PAULATUK
Bernadette Green got a unique view of the ocean floor this summer, thanks to her summer job and a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV).

Bernadette Green, summer student with the Paulatuk Hunters and Trappers Committee, left, and Darcy McNicholl, researcher with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, head to Bennett Point to monitor fish in the area this summer. - photo courtesy of Darcy McNicholl

The 20-year-old Paulatuk resident spent four weeks as a field assistant for Arctic research projects taking place outside her community.

It was her second time working as a field assistant through the local Hunters and Trappers Committee.

Watching the ROV send back video of the world beneath the waves of the Beaufort Sea was one of the best parts of her job, Green said.

"It was just amazing to see the ocean floor," she said.

Other projects included helping with beluga monitoring and sampling char and whitefish.

Through her work, Green was able to see a variety of different species of fish, some of which she had never seen before.

"I really enjoyed processing the fish and going out and setting the nets and checking them, just seeing all the different types of fish that we caught," she said. "There were a few fish I had never seen before, like Greenland cod which is mostly caught in Sachs Harbour. It was a really cool-looking fish."

On a trip to Brown's Bay while watching for belugas, Green said she was able to see a bowhead whale.

"That was really cool," she said. "It's a rare sighting, I guess."

Green first became interested in the job after watching her brother's work as a beluga monitor.

Her father was also a char monitor.

Green said the camp where much of the research takes place, known as Tippi, is also near where her family camps in the summer. She said she loves being able to do her job and spend time on the land with her family.

"I've been working with my family and camping with them," she said. "That was part of the incentive of why I applied. I get to be with my family and work."

The job also allows her to travel.

Last year, she went to a laboratory in Winnipeg to see what researchers were doing with the samples she had helped collect.

She said she learned how scientists determined how much of which fish species the belugas were eating, as well as how they determined an individual whale's age.

Researchers can count how long a beluga has lived by the rings on its teeth, similar to counting the rings on a tree trunk, Green said.

"They took a thin slice of the tooth and looked at it under the microscope," she said.

"I found out a whale can live up to about 50 years."

This year, Green will be travelling to Ottawa as a delegate during ArcticNet's international Arctic Change Conference.

The conference, which takes place at the Ottawa Convention Centre from Dec. 8 to Dec. 12, is expected to attract more than 1,000 delegates to discuss climate change and Arctic modernization, according to its website.

Green said she will be presenting some of the beluga research she helped compile.

It will be the first time she has ever visited Ottawa.

Green said she is now taking a break from her business administration program at Okanagan College in Salmon Arm, B.C., but plans on returning during the spring semester.

She said she hopes to be hired as a field assistant again next summer.

"I will keep applying for as long as I can," she said.

"You have to be as a student to apply, so as long as I'm in college, I'll be applying."

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