ARVIAT
A group of young researchers from Memorial University of Newfoundland are in Arviat this summer studying permafrost.

Don Forbes, left, with students Ben Bagnall and Jonathan Carter, stopped into Rankin Inlet earlier this month on their way to Arviat, where they will spend the summer studying the permafrost and how it effects housing needs in the community. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo

More specifically, they're looking at how different types of ground are affected by shifting permafrost and the challenges this poses for housing in the community.

The project is done in partnership with the hamlet, the Government of Nunavut, the federal government and educational institutions like the university and ArcticNet, an organization which brings scientists together to study climate change.

"It's an attempt to better understand the unique hazards to buildings that exist in these Northern environments," said Ben Bagnall. "Particularly for Arviat, our focus will be on the permafrost conditions and how they vary depending on the ground and how that in turn effects the buildings there, as well as looking at coastal hazards relating to erosion and rising sea level as that may affect navigation for boats near the community."

Bagnall is in his first year of studies to complete a masters degree in geology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland campus in St. John's. A group of five students and teachers will work together on the project over the course of 45 days this summer, after an invitation from the Hamlet of Arviat to complete their research in the community.

"Our project is linking in with another very big project going on in the community and in a number of communities and the region, which is based on using fairly new satellite imagery technique, basically radar images that show how the ground is moving progressively over time," Bagnall said. "That just changes on an annual basis here as it thaws and the ice in the ground melts and the ground subsides. As it refreezes in the fall and winter and expands again, so obviously you don't want ... buildings on land that's really moving a lot."

The group has expectations of what they're going to find, Bagnall said, including an idea of which types of ground are more susceptible to a shift.

"Current scientific understanding and theoretic research lends us to believe that more hazardous permafrost is more likely to shift and heave, centred around finer grained units like silt and clay," he said. "Whereas ground with a lot of gravel or sand is believed to be less susceptible. We're looking to really go in and see if that's the case here, to see if we can look at how more suitable places to build are and where less suitable places to build are."

Aerial images of Arviat from the early 1960s, around the time of the creation of the community, help in the research just as much as testing what types of ground make up Arviat.

"Using those photos, you can figure out where there are changes, either elevation or in vegetation or in what is in the ground," Bagnall said. "So you can tell where those differences are from the air photos."

Once their research is complete the group plans to share their findings with the community.

"We're looking at where new buildings are going to need to go in the future, as well as the existing buildings and how they're being effected right now," he said. "So our last week in Arviat will be sharing this data with the community."