Arctic Research @ UNBC

Stephen DéryOn behalf of UNBC researchers

Arctic Forum 2007

The University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) is a small, research-intensive university in Prince George,

BC.It has ~3500 students, ~500 of which

are graduate students.UNBC has a mandate to serve the needs of northern BC and beyond.

Many of its faculty conduct research in the Arctic.

Sarah Boon (Geography)

• is part of an international IPY project called GLACIODYN whose goal is to examine the response of circumpolar tidewater glaciers to climate change.

• The Canadian component focuses on Belcher Glacier, a tidewater outlet of the Devon Ice Cap.

• http://web.unbc.ca/~boon/IPY/index.html

• has a Ph.D. student, Katherine Stewart, who looks at the response of nutrient cycling in arctic tundra ecosystems to climate change;

• research site for this IPY project is at Daring Lake, NWT.

Darwyn Coxson (Ecosystem Science &

Management)

Stephen Déry (Environmental

Science & Engineering)

• IPY-funded research focuses on the role of teleconnections on Arctic hydrology;

• also investigating trends in Northern Hemisphere snowcover extent.

• http://web.unbc.ca/~sdery/

Kevin Hall (Geography)

• works on cold region weathering processes and landforms, periglacial processes, and the impact of climate change on these.

Scott Green (Ecosystem Science &

Management)

• examines northern treeline dynamics in central and northern Yukon, with a particular focus on responses to climate change;

• works with numerous Yukon resource managers and IPY collaborators from UofA and UofS.

Chris Johnson (Ecosystem Science &

Management)

• focuses on understanding the ecological resilience & population/distribution dynamics of barren-ground caribou in NWT & Nunavut;

• specifically interested in 1) fire dynamics-lichen ecology-caribou distribution on the winter range; 2) interactions between population productivity, biting insects, & weather.

Patrick Maher (Outdoor Recreation & Tourism Management)

• works on cruise tourism in the Arctic in regards to the experiences and management of visitors at protected areas;

• studies the impacts that climate change will have on the industry & on communities;

• also works on a polar tourism research network with colleagues worldwide.

Paul Sanborn (Ecosystem Science &

Management)

• collaborates with geologists and paleontologists to study soils as a recorder of long-term environmental changes in northwestern Canada;

• emphasizes sites in the west-central Yukon, and the Mackenzie Mountains of the NWT.

Gary Wilson (Political Science)

• focuses on international relations between various Inuit regions in the circumpolar north through the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC).

• also looks at regional autonomy in northern Canada and Russia, with a focus on Nunavik & various regions in the Russian circumpolar north.