Fieldwork Tip #1: During Winter Sampling, Never Have Expectations : Anything Can (and Probably Will) Go Wrong!
- FROST
- 19 juin
- 3 min de lecture
Dernière mise à jour : 25 juin
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 cameras, and retrieved memory cards to determine the precise timing of ice-on and ice-off. All of the HALO network (High Arctic Lake Observation) provided crucial data on the timing of remote ice formation, except for one camera that had disappeared from the eastern side of the island (hopefully recoverable in August!).
Ice surveys went smoothly until the equipment met its match against the Arctic ice. During drilling, two incidents sent gear plunging beneath the surface: one auger flight was successfully recovered, while another auger and drill bit will remain at the bottom of Small Lake until the team returns in August for a rescue mission. Fortunately, fellow FROST PI Catherine Girard had just arrived in Resolute with her Module 2 team and came to the rescue with spare equipment. Thanks to a bit of teamwork and borrowed gear, the surveys continued without interruption, a reminder that in remote field locations, good collaborators are just as important as good equipment.
Across the lakes surveyed on Cornwallis Island, ice thickness ranged from 1.66 to 2.25 m, while Small Lake alone measured between 1.99 and 2.29 m of ice.
Before returning to Toronto, the team was ecstatic to assist with the local fishing derby hosted by the community, where they measured all catches, big or small, and kept track of the derby winners! A fantastic way to end the fieldwork.
Then, the Université Laval team from Catherine Girard's and Raoul Couture's laboratories went to sample lake water, sediments, and fish for Module 2 objectives. Their first challenge came almost immediately. The Limnos water sampler, designed to collect water at precise depths, kept freezing shut between deployments. Fortunately, a thermos full of hot water became the unexpected hero of the day, thawing the mechanism just enough to keep sampling.
Then came another classic Arctic fieldwork moment: the team nearly lost a multiparameter probe at the bottom of the lake. Debbie sang '' There must be something in the water...''. After a collective brainstorming session with the incredible PCSP warehouse staff, a homemade retrieval device, quickly nicknamed the "New Hook", in reference to Montreal Canadian hockey player, saved the day, bringing the instrument safely back to the surface.
Meanwhile, our local collaborator Debbie successfully caught all the Arctic char needed for the project. After the dissections, nothing went to waste, the remaining fish became dinner for her dog. She told us that fish from Small Lake aren't particularly popular in the community because they tend to have a muddy taste. The dissections also revealed an interesting scientific finding. Most of the landlocked Arctic char from Small Lake had completely empty stomachs, with only a few containing plankton or chironomids. These observations suggest that the fish may have experienced a particularly challenging winter under the ice.
Not every memorable moment involved science. Evenings at the PCSP brought everyone together to cheer on the Montréal Canadiens during their Stanley Cup playoff run, a reminder that some of the best parts of fieldwork happen after the samples are collected.
Mechanical failures, frozen equipment, improvised solutions, unexpected discoveries, and shared moments with colleagues and the local community, this is Arctic fieldwork in a nutshell.
Because in the North, the best field campaigns aren't the ones where everything goes according to plan. They're the ones where teamwork, creativity, and a sense of humour carry you through the unexpected.
Text by Marie-Christine Lafrenière
