Citizen science and Borge Island

By Glen Bruels
This is part of a series called Northwest Passage et al 2024
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After a beautiful, sunny day yesterday, it was inevitable that today had to be cloudy, rainy, and rough. Today we are visiting Borge Island, a small (just over a mile square) and largely flat island. It was named by Raoul Amundsen after the name of his hometown in Norway. Our captain was particularly interested in stopping here because he too was born in Borge, Norway. The day started out quite rough and we stood off the island before the Zodiacs were allowed to take people ashore. Of course, that didn’t apply to the Science Boat that was just to go around 400 yards astern of the ship to collect samples. To borrow from the US Postal Service, “neither rain nor wind nor massive waves keeps these citizen scientists from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” So off we went! Bobbing around in the seas, we had two efforts to undertake: (1) collect a proper water sample to take back to the lab to identify the types and numbers of plankton, and (2) lower a sensor to measure the changes in water temperature and salinity with depth, as well as measuring the level of chlorophyll in the water (that provides some sense of the population of phytoplankton in the area. Both of these involved lowering devices over the edge of the Zodiac to the proper depth and/or trailing the device for the proper amount of time to get a good sample. Between the first two collection efforts, we had to return to the ship to drop off one lady who had gotten seasick. We were also supposed to do an experiment to test the opacity of the water but, with all the waves, our Science Team Leader, Sonia, decided we wouldn’t good results. So, thoroughly drenched and totally happy, we made our way back to the ship.

Our first effort was to collect a water sample to determine the numbers and types of plankton we had.
After sinking and towing it for a few minutes, Sonya opened the container.
She seemed quite excited and said she saw a lot of plankton. Do you see them? Neither do I, but hopefully the microscope will help us out.
The next ($17,000) instrument is used to measure water salinity and temperature as it goes down to about 20 meters. It can also measure chlorophyll level in the water which can be extrapolated to the relative population of phytoplankton
After holding the instrument under the water for 10 seconds, it is allowed to drop until the desired depth and then immediately reeled up.
The instrument has WiFi connectivity with an iPad and all the results were uploaded and graphed. Once again, more analysis will be done in the lab.
We were operating quite a distance from the ship…
… and while it is difficult to tell how rough the seas are in a still picture, the coxswain should be above the rest of us in the boat. It was pretty rough and wet out there!

Later that afternoon, things settled down sufficiently to make a shore landing. As this island was named after Amundsen, it was only appropriate that he was there to greet us. So nice of him to come back from the dead that way! Actually, it turned out that it was our Captain who was portraying Amundsen. He did say he wanted to make this landing! As with many of these small islands, at first glance they look totally barren but, as you get closer, life emerges very close to the ground. What really made this place amazing, however, was the natural waves and trenches that move in concentric arcs on one side of the island. Our geologist said that these were like when the island was pushed up which also brought up a lot of pre-Cambrian rock (e.g., granite) that has mixed with all the limestone that is scattered around the beach. I don’t know what the real answer is, but it certainly looked cool. Anyway, after some exploring, I headed back to the ship. We are now off to Gjoa Haven — an important location in the whole Amundsen saga.

Heading to the island.
And look who showed up to greet us! It turns out that it was our Captain who was Amundsen.
We started fanning out across the island within the red flags that marked the security perimeter.
And here are those concentric arcs and gullies. I don’t know what caused them, but they are very cool
Here is a slightly protected bird nest. With all this wind, I can’t imagine a bird wanting to nest here.
There were lots of small plants, including a number of these mushrooms called Rosy Navel. I would have never expected to find these here.
This entry was posted in Canada, Cruising, Nunavut, Travel
Glen Bruels

I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.

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