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magazine / jf04
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January/February 2004 issue |
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Cod in isolation
A handful of coastal salt lakes on Baffin Island, Nunavut, are home to an odd population
of Atlantic cod. Odd because these cod survive in landlocked bodies of water well north
of their normal range. Odd because they can grow to gargantuan proportions despite a limited
diet. And odd because they have persisted for years in extreme isolation, while their cousins
in the North Atlantic are endangered.
The Baffin Island cod are “marine relicts,” says David Hardie, a doctoral student
in biology at Dalhousie University who was awarded the $5,000 James
W. Bourque Studentship in Northern Geography for 2003 by The
Royal Canadian Geographical Society. “These populations aren’t from just
a few hundred years ago,” he says. “They’ve been on their own for a much
longer time, separate from marine stocks.”
Hardie spent last summer studying the fish in Ogac, Qasigialiminiq and Tariujarusiq — lakes
that occasionally receive influxes of tidal waters — and found they are dramatically
different from the cod living in Atlantic waters. Baffin cod subsist on sea urchins and on
each other, yet they grow to “historic sizes,” says Hardie, whose largest catch
weighed about 25 kilograms and measured 130 centimetres long. Unlike marine stocks, they
are not tasty, likely because of their poor diet, and thus are not harvested for food.
Although scientists have known about the Baffin cod since the 1950s, no one has yet unlocked
the mystery of their origins or determined exactly how long they have been there. Hardie
hopes that his genetic analysis of tissue samples — the first of its kind — and
future studies of sediment cores from the lakes will help elucidate the evolutionary history
of these unusual fish.
Monique Roy-Sole
Birds of a feather
Blair Seaborn and David Kirkwood have a lot in common. They were born in 1924, had distinguished
careers in the federal public service and started to volunteer with The Royal Canadian
Geographical Society after retirement. And this year, they share Camsell
Award honours for outstanding service to the Society.
Kirkwood joined the Society in 1987 and sits on the finance and audit committees. He was
treasurer in the 1990s when the RCGS embarked on ambitious new ventures, such as the Mount
Logan expedition. Seaborn joined in 1989 and served on the finance and lectures committees,
among others.
Both men see the launch of the French-language magazine géographica as a
highlight of their time at the Society.
Geography booster
A retired high school teacher who lobbied in the 1990s to keep geography as a distinct school
subject in Ontario has won the 2003
Geographic Literacy Award from the Canadian
Council for Geographic Education.
Lewis French dedicated 34 years to geographic education. He co-authored
textbooks, helped write geography curricula and now instructs aspiring
teachers at the University of Toronto.
French received $2,500 (U.S.) from the National Geographic Society's Grosvenor
Canadian Geography Education Fund. Another $2,500 will be donated in his
name to the Ontario Association for Geographic and Environmental Education.
He hopes the donation will be used for teacher resources and student awards.
Labrador déjà vu
On a freezing January morning 20 years ago, Jerry Kobalenko set off on what would be the
hardest trek of his life: a journey through the interior
of Labrador that lasted 46 days and left him with frost blisters and frostbite. It
took a month for him to recover the feeling in his toes. Now, on the anniversary of his
first trip, he will set off again, solo, to follow the same route.
“ I remember thrilling to a description from Henry Youle Hind, one of Labrador’s
early explorers,” says Kobalenko. “ ‘Words fail to describe the awful desolation
of the Labrador tableland.’ That would put off most people; it was a magnet for me.”
Supported by a grant from The
Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Kobalenko will start in Churchill Falls, Labrador,
and trek 600 kilometres to Nain, a small community on the Atlantic coast. He will hike or
ski with a 120-kilogram sled of supplies in tow and, staying true to his original experience,
will not carry a radio or satellite phone.
“ The interior of Labrador will not have changed much, except for Voisey’s Bay,” he
says. “Twenty years ago, there was not even a trapper’s cabin.” Now, a massive
nickel mine is under construction there.
Since that first trek, Kobalenko has some 20 Arctic expeditions under his belt, including
annual trips to Ellesmere Island. But he says those were neither as cold nor as challenging
as the Labrador trip.
Regardless, Kobalenko is anxious to do it all again. “I love the hard, simple, contemplative
sledding life,” he says. “It feels like my natural environment. Everywhere else,
I’m somewhat a fish out of water.”
Look for Kobalenko’s story and photographs from his Labrador journey in a future issue
of Canadian Geographic.
Lisa Pridmore
CG online: high-speed surfing
No more waiting for content at www.canadiangeographic.ca. A redesigned and updated website
now allows you to navigate and access interactive material faster than before — for
both PC and Mac users.
For example, whip through almost 300 years of Canadian history at breakneck speed in our “Historical
Maps of Canada” series.
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