Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway Provides New Research Frontiers in Geoscience

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May 3, 2017

The Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH), a 140km-long road that reaches to Canada’s arctic coast, is scheduled to open on November 15, 2017. While economic opportunities in the form of tourism, employment and business development have been heralded, unexpected opportunities in geoscience research have come along for the ride. The ITH crosses over permafrost terrain and this new research and monitoring can inform maintenance, regulation and climate change adaptation strategies related to this project.

Road traffic is not yet permitted on the ITH, but it is scheduled to open on 15 November 2017. Visit www.inf.gov.nt.ca for updates.

The ITH Geoscience Project

The ITH was a catalyst for establishing a state-of-the-art permafrost measurement network. The program was supported by the Department of Infrastructure and sparked collaboration between the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment’s NWT Geological Survey, the Geological Survey of Canada, University of Alberta, Carleton University and Wilfrid Laurier University. 

During the 21-day field program in February and March 2017, a team of contractors and researchers collected more than 190 m of permafrost core and installed ground temperature monitoring cables in 16 boreholes along the ITH.

The permafrost core was split lengthwise and one half was sampled for analysis at the Aurora Research Institute in Inuvik, Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa and Taiga Environmental Laboratory in Yellowknife. The other half of the permafrost core was sent to the University of Alberta to be archived for further research.

This study will inform a suite of integrated geoscience and engineering research. As permafrost thaw can damage roads and buildings, the research is a significant part of infrastructure planning in the Northwest Territories (NWT) and throughout the circumpolar region. 

‘Cool’ Learning Experience for Inuvik Students

While in Inuvik, the research team shared the excitement of the drilling program through several educational activities.  A number of students, including those in the Environment and Natural Resource Technology Program at Aurora College, as well as math and chemistry students at East Three Secondary School visited the team’s laboratory at the Western Arctic Research Centre.

The students saw permafrost core being cut with a large circular saw and learned what permafrost scientists do. The hands-on experience allowed the students to touch permafrost samples and see how they are processed in the lab.

The NTGS is a science-mandated division of ITI committed to enhancing the availability of geoscience information.

Five Fast Facts about Permafrost

  1. Permafrost is frozen ground that underlies terrain in cold climate regions. Think of it as the cement that holds northern landscapes together!
  2. Several communities in the western Arctic have ice-cellars excavated in permafrost and used to keep harvested food frozen through the summer.
  3. In tundra regions, this frozen layer of earth materials can be hundreds of metres thick and can be comprised of large volumes of ground ice.
  4. Some of the ice in NWT permafrost is over 10,000 years old, left over the Laurentide Ice Sheet.
  5. Climate change affects permafrost environments in the NWT; monitoring and research helps to inform adaptation strategies.