Beyond Data: A Field Experience in Nunavik
- FROST
- il y a 1 jour
- 2 min de lecture
Text by Jessica Verreault from her field expedition to Tasikallak, in May 2026
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. As we travelled through this vast landscape, surrounded by snow-covered peaks and frozen expanses, we were reminded of how fortunate we were to work in such a remarkable territory.
For the next five days, our home was a small, isolated cabin on the shore of the lake, with no running water or electricity. This space quickly became much more than a place to sleep between field days. It became our laboratory, our workspace, and our gathering place where we could share meals, stories, and reflections after long days on the ice.
As the days went by, we also had the opportunity to connect with community members travelling to the lake. These encounters allowed us to see the site in a different way, not only as a place where we collected scientific data, but as a meaningful landscape connected to daily life, memories, and relationships with the land.
These conversations reminded us that every lake we study is more than an ecosystem. It is also a lived landscape, shaped by the experiences, knowledge, and connections of the people who have a relationship with it. Research in the North is not only about understanding environmental change, but also about understanding how these changes may affect the places that matter to communities.
We are leaving with valuable data, but also with memories of vast landscapes, days spent working on the ice, evenings in the cabin, and encounters that changed the way we see this lake, not only as a research site, but as a place filled with meaning.
