INUVIK - Parks Canada hopes that through providing students with an opportunity to explore its parks, it will train future employees.

Samuel Hearne Secondary School students in the Bio20 class learned how to put science into use when they studied stream ecology and the land in the Yukon's Ivvavik National Park. They also enjoyed the remoteness of the land, as displayed here by Euodia Mutua. - photo courtesy of Davis Neyando

Twelve students from Samuel Hearne Secondary School travelled to Ivvavik National Park in the Yukon from May 29 to June 2 to complete terrestrial and stream studies, as well as experience the isolation and remoteness of the park. The data gathered by the students will be used by the park for its ecological monitoring program.

"From the Parks Canada perspective, we're hoping to develop the next generation of ecosystem scientists," said Eric Baron, external relations manager for the Western Arctic Field Unit. "I would love for one day to have a student who did Bio20 in the park come and apply for a job with Parks Canada. That is the hope and dream for this program."

The students acknowledged that seeing science jobs outside of a lab was appealing, especially in an area that held ancestral history for some of them. Ivvavik is the first national park in Canada to be created from a land claim agreement, the Inuvialuit Final Agreement in 1984.

The area remained glacier-free during the last glacial age and provided a refuge for plants, wildlife and people from 30,000 to 14,000 years ago. This lack of glaciation also created a landscape unique from anywhere else in North America.

Instead of the round valleys carved by glaciers in southern Canada, Ivvavik has V-shaped valleys, conical hills instead of rounded slopes and sideslope rock outcrops. The land was shaped by frost, wind and water, instead of the slow moving glaciers, creating a more rugged terrain.

Because of this absence of glaciers, the rocks on the ground and hillsides are hundreds of millions of years old. They used to be the sediment at the bottom of the ocean, before the surrounding mountain ranges rose up.

The Bio20 class camped in tents at the Sheep Creek operations station, at the confluence of the Sheep Creek and Firth River. During the five-day stay, the temperature changed from sunny and 25 C to cloudy with rain, hail and eventually snow, but that didn't stop the students from enjoying the trip.

"I went for the experience. It was great to see what it's like in the park," said Amie Charlie, a Grade 11 student. "We did stream ecology and plant studies. We found thousands of invertebrate species, bugs, in the stream."

Other studies included looking at three different plots on the side of a hill and comparing the different plants and composition within that plot. Not only are the students putting the science they've learned in the classroom into practical use, travelling with the Parks Canada employees gives them a view of potential careers within the science field, but out of the lab.

"They're learning about things that aren't in school," said Genevieve Boivin, a park interpreter during the trip. "They're learning how to live on the land and take care of the land and environment. Some of them have camps and cabins, but it's not the same as setting up tents in the park."

Students from Moose Kerr School in Aklavik are visiting the camp this week and Ivvavik and its landscape will act as a muse when artists head into the park next week for Art in the Park. The work will be displayed at the Great Northern Arts Festival in July.

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