Hello everybody,

My name is Anaïs Aubert and I’m doing a 6 month training course on Arctic zooplancton at Laval University, Québec. This work experience is part of my master 2 degree in Marine Biology (Brest, France). I am an agricultural and environmental engineer initially and I always had a strong interest for marine biology. During my search for a training course, I had the opportunity to get a work experience involving some field work in the Arctic on the Canadian research icebreaker Amundsen. I didn’t hesitate for a second. It was simply not possible to miss such a rare and exciting experience!! And now I would really much like to share parts of this particularly amazing experience with you

After a multiple stop-over travel: 3h30 flight from Québec to Winnipeg, then 2h30 from Winnipeg to Yellowknife and 1h30 from Yellowknife to Inuvik, I reached the ice aboard a twin otter .This little plane allows a good surrounding observation






Landing on the ice was pretty rock and roll, I have never done so many landings since I left France (7 in total in 3 weeks! Not really kind in regards to the sustainable development but it’s the only way to go to the Arctic Ocean!).




The day after we arrived I was already on the ice sampling with my team. I am actually working on a zooplankton project dealing with the little size fraction of the zooplankton community. Species I am looking at are really small copepods, from 0,05 mm to 4 mm. You can’t see them without a stereomicroscope. I need to determine these species and their presence through time in the water column. They are an important component of the marine ecosystem as they are preys for fish. Also they can consume a significant fraction of the phytoplankton production which forms the basis of the marine food web. To get an idea of what a copepod looks like, here is a picture of a female Calanus hyperboreus, a large copepod species (>10 mm).

Sampling work on the ice consists of making a one meter square hole from which we will deploy a plankton net. For the moment we only have to maintain a hole already made by the team that we replaced. Indeed, the icebreaker is stopped but it drifts with the sea ice cover. For each outing on the ice specific clothing is required. You feel so warm with all the different layers of clothe when inside the ship! Nevertheless it is necessary as the temperature is about -30°C in average and can reach sometimes -70°C (as today!)!
Participation to the sampling task is the best way to keep warm. For instance rolling the 250 meters rope back on the coil after sampling is a good exercise.

When we are not working outside, we sample from the Moon pool inside the ship. We use two types of gears: the multi-net Hydrobios and the Tucker. The nine nets of the Hydrobios permit to sample different layers of the water column. The tucker is much simpler as it is composed of only one net and it is used to collect living organisms for experiments.

The hydrobios nearly out of the Moon pool

After zooplankton collection, lab work is quite diverse. One task is to preserve organisms in formaldehyde for later taxonomic analysis at the University. We also select organisms for egg production and respiration measurements.
For my project, I pass most of my time observing small copepods under the stereomicroscope. I identify and count the species. Copepod taxonomy is based on body size and species characteristics.

Now about the wildlife sight seeing, we had the chance to spot two polar bears a few days ago! We were really lucky since these spectacular animals had not been observed for the past 3 months. They were a mother with her cub. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures to show you because they were too far away from the ship.
Luck was with us again when a marine bird visited us during our work on the ice. We also had a seal visit in the Moon Pool at night!

When we’re not working (which is rare!), the Amundsen is a comfortable place where I will never be bored!