SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Researchers working in the North Slave region shared their ongoing studies with 120 residents during events held at Yellowknife's regional Aurora Research Institute office and Northern United Place on Monday.

Sandy Little takes in some of the posters displayed at the North Slave Science Showcase on Monday at Yellowknife's regional Aurora Research Institute office. The event, which included public talks on a number of Northern research subjects, kicked off 50th anniversary celebrations for the Inuvik Research Laboratory. - photo courtesy of Ashley Mercer

The events, which featured six public talks covering a range of disciplines and more than 45 posters as part of a regional science showcase, kicked off this month's 50th anniversary celebrations for the Inuvik Research Laboratory.

More than 120 Aurora College staff, students and members of the public took in the display and lecture series, according to Ashley Mercer, manager of at the North Slave Research Centre.

"The topics ranged across the diversity of research that happens here in the North, so everything from traditional knowledge, health and wellness, traditional languages, to some of the hard physical sciences like fisheries, animal sciences, hydrology and geology," she said.

The poster exhibits featured a study on nursing practice in rural and remote communities by University of British Columbia researchers, an examination of whether sensory disturbances affect Bathurst Caribou by Golder Associates and permafrost studies by Natural Resources Canada, among many others.

Research lecture titles included the Intimate Partner Violence Project by Pertice Moffitt, Settler colonialism in the Everyday by Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, Four Billion years of Earth History Preserved in the North Slave Region by Luke Ootes and First Mile Broadband in Canada's far North: The K'atlodeeche First Nation Community Network by Rob McMahon and Lyle Fabian.

Close to 1,000 licensed research projects are ongoing in the North Slave region.

The Aurora Research Institute opened in 1964 as the Inuvik Research Laboratory and has operated ever since with the goals of supporting research and discovery in the western Arctic while helping to answer Northern research questions and communicating research results to Northern residents.

The research showcase is being shipped to Inuvik to be part of celebrations scheduled in the Beaufort Delta later this month.