S2 E6 - Data and Discovery in the Arctic with Tom Henheffer - The 311 Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Paul Bellows (00:31):
This is the 311 Podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Bellows.
This is a show about the peoplethat make digital work for the
public service.
If you'd like to find out more,visit northern.co.
Today, my guest is TomHenheffer.
Tom is the CEO of the ArcticResearch Foundation, a non

(00:51):
profit organization thatfacilitates data collection in
Canada's Arctic region.
The Arctic Research Foundationis an essential ingredient in
Canada's civil society, workingalongside universities,
government, indigenouscommunities, and industry to
build our understanding of thiscritical global region through
research and data collection.

(01:11):
I should set a little contexthere.
Canada is really big.
Canada is the second largestcountry in the world by land
mass, larger than the U.
S., China, Brazil, or Australia.
Canada is roughly three timeslarger than India.
Non Canadians may be familiarwith Canada's ten provinces, but

(01:34):
less familiar with our threeterritories, the Yukon,
Northwest Territories, andNunavut.
These three territories alonecount for nearly 40 percent of
Canada's total landmass,including all of the regions of
Canada above the Arctic Circle.
However, the population of thisregion is less than one-half
percent of Canada's 40 millionresidents.

(01:54):
It's a massive area with veryfew people.
The Arctic has enormous economicpotential, with abundant rare
earth elements, diamonds, gold,base metals, oil, and gas.
The Arctic also provides thepossibility of commercial
shipping routes, deep waterports, and environmental
tourism.

(02:15):
There are many interestedparties in the Arctic region.
But the Arctic is also thetraditional home of the many
Inuit people who have thrived inthese regions since time
immemorial.
Canada as a nation is on ajourney of reconciliation with
Indigenous communities after toomany years of forced relocation,
residential schools, and brokentreaties.

(02:37):
The work that Tom and the ArcticResearch Foundation does is
challenging in logistics,environment, and cultural
context, but it's essential andinspiring.
The public sector involves thosethat work for and within
government, but also the manypara government organizations
that work around and alongsideformal government bodies.

(02:58):
Without the work of the ArcticResearch Foundation, Canada
would be limited in its abilityto understand the future issues
facing the Arctic, as well aslimited in its ability to
maintain claims of territorialsovereignty.
Here's my conversation with TomHenheffer.

Tom (03:15):
My name's Tom Henheffer.
I'm the CEO of the ArcticResearch Foundation.
Our head office is in GjoeHaven.
Nunavut, but I'm based inToronto and basically we exist
to do good in the North byfacilitating community led
science, infrastructure, andeconomic development projects.
And the way that we do that iswe go into communities, when
we're invited.

(03:35):
We spend lots of time, put bootson the ground, do lots of
consultations, buildcollaborations, find out what
community priorities are, andthen act as a catalyst and bring
in other nonprofitorganizations, universities,
research institutes, governmentdepartments to find funding and
deliver on those programmingpriorities.
What that looks like is we wereactually originally founded in
2011 to help in the search forthe Franklin Expedition trip,

(03:58):
the HMS Erebus and Terror.
And we did about 80% of thesearch for the Erebus and then
located the Terror.
We were led to the Terror by alocal hunter trapper from Gjoe
Haven named Sammy Kogvik who wehad earned their trust.
For 160 years people were tryingto find these ships, but no one
ever listened to the Inuit.
So this really informedeverything that we did moving
forward because we realizedthese guys know way more then we

(04:20):
do, they know the land.
We need to listen to them.
And so we earned their trust.
Sammy led us to the Terror, andfrom there our mandate has
expanded massively into what Ijust mentioned.
Our board realized that therewas a huge lack of research
infrastructure in the Arctic,especially in the near shore
Marine, and remote terrestrialareas.
So we have the only fleet ofnear shore capable research

(04:42):
vessels in the Arctic.
We have five steps right nowthat are purchasing a sixth.
They range in size from about 25feet up to 175 feet.

