Field Work – Naïvely Northward

Banks Island

Written by: Faye

I spent a few weeks up on Banks Island helping out with a caribou & muskox survey. We saw a bunch of those, plus plenty of snow geese, arctic hares, quite a few wolves, and a grizzly bear. I started an iNaturalist account.

We flew around in one of these…

…looking for these guys.

We got to see some cool Arctic landscapes.

Here are some remains from a cool bit of history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_Bay

Polar Bear Fieldwork

Written by: Faye

Since I last wrote about this, I have completed another two seasons of polar bear fieldwork, and the project is now wrapped up. In 2022, my crew ended up getting COVID and being trapped in a small town for most of the fieldwork.

Spent a few days in this rustic shack on the north end of Banks Island – at least we didn’t get stuck there!

I’m not allowed to post work photos that I took of wildlife, but I can re-share them if the department uses them, so here are some polar bear photos that I took:

Richardson Mountains (by helicopter)

Written by: Faye

I had the chance to get out into the Richardson Mountains on some field work. This is the range we can see from town (and go hiking in occasionally), but this time I was in a helicopter so it was much faster and easier to get there.