Sampling Small Lake in Resolute Bay in August

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 Debbie Iqaluk, from Resolute Bay.

It was a first-time sampling for lake ecosystem health parameters, such as plankton and invertebrates, for this team compose of cryosphere geographers (Toronto) and geochemist (Laval). But together, they achieved to have the first FROST data on Small lake of water quality, plankton and invertebrates in addition to retrieve the famous Pablo, which is a real-time ice thickness measurer and weighs a ton. Of course, Laura needed to supervise her hard-working students from the shores with Debbie.

Remember, as Debbie sang:

There must be something in the water...

Written by Félix Clouter-Artiwat

Pablo, the famous Shallow Water Ice Profiler, who provides important data on the ice cover thickness

Félix, Riley and Lisa in the lab of Polar Continental Shelf Program ©Laura Brown

A beautiful rainbow encouraging the team on their way to Small Lake for sampling. ©Debbie Iqaluk

Laura Brown "supervising" her hard-working student from the shores with Debbie Iqaluk. ©Laura Brown

Small Lake, August 2025 ©Félix Cloutier-Artiwat

Laura Brown maintaining the camera at Sophia Lake on Cornwallis Island © Félix Cloutier-Artiwat