And they do all kinds of work: oceanography; hydrography. (04:51):
undefined
So mapping the seabed fornavigation, and for installing
fiber optic cables, powercables, sediment sampling, core
sampling, dissolve minerals, gasanalysis, fixed stock
assessments, mammal research.
Then we also have mobile labssolar and wind powered mobile
labs.
They're built outta shippingcontainers with solar and wind

(05:12):
either mounted on them or inarrays off to the side.
They can also be hooked up tothe grid.
And we have 18 of them deployedacross the Arctic right now.
They're used in everything fromdentistry and storing human
medical samples and watersampling in Inuvik,to sun
cracking in Cambridge Bay, totesting the thermal tolerance of
Arctic char.
So they have a salt water tankwhere you can adjust the

(05:33):
temperature to
see how how fish react

Tom (05:35):
in Byron Bay and Finlayson Island.
But our biggest installation isactually is our head office.
It's called Naurvik, which isInuktuk for the growing place.
It's in Gjoe Haven and is eightof our labs daisy chained
together where eight localtechnicians who are hired and
employed by the Arctic ResearchFoundation from the community,
are growing crops.
Tomatoes, and lettuce, andpotatoes, and strawberries that

(05:56):
does distributed to thecommunity.
We're also adapting that intomeat and food processing
facilities, which is reallyexciting'cause that could have a
huge impact on food sovereigntyand security in the north.
And then in addition to that ourwebsite, arcticfocus.org is a
publishing platform where wetell stories from the Arctic
basically by hiring freelancersfrom the north, and from the

(06:16):
south, but as much from thenorth as we can, to tell stories
about climate change,traditional cultural practices,
politics, scientists also willpublish field journals and
things like that on there.
And then it also hosts ourdatabase, which is the Arctic
Research Database.
It's the first data agnosticPan-Canadian Arctic, free
repository for primary researchdata.

(06:37):
And it is it can make DOIs[Digital Object Identifiers] and
we've had a number of of studiespublished from the data on that
database.
And that's also how we've gotteninto working on data standards.
Specifically enshrining,indigenous ways of knowing and
indigenous methodologies innationally and internationally
recognized standards.

The scale of what the Arctic Research Foundation
does actually exceeded what Ithought we were gonna talk about
today.
So you, you are scientist,researcher, explorer, farmer,
journalist, communicator.
It's a lot of different hats.
Can you tell me just a littlebit about just how many people
are employed overall?
Like how big is the operation ofthe ARF.

Tom (07:16):
It varies quite a bit seasonally.
Because our ships crew,obviously, we staff up quite a
bit when we're running all over.
We have eight people in GjoeHaven and then our core
management team or a core staffand management team is about 12
people.
At any given time we're usuallyabout 20.
Plus, we have a number of peopleon contract, political
consultants, especially ourcaptains.
So we get up to, we could push60, maybe 70.

(07:38):
At the, at when our fleet is atits absolute largest.
Our fleet is it expands andcontracts because we have
sometimes have transferredownership of the vessels to
communities when appropriate.
So our fleet's a little bitsmaller right now than it has
been in the past, but yeah, itcould be kind of day to day,
somewhere around 20, 21, 22.
And then, throughout the year,it can expand up to, 50, 60,

(08:00):
most of the time, up to 70 ifwe're really pushing something
larger.
The best way to think of us iswe're facilitators and a
catalyst.
We do in-house research.
Like our team at Naurvik areresearchers, and we have a chief
scientist, but we mostlyfacilitate other people doing
research.
We provide the infrastructurefor them to be able to do that.
We work with the communities tomake sure that the to help them

(08:22):
find researchers to address theprojects that they want.
We work with researchers to findcommunities who are, who want
the type of research thoseresearchers are doing to be
conducted in their communities.
And the reason that we have sucha broad mandate really is
because of virtuous cycles,.
Right, you run the ships, youcollect data, you need a

(08:43):
database to store that data.
You want to tell the story ofthat online.
So that's what we have throughour social media channels and
our website.
So all of it seems, at firstglance, like it's a lot of
separate things, but they reallyall compliment each other.
And each one enables moresuccess.
In the other aspect of it, likewe're collecting a lot of data.
So it's important that there'sgood data standards involved in

(09:05):
the Arctic.
In order for the data to work asefficiently as possible, you
need to have good standards forinteroperability.
And you need to ensure that,again, like everything we do,
we're reflecting the communitieswhere we work and doing it on
the terms of the people whoactually own and steward the
land in the north.
Which is why we're concentratingon enshrining indigenous
methodologies rather than theusual way that things are done,
which is industry and researchinstitutions in the south come

(09:29):
up with the standards and theneverybody in the north has to
follow along which is, verybackwards when it comes to doing
research in the north.
So all, all everything playswell, together and is meant to
enhance everything else at thefoundation.

