Fieldwork

Two students from Milla Rautio's lab at UQAC in Chicoutimi, Québec - Cassia and Félix -travelled to Alaska to sample Toolik Lake as part of FROST activities led by Sally MacIntyre. Here, Cassia shares highlights and reflections from the experience:

May 2026 If there's one thing Arctic fieldwork has taught us, it's this: no matter how carefully you plan, the Arctic always has a few surprises waiting for you. Last May, several enthusiastic Frosties headed to Polar Continental Shelf Program at Resolute Bay, Nunavut, for another winter sampling campaign. As expected, everything didn't quite go according to plan. The adventure began with Laura Brown's team, who measured ice thickness and snow cover, installed new time-lapse

Helena, a Master’s student from Finland, recently spent a week at one of the FROST study lakes conducting interviews to better understand how warming winters are affecting local communities. During her visit to Finnish Lapland, she also joined fishers on the ice and took part in fishing and gutting, gaining firsthand insight into daily practices and changing conditions. She has kindly agreed to share some of her experiences with us. My fieldwork at Lake Muddusjärvi included

Last week, temperatures plunged to –50 °C in Cambridge Bay and our incredible field collaborators from the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) Shannon, Jasmine, Layla, and Spencer were out on the ice measuring thickness and collecting temperature/conductivity profiles in Lakes Greiner and Pelly. This work shows the power of long-term partnership between researchers, communities and Polar Knowledge Canada. By building research with Inuit communities, we strengthen ye

A team of scientists from Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (Akvaplan-NIVA) just carried out the first field campaign for the FROST project. The project's main study location in Norway is Takvatnet, a large lake located 2 hours drive southeast of Tromsø city. Due to an extraordinarily mild autumn, the ice formation at Takvatnet that usually occurs during November, was very late this year. This delayed the first compr

The first ice sampling at Lake Kilpisjärvi, northern Finland, happened during December 2025. The lake is located at 69° N, experiencing nearly two months without direct sunlight, with the sun lingering just below the horizon and providing a few hours of beautiful twilight each day. Whole lake had frozen couple of weeks earlier and 33 cm of clear ice with some 10-20 cm of snow made snow mobile logistics easy. “Sampling of benthic invertebrates at -30 degrees celsius is a perfe

Last November, a team from the international research consortium FROST, led by Milla Rautio at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, returned from Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic… with the observation that winter had not yet arrived. Credit: Shannon Evetalegak - The ‘’Frosties’’ Sara, Félix and Milla after sampling It’s an unusual season, a late autumn. The formation of the ice cover is nearly three weeks behind schedule. There’s no snow yet either, but this absence all

Last November, Frosties from Sweden went to sample Lake Vuoskojaure. Danny Lau, researcher at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and his team measured ice thickness and sampled water, sediment core, zooplankton, and benthic invertebrates. Prof Danny Lau working in the lab after a long day of sampling. Photo by Mikael Östlund Danny Lau’s team on their snowy journey to sample Lake Vuoskojaure. Photo by Karl Heuchel Lake Vuoskojaure is located close to the village Abi

The FROST Small Lake team of 2025. From the left: Félix Cloutier-Artiwat, Debbie Iqaluk, Laura Brown, Lisa Marno and Riley Forth. ©Laura Brown Last August, Laura Brown and her team from the University of Toronto (On, Ca) and Félix Cloutier-Artiwat, master student in Raoul Couture group from Université Laval (Qc, Ca), went to Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island to carry out FROST sampling at Small Lake and to maintain cameras, sensors and meteorological station accompanied with

Camille (left) and Milla (right) sorting benthic invertebrates in Cambridge Bay, Nuvavut, CA. Credits : © Elise Imbeau Last July, Milla Rautio and her team from University du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC, Qc, CA) traveled to Cambridge Bay to carry out FROST sampling. Together with community members, they monitored water quality and collected plankton, invertebrates, and Arctic char, building valuable knowledge about the lake ecosystem.