When you head out into the field in Nunavik, you quickly realize that the experience begins long before reaching the study site. After several days of preparation, we set out on our snowmobiles for a three-hour journey through the fjords and mountains of Ungava.

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

My fieldwork at Lake Muddusjärvi included interesting conversations in fishers' kitchens over a cup of coffee, cold fingers while checking winter gillnets and tasting a local delicacy- fresh burbot liver

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, 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