I love it.
So I forgot to put startup onyour list of things that you
are, data startup.
Even for Canadians, I don'tthink most people appreciate the
scale of Canada.
We're one of the largestcountries on the planet, in
terms of like sovereign borders.
We're one of the largestcountries, but most Canadians
are huddled around the warmest,parts of the country, which is,
the southern border.
That's where a lot of ourmunicipalities are, we're the

(10:01):
vast majority of the population.
But the scale of Canada as youmove towards the North and the
Arctic, I think a lot of folksoutside Canada would be familiar
with our provinces, but we alsohave our three territories.
Which are Yukon, NorthwestTerritories, and the most recent
territory, Nunavut.
Nunavut alone accounts for 20%plus of the land, mass of
Canada, of the actual territory.

(10:22):
Just to bring it into scale forfolks, when you travel to your
head office from Toronto, canyou just talk a little bit about
how get there in terms offlights the time duration,
because I think that'll helppeople to understand just the
massive scale of Canada.

Tom (10:37):
Yeah it's it is a real challenge.
Traveling in the Arctic is areal, real challenge.
We have people in Gjoe Havenright now that are some of our
contract techs from SouthernOntario have gone up to install
an HVAC system in Naurvik.
And they're stuck.
They've been stuck there for afew days because there's a
snowstorm coming in.
And the last time they were upthere, they were stuck there for
two weeks.

(10:58):
So it's, difficult.
But yeah, Canada's about 9million square kilometers.
The Arctic is 40% of that, andthat's just the Arctic.
That's not including most of theNorthwest territories.
So that's just in the ArcticCircle, not including all of
what people would consider theNorth of Canada.
A few months back I was supposedto travel to Tuktoyaktuk, which
is in kind of the northwest partof the Northwest Territories,

(11:19):
right on the border of Alaska onthe Beaufort Sea.
We had a consultation that wewere gonna be holding there on a
Wednesday.
We had two staff flying up fromCalgary and then I was gonna fly
from Toronto.
My flight was leaving on theMonday, early Monday morning.
My flight in Toronto was delayedby an hour and a half, which
meant that I couldn't connect tomy flight in Edmonton, to fly to
Yellowknife, where I would thenfly from Yellowknife to Inuvik

(11:42):
and then drive two and a halfhours to Tuktoyaktuk,'cause Tuk
only has a runway for emergencymedical stuff.
It's very small.
Which meant I had missed thatconnection.
We looked at every possible wayto get to Tuktoyaktuk, flying
through Ottawa to Iqaluit, andthen over on a milk run,
stopping at every littlecommunity on the way.
Flying through Vancouver.

(12:02):
And there was no possible waybecause of, just because of an
hour and a half delay, for me toget to Tuktoyaktuk before
Friday, and I was leaving on aMonday, and the consultation was
on a Wednesday.
Thankfully our guys that wereheading up from Calgary were
able to make it.
But I wasn't actually able to,and to get to Gjoe Haven it's an
overnight.
Always.
So you basically, you usuallyfly to Edmonton.

(12:25):
Sometimes you can fly to Ottawaand then Edmonton, Yellowknife,
and then Yellowknife, you geton, you don't have to go through
security.
If you're flying north pastYellowknife, there's no security
you get on a a plane.
It's, it actually, oftentimesit's a fairly large plane.
Like what's, whatever's the onesmaller than a 747?
I forget.

It's 737 is usually

Tom (12:43):
what they're flying.
Yeah, a 737 kind thing.
But they do need to be specialplanes'cause most of the
communities have gravel runwaysand they're very uneven.
So it's a fairly regular planeexcept that you'll be in the
back half of the plane and thefront half of the plane's just a
wall.
There's just a wall there.
And where normally there'd bemore seats then the cockpit, and
that's because it's half filledwith cargo.
You fly to Edmonton, stayovernight, fly to Yellowknife,

(13:03):
and then fly to Gjoe Haven.
And it's, each of those flightsis somewhere around three to
four hours.
But the last flight to GjoeHaven, it could take a long time
because you'll stop In all thesurrounding communities you
almost always stop in CambridgeBay and then some of the other
ones around there as well.

