Polar bears sure are getting a lot of attention these days. In fact, today is International Polar Bear Day. We think that’s fine. After all, polar bears are amazing animals, at once cute and deadly, and arguably an icon of the Arctic. But are these unwitting spokesanimals for climate change the only things in the […]

I’m in a village called Salluit, in a region of northern Quebec called Nunavik, on the edge of the Hudson Strait. It’s -24 C. There’s snow on the ground. The ocean is frozen. I’m just south of the Arctic Circle, but am I in the Arctic? The answer to that question depends on how we […]

It’s not every day that we have reason to celebrate good news about the ocean, but this week, we do. A new international fishing agreement protecting the Arctic high seas is a game-changer for marine life and the Indigenous peoples who rely on it for social, cultural, economic and nutritional sustenance. On Thursday November 30, […]

“We call it ‘nuna,’” says Mia Otokiak, gesturing to the ground covered in inch-high willow and moss. Nuna means “land” in Inuinnaqtun, and yet it means so much more in Inuit communities across Canada’s North. The nuna is where Inuit like Mia hunt, travel, and reconnect with their roots. In summer, when the nuna becomes […]

This past August, four Ocean Wise divers motored to a remote Arctic islet to conduct a BioBlitz survey. A BioBlitz is a snapshot of Canada’s biodiversity, recorded by scientists and citizen scientists, to mark the country’s 150th anniversary. As one of 35 Bioblitz events coordinated by the Canadian Wildlife Federation, and made possible in part […]

In 2013, we were honoured to become a Laureate of the Arctic Inspiration Prize for a program called Ikaarvik: Barriers to Bridges. The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre leads Ikaarvik, a program that works with Arctic youth to be the bridge between their communities and science and between generations within their communities. Youth identify important […]

The Arctic is in the grip of unprecedented change and is warming at twice the rate of any other region in world. Fundamental threats such as man-made pollutants contaminating the marine food web and climate change, are giving rise to complex changes in Arctic weather, ocean currents, sea levels, and sea ice formation. These dramatic […]

By Jeremy Heywood, Vancouver Aquarium diving safety officer Saying farewell to Cambridge Bay did not mean the end of the work for the 2016 Nearshore Ecology Team. Upon our return to Vancouver we had stacks of dive gear clean and stow, receipts to add up, data to collate and images to sort. Over the course […]