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The "mystery fish" is actually an old, starved char, according to a scientist who specializes in Arctic fish. - Kassina Ryder/NNSL photo

EUREKA - Last month, while patrolling with Operation Nunalivut, Canadian Ranger Donald Ittuksardjuat found a fish on Ellesmere Island the likes of which he had never seen before.

It was sticking out of some lake ice so he took an axe, chopped it out, and brought it back to the Fort Eureka military base when he and the other Rangers returned from patrol on April 17. He was hoping someone at Eureka could identify it.

"No," Ittuksardjuat said when asked if he knew what type of fish it was. "I think it's a fish that stays in the lake."

Ittuksardjuat, a resident of Arctic Bay, said he thought it was some sort of land-locked species of fish, but he and other Rangers at Fort Eureka had never seen anything like it.

The fish had a large head and a very thin body - almost like it had died of starvation.

According to Dr. James Reist, research scientist and head director of Arctic Fish Ecology for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the fish was an elderly, emaciated Arctic char.

"It's a fish that is going into or has gone into old age," Reist said. "Things start shutting down and one of the things that shuts down in fish is their digestive system, their ability to get food and their ability to fatten up again."

Reist said char usually spawn in September or October, depending on their geographical location, then they prepare to overwinter under the ice. During this time, the fish use huge amounts of energy and don't eat. As a result, this older fish probably simply died of old age and a lack of energy, according to Reist.

"In this particular case, what's happened is the fish has probably freshly died and got trapped in the ice and ultimately found by the local guy who picked it up," he said.

The only fish known to live around Ellesmere Island are Arctic char and sculpin.

He said the reason the fish was unfamiliar to Ittuksardjuat and other Rangers is because spawning usually happens under the ice and is not often witnessed.

"So you see it and it looks like a strange fish," Reist said. "It doesn't look like a char because it's thin and emaciated and obviously not a happy camper. It's odd because that's not usually what you see when you catch char."

"So it looks like it's an odd circumstance, but it's a perfectly natural normal process that we don't see often, simply because the fish are usually either eaten by something else or it's occurring under the water and under the ice in the wintertime."