather cases and high-impact weather events.


1961 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Bursa

Phytoplankton samples, collected in 1953 and 1954 by the Calanus expeditions, were examined by the quantitative sedimentation method in an attempt to determine the ecological aspects of phytoplankton production in Hudson Bay and Strait. During the period July to September of both years, water temperature data, and salinity, oxygen and quantitative phytoplankton samples were collected at the surface and from depths of 10, 25, 50 and 100 metres. Numerically, the most abundant, heterogeneous phytoplankton populations were found in the mouth of Hudson Bay. The lower production of phytoplankton in the surface layer can be explained by the greater amplitude of temperature and salinity, dependent upon ice conditions and surface wind drift. The most productive layer was at a depth of 10 m. Large phytoplankton populations in waters supersaturated with oxygen were still found at 25 m, indicating light conditions favourable for photosynthesis. The relatively high plankton production in the area joining Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait is probably due to the hydrographic structure and the supply of nutrients resulting from the mixing of water masses which originate in other geographical areas. The preponderance of diatoms over flagellated groups, which is more marked in Hudson Strait than in Hudson Bay, is typical for the arctic. The composition of phytoplankton in these areas shows a great similarity in the main to that found on both sides of the Atlantic. Apart from locally produced plankton populations, there is a population exchange which follows water movements. To supplement the meagreness of existing taxonomic descriptions, attention is here focussed on the identification of plankters and their individual importance in the general ecology of the phytoplankton.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sims ◽  
Brian Butterworth ◽  
Tim Papakyriakou ◽  
Mohamed Ahmed ◽  
Brent Else

<p>Remoteness and tough conditions have made the Arctic Ocean historically difficult to access; until recently this has resulted in an undersampling of trace gas and gas exchange measurements. The seasonal cycle of sea ice completely transforms the air sea interface and the dynamics of gas exchange. To make estimates of gas exchange in the presence of sea ice, sea ice fraction is frequently used to scale open water gas transfer parametrisations. It remains unclear whether this scaling is appropriate for all sea ice regions. Ship based eddy covariance measurements were made in Hudson Bay during the summer of 2018 from the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen. We will present fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>), heat and momentum and will show how they change around the Hudson Bay polynya under varying sea ice conditions. We will explore how these fluxes change with wind speed and sea ice fraction. As freshwater stratification was encountered during the cruise, we will compare our measurements with other recent eddy covariance flux measurements made from icebreakers and also will compare our turbulent CO<sub>2 </sub>fluxes with bulk fluxes calculated using underway and surface bottle pCO<sub>2</sub> data. </p><p> </p>


Ocean Science ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 967-975 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. G. Nurser ◽  
S. Bacon

Abstract. The first (and second) baroclinic deformation (or Rossby) radii are presented north of ~60° N, focusing on deep basins and shelf seas in the high Arctic Ocean, the Nordic seas, Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, derived from climatological ocean data. In the high Arctic Ocean, the first Rossby radius increases from ~5 km in the Nansen Basin to ~15 km in the central Canadian Basin. In the shelf seas and elsewhere, values are low (1–7 km), reflecting weak density stratification, shallow water, or both. Seasonality strongly impacts the Rossby radius only in shallow seas, where winter homogenization of the water column can reduce it to below 1 km. Greater detail is seen in the output from an ice–ocean general circulation model, of higher resolution than the climatology. To assess the impact of secular variability, 10 years (2003–2012) of hydrographic stations along 150° W in the Beaufort Gyre are also analysed. The first-mode Rossby radius increases over this period by ~20%. Finally, we review the observed scales of Arctic Ocean eddies.


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