Canadian Museum of Nature botanist Jennifer Doubt examines Arctic plants with a student during the 2012 Students on Ice Arctic Expedition.
The Museum of Nature aims to give young people a firsthand experience of the Arctic with a new website it launched earlier this month.
ExpeditionArctic.ca targets young people to teach them about the hidden secrets of the Arctic. A film crew followed four scientists from the museum and two students.
For two weeks they travelled through Nunavut and Western Greenland.
One of the scientists on the trip was Paul Hamilton, a senior research assistant specializing in algae at the museum. Hamilton is trying to get people to think about all aspects of the Arctic, even the ones that can't necessarily be seen.
“The biggest problem I have is trying to introduce people to the microscopic life, that there is this whole structure of microscopic life that has to be there before anything else can survive,” says Hamilton.
Hamilton’s goal with the website is to teach people that there is much more to the Arctic than meets the eye. A small sample like algae, for instance, supports the life of a massive polar bear by being at the bottom of the food chain.
The site so far has gotten great feedback, says Jamie Herring. His company, Habitat Seven, was contracted to take photographs and do the multimedia for the site.
Photographing and filming the Arctic has its own challenges compared to past documentary work Herring has done, he says. There is no control over variables such as location, lighting, and timing in the Arctic.
“There is no typical day in the Arctic. We went in with a production plan, which you have to have in place, but every day there were major deviations,” says Herring.
Lee Narraway, a photographer with Students on Ice, says being a photographer in the Arctic is not for everyone.
To work in the Arctic, you need to pay attention to survive.
You also need to be patient, knowing that plans change because of the extreme weather, Narraway says.
The remoteness and vastness is unlike anything you could find in the city, which makes the challenges of the Arctic worthwhile, says Narraway.
The website provides a slice of what that’s like without having to leave your computer.