And just for folks that are trying to picture this,
you're flying from Toronto toEdmonton.
This is the flight I do all thetime.
Depending on whether you'regoing east or west and you have
the jet streams with you oragainst you.
It's about four plus hours, fourand a quarter hours to traverse
most of the North Americancontent, east to west.
Edmonton is about 400 kilometersish north of Toronto.
And then from Edmonton toYellowknife, you fly another two

(13:40):
hours ish.
Is that about the length of thatflight Edmonton to Yellowknife?

Tom (13:43):
A little bit longer, two and a half, maybe three.

I've done it a couple of times, but it's been a
little while.
But then Yellowknife, again,you're flying another three or
four hours of flight norththat's how much farther we're
going.
To think about traversing theentire North American continent,
so for somebody in the US that'sNew York to LA and then you
pivot that north, south and youfly that far again, north is,
how far north we are going.

Tom (14:05):
And Gjoe Haven's not the furthest north community either.
Alert is much farther north thanthat.
And Alert has the Tim Hortons.
Funnily enough, because it's amilitary base.

Of course.
Canada has to have, its Timmies.
So in terms of, just for alittle bit, you talked about,
you have five ships.
You're bringing on another one.
You have these operations acrosswhat kind of scale are you
operating?
Like how far are folks who areup there working, traveling to,
for data collection?

Tom (14:31):
Pretty far.
Our busiest ship, which is theone that we're replacing right
now is called the WilliamKennedy.
It's come to the end of itslife.
So we're, it's a 64 foot doublewide ship.
We like to practice what we callfish boat science.
We take used vessels fishingboats, coast guard vessels that
are proven arctic hard and havereally experienced crew.
And then we refit those intoresearch vessels.

(14:51):
'cause that's the cheapest wayto do it.
Because we're a non-profitcharity.
We charge as little as wepossibly can.
And, we have to work with verylimited federal funding and
things like that in order forthe ships to go.
So the William Kennedy is basedout of Dartmouth and it will
travel, Northwest along thecoast of Labrador up into Hudson
Strait, across Hudson Strait,down into Hudson Bay and all

(15:13):
through Hudson Bay, up to thekind of north northwest hip
where the traditional Marineobservatory is.
So William Kennedy was theprimary research vessel for the
Marine Observatory.
So I don't know how manykilometers that is, but it's
thousands and thousands.
And it will also go as far northas Fox Basin which is, just
south of the Baffin Island.
That's where the Baffinlandmine, the southern kind of part

(15:34):
of the island where theBaffinland mine is.
And yeah, and it does work inUngava Bay.
And yeah, so it's thousands andthousands of kilometers.
That's the ship that transitsthe most.
And the ship where we're gonnabe replacing it was probably be
about twice the length.
Not, probably not quite as wide.
It's'cause it's a double wideship.
But it's really excitingactually.
It's gonna be a steel hauledship, whereas the Kennedy's
fiberglass, so it's ice class.

(15:54):
It'll be be able to have alonger season and a longer
range, more bunks and reallystate of the art sensors and
things like that to to make ithopefully what'll be the most
important research vessel inCanada.
And again, I can't stress enoughlike when I say that we're the
only organization with a fleetof near shore capable research
vessels in the Arctic.
That includes the CanadianGovernment.
There is very little out there.

(16:15):
There's a few other.
Organizations that have one ortwo ships.
And there's one that actuallysoon will have, the Qikiqtaaluk
Corp will have a third vessel,so they'll have a fleet as well.
And they're an Inuit ownedorganization, and a good partner
of ours.
But there's a real lack ofresearch infrastructure in the
Arctic, and it's a big problemthat it's these kind of private
organizations that are providingthe ships for that.

(16:36):
And even then, most of theseships are operating at 50%
capacity.
There's, because that there'snot enough funding to do the
kind of work that they need todo.

I suspect just given the global interest in the
Arctic in terms of rareminerals, energy, transport,
Canada's interest in the Arcticcontinues to grow.
Other nation's interest in thearctics continue to grow.
We're talking in 2025, but Ithink.
Other nations are being veryinterested in Canada's Arctic
and what's there?
And so just as you operate, youtalked about there are, there's

(17:09):
some Inuit commercialorganizations operating there.
There's your organization.
Who else are you encountering inthe north?
Who is operating up there?
We have the Inuit people, the,the traditional communities
living there.
Who, who else are youencountering what is happening
in the Arctic, other than peoplewho live there?

Tom (17:24):
Obviously the vast majority of the people up there
are northern indigenous peoples.
And in, in the Arcticspecifically, it's mostly Inuit,
but not entirely.
There's Gwich'in for instance,in the Northwest Territories are
also very far north.
As well as all the otherIndigenous First Nations
community and native communitiesin the Northwest Territories.
But there's, aside from that,it's a lot of university
researchers, some Parks Canadafolks.

(17:46):
Other agriculture-Naurvik isactually a partnership between
us, the community, and thenAgriculture Canada, the National
Research Council and theCanadian Space Agency.
So folks from there will be upnorth as well, but it's mostly
kind of northern indigenouspeople.
And then other locals there'sactually quite a large
population.
I'm not sure why, but quite alarge population from Africa.
First generation Africanimmigrants living in Canada's

(18:07):
north.
I I don't know why that is.
I can't even start to speculate,it's something that I've
noticed.
Then aside from university,government people, then also,
like National Geographic is avery close partner of ours.
So you have those explorerorganizations, things like that,
that you see up there as well.
Some tourists because there is acruise ship industry that's
growing.
And then a lot of mines as well.

(18:29):
But where we work, we haven't,worked directly with them, but
that's actually changing.
Soon we're gonna be doing somework with some of the, some
environmental baselinemonitoring for infrastructure
that's going to be going intokind of work with mines.
It's not something I can get toospecific on, but it's again, all
community led stuff.
Environmental monitoring, onbehalf of the communities for
these big industrial projects.

Amazing.
I you talked a little bit, and Ilove this aspect, that you're
really letting the, theindigenous communities who are
the experts, who have thetradition and the history and
the knowledge you're lettingthem lead research.
But I'd love to just maybe talka little bit about,'cause
research can be a lot of things,what, can you gimme some
examples of, maybe like aflagship project in your mind of
the kind of data you'recapturing.

(19:13):
The value that it brings tosociety.
What is, maybe pick a goodexample to help folks to
understand the kind of outcomesyou're producing.

Tom (19:19):
Sure.
Probably the best example is ourthe work we've been doing in
Sherman Basin, which is theinlet to Sherman Basin is
actually where the Erebus wreck.
Is so you actually have totransit over a part of the
exclusion zone for that.
You have to get a special permitfor it to go into Sherman Basin.
It's also that geographicallygives you an idea.
It's east of Gjoe Haven and it'sthe, it's part of the
traditional lands where thecommunity of Gjoe Haven when

(19:42):
they were living a semi-nomadiclifestyle where a lot of the
people from that communitywould've lived originally before
they were forced to move by theCanadian government in the mid
20th century to.
Through the community of GjoeHaven, which was more militarily
important.
Which, was obviously devastatingin, in, in so many ways and but
I think people are fairlyfamiliar with that.
But the area is, it'sfascinating.

(20:02):
It's in incre.
No one has ever actually studiedit.
No.
Obviously indigenous people havelived there for.
For centuries, no, like southernscientists have studied it.
We're the first people to go in.
And we've, for the last severalyears, National Geographic has
supported a project there wherewe bring youth and elders.
We hold what we call a youthelder camp or future leaders

(20:24):
camp.
Where youth and elders arebrought over to the land on
Sherman Basin.
And the elders can pass theirknowledge onto the youth so they
can hunt caribou and muskox andcashe them to come pick up
later, spearfishing, how to drymeat, and gut fish, and survive
on the land in an extremelyisolated area.
And it's incredible because it'san astoundingly productive area.

(20:46):
Like you can't throw a rock andit not hit a seal or a caribou
or a muskox.
It draws into sharp contrastkind of the lifestyle that was
lived by these people before andwhy they were able to survive
that way off the land in an arealike that, versus an area like
Gjoe Haven where they've beenmoved to where you need more
southern housing, where it isn'tas productive in terms of animal
life and plant life.

(21:07):
And as a result it's much harderto survive off the land and live
that traditional lifestyle.
And during the summer, thecommunity doesn't really have
access to Sherman Basin becauseyou can get there over the ice
in the winter, but you need afairly big ship or a float
plane, we use both, to get thereduring the summer.
And so we have a scientist withus.
So the idea of these camps isfor the elders to, to pass

(21:28):
knowledge onto the youth.
As well as, for our crew andscientists working with us to
learn the community's prioritiesand learn from them as well,
learn the science that theyreally want to know.
There was a scientist on thesevoyages who was studying animal
productivity of the animals inthe region, the waters.
Installing a bunch of tidalmoorings and other sensors,

(21:49):
temperature, probably dissolvedminerals as well.
Taking water samples to find outwhat's in the water, what kind
of microorganisms, whetherthere's contaminants or things
like that.
And there are contaminants,there are microplastics even in
areas that are that isolated.
To contrast with that, Imentioned hydrometry, which is
basically using essentiallysonar, like really advanced fish
finders to map the ocean floor.

(22:11):
And we've done that all throughHudson Strait and Ungava Bay for
the Kativik and Qikiqtaalukregion regional governments in
Nunavik, which is in NorthernQuebec.
And we are doing, we were doingall that mapping in order to
bring fiber optic cables to thecommunity.
'cause they're very isolatedcommunities, barely have any
access to internet.

(22:31):
There were times when we sentpeople into the field to visit
with them to do consultationswhere we just, they'd be in a
community, there was no way tocontact them until they got to
another community.
There was just like, therewasn't phone lines, there wasn't
anything.
There was no way to connectthem, this is going to bring
them, good reliable, high speedinternet.
Underwater cable is really thekind of, the gold standard.
Yellowknife, for instance, hasan overland cable and it gets

(22:52):
cut all the time because of iceshear, extreme weather, forest
fires shut it down last summerfor several weeks.
Underwater, if it's done rightand it's armoured properly,
usually works a lot better.
So yeah, we've been doing workalong there with the ships to
map the routes for the cables.
And while we're doing that, wehave marine mammal monitors that
we hired.
They're locals that we hiredthat join the step to basically

(23:13):
point out, make sure we don'tget too close to marine life and
make observations about it,which we then log.
We hire local fishing boats toshow us the best place for
landing.
So we're using traditionalknowledge, some people think
traditional knowledge and theythink, oh, it's oral history and
it might not have that much usein science and that's incorrect.
It absolutely does and oralhistory is a big part of it, but

(23:35):
it's also like in terms of thesheer practical our science
needs right now, we need to knowwhere our boat can enter the
land and get as close aspossible to the land safely.
Where the areas where the cablescan go, where there's not gonna
be a bunch of ice moving around,crushing, cutting the cables and
it's traditional knowledge thatgives us that, you can go, you

(23:55):
could spend weeks finding thebest spot using sensors, or you
could just ask someone whoknows.
That just gives a really goodillustration of traditional
knowledge.
And then also, we'll invitepeople out to the ships.
We also host youth camps or havehosted youth camps on the ships
in the past and are hoping to,again in the future and Great
Slave Lake, we'd bring 14 youthonto the ship for two weeks.
And they learn from thescientists, they jobs out of the

(24:17):
mariners.
They'd fish, they'd, watchmovies, do all that kind of
summer camp stuff, but they'dalso, take niskin bottles out
and do water sampling and all ofthat cool stuff as well.
So, it's a huge variety.
And then in terms of theterrestrial work, like with the
labs.
In Gjoe Haven we're working onthe it's totally off grid.
It's not connected to the powersupply in the community at all.
And Naurvik is, it gets about70% of its power from wind and

(24:41):
solar with a backup dieselgenerator providing the rest.
And the technicians arebasically researching ways, the
best ways to grow plants, toincrease yields, the most
efficient way to distribute thepower, a line of solar arrays,
to calibrate the batteries.
We just installed an HVAC systemto figure out the best
environment in terms of humidityand all that for the plants to

(25:03):
thrive.
So all of that research is goingon as well.
And that's the reason CSA, theCanadian Space Agency is
involved in that, is becausethey see that as a test ground
for eventually growing food inspace or on Mars or the moon,
because, it's growing food in anenvironment where you shouldn't
be able to grow it.
And yeah, so that gives you anidea, a broad three examples of
very different research projectsthat we're up to.

That's fascinating, the scale of the
scope of work.
Let's have a technologyconversation for a minute and
sort of a data practiceconversation,'cause you're at
heart a data organization, youknow that's the mandate

Tom (25:37):
Yeah

data and information.
But you talked about twodifferent things.
I'd love to just have for you toparse this for me.
You talked about culturalknowledge and oral tradition
where, you know, thetransmission of cultural
knowledge is itself a practice.
How do we manage it?
What are we allowed to share, betracking protocols around
cultural knowledge.

(25:57):
And that this is true for reallyanyone in government.
We manage private data, healthrecords, the sort of, so there's
the operational practice ofrespecting the privacy and the
ownership of that data.
But then there's also just thewide variety of your data, like
in storing this data and thevolumes of data and transmitting
this data when you don't alwayshave internet.
So just in terms of your datapractice what kind of skill sets

(26:19):
are you bringing?
What kinds of technologies areyou using to manage data at this
kind of scale?

Tom (26:23):
Yeah.
Most of the data that we collectis managed by our partners.
So, it's either the communitiesor the research scientists.
They have their own data thatthey're collecting and they're
storing in their databases andwe are just facilitating the
collection of that.
But like things like thehydrographic data we did we did
hydrography in Great Slave Lake[NWT], all across the lake, the
first time it was ever done forcables to run as part of the

(26:45):
Taltson Energy project.
They haven't been installed yet.
But the basic idea is you takehydroelectric electricity from
the south of the NorthwestTerritories, run it across Great
Slave Lake into Yellowknife intothe other communities there, so
they have hydroelectric power.
Every community in the northruns on diesel power right now.
Which is, very expensive.
There's a lot of pricefluctuations.

(27:05):
The power plants are well pastthe end of their lives,
sometimes 20 years past it, insome cases, I think even more.
And it's very polluting.
All that hydrographic data, wehave permission to upload that
onto our database where it'sstored as 3D imagery,
essentially.
As well as there's also numericdata and things like that went
along with it.
It was all, it was processed byour partners that we collected

(27:27):
it with Seaforth Geosurveys.
They're a geo survey company outof the technicians who actually
run the hydrographic equipmentand and store it in the database
and tag.
We work with an organizationcalled the Canadian Consortium
for Arctic Data Interoperability[CCADI].
They're the ones that wererunning the data standards
initiative with, well, actuallywe're the secretariat for the
data standards initiative.
There's a working group ofnorthern communities and

(27:48):
organizations that, that areessentially the bosses.
We did a bunch of consultations,established this working group
because we knew that it needs tobe northern indigenous people
who are saying how this works.
But CCADI sorry.
They were called CCADI, nowthey're called the Canadian
Polar Data Consortium, CPDC.
They knew that and they're allabout data interoperability.
They knew that you'd never beable to get all of the Arctic,

(28:09):
all of the Arctic data orwhatever other data.
You're never gonna be able toget it all in one database.
So they came up with the idea ofan ecosystem of databases or a
database of databases.
So you can search and access andget the key information from one
place, and all these databaseswill work together.
We were the first databaseexternal to CPDC to be.
Integrated into their dataecosystem.

(28:31):
So we've adopted all of the kindof standards and matrix where
standards might have variedbecause we used I think ISO 1 1
9 5 or 1 9, 1 5.
I can never quite remember thenumber, but whatever.
This, the kind of standardthat's generally accepted for
for oceanography and arcticdata.
We used, combined with also somenasa atmospheric tagging and
things like that is how we builtthe database.

(28:52):
And then because it was alearning process I'm not a data
scientist, right?
We built this with a datascientist at University of
Manitoba and Red River College.
And so we built it that way andthen CCADI came in and we either
adopted their standards orfigured out ways to crosswalk so
that our database would workwith their ecosystem.
And we're actually in theprocess of publishing a
technical paper that we'rewriting right now on how that is

(29:14):
done.
Basically a guide to if you'reexternal to this and you want to
get into this kind of ecosystem,this is how you do it.
So that's how those practicesare done.
Aside from that it's very adhoc.
Our database is built to be openby default, but it's not hosting
traditional indigenous knowledgeat the moment.
Aside from the fact that kind ofanything that's collected in
these territories really doesbelong to the people that live

(29:35):
there.
So in that way it's, it'straditional knowledge in that
way.
But we're not hosting that kindof protected traditional
knowledge because there is atension right now, or a problem
that needs to be solved; whichis that, most data now
everyone's moving to open bydefault.
Aside from where things areproprietary, et cetera, but,
results and how all of theresults in a the raw data needs

(29:55):
to be published so people can gothrough, replicate your study.
'cause there's been lots ofproblems with those with those,
with studies not beingreplicable and all that.
Open data is growing.
We follow those principles.
The one major exception to thatis traditional indigenous
knowledge.
It needs to be protected.
It can't just be extracted fromthese communities and then used
to benefit people living in theSouth or PhD students who are

(30:18):
wanting to, write a thesis.
It needs to benefit thecommunity.
So it needs to be protected andthey have the rights to it, to
determine how that's done.
But in many cases, thesecommunities, they want be able
to take their traditionalknowledge and use it to get a
better understanding of thewhole ecosystem in the Arctic
and how climate change ishappening and how that's being
affected.
They want what's called theco-generation of knowledge or

(30:39):
two-eyed seeing or knowledgebraided approach where you're
enmeshing a kind of westernscience or southern science data
with traditional knowledge toget a more holistic picture.
But there's still a question ofhow do you actually publish that
traditional knowledge data.
And, there's some ideas.
A new type of creative Commonslicense where, you need express
written permission for everyusage of the data.

(31:01):
And the knowledge holders areconsulted through every step of
how that data is used.
Might be one option.
Something we explored with ourdatabase is putting gates up so
that only knowledge holders areable to access the data
knowledge holders or people theygive permission to are able to
access the data.
But then once the data'saccessed, that, that protection
erodes.
So that's why some kind oflicensing, probably some

(31:21):
combination of licensing and allthat if traditional knowledge
wants to get put up there.
So there's a lot of questions interms of how that needs to be
done.
And the main thing when it comesto those questions is they need
to be answered by northerners,right, in collaboration with
southerners and data scientistsand scientists.
But it's the ultimate sayingneeds to be in the hands of the
knowledge holders as to how thatneeds to be done.

(31:43):
So there's a lot of issuesthere, but that's how we've
looked at at several of them.

This space is fraught.
It's complex, how to collectknowledge, stories, cultural
artifacts, but while respectingthe ownership of them because as
you say, once data is out on theinternet, it's out on the
internet.
And I know there's a wholeproject that the University of
Washington down in WashingtonState, they called the
technology project they calledMukurtu, which is an Australian
aboriginal word for, yourcarrying purse.

(32:09):
You know, the thing you carryyour things in when you're out

Tom (32:11):
Yeah, I've heard of that.

walking on the land.
And it's all about managing thecultural protocols and
permission.
And I can upload something.
I determine who can access andthe, if we think that healthcare
data is complex, this is at thatlevel of complexity of managing.
So there are several technologyprojects striving to build a
platform for managing culturalprotocols, it it's challenging.
Trust had been erodedhistorically.

Tom (32:32):
And to be clear, it's not, it's also like it doesn't always
need to have any involvementfrom people in the south,
either.
Like the Arctic Eider Societywhich is an Arctic indigenous
organization, has founded hascreated an app called Siku,
SIKU.
And it's they're a partner ofours on the standards
initiative.
And they, it's basically a map.
Where people from localcommunities can upload whatever

(32:54):
data they have.
A lot of it is animalobservation data and ice
condition data.
But it's really neat becausethey figured out a way, and this
is actually what we're lookingat, is enshrining the first
standard that we've that theworking group on the Arctic Data
Initiative is working on.
They've found a way that ifsomeone is, uploading data from
Gjoe Haven in Kitikmeot.

(33:15):
You know, Obviously the term forfat polar bear or sick Arctic
Char or healthy Arctic Char,that's going to be in Inuktuk.
Then if someone from Gwich'inwants to access that data, they
can write, they can type it inGwich'in and get the results
back in Gwich'in.
So they've figured out a way tocrosswalk between the different
languages and methodologies fortheir, traditional ways of

(33:35):
observing this animal data andthen plotted it on a map so you
can click and get all theinformation in a specific
geographic area and get it inyour local language or local
dialect.
'Cause there's several manydifferent dialects of Inuktitut,
to just name one, and that isthat crosswalk between them,
which is a technical abilitythat they've developed is what
we're looking at as enshrining,as a standard in terms of Arctic

(33:57):
animal observations.
And so that's one of thepossibilities.
We haven't decided we're goingto do that, but that it's been
suggested that be one of thethings we look at.

Fascinating projects around data standards.
Who is the customer of some ofthis data?
What are some of the stories ofwho's been able to use this data
and what they've been able toaccomplish?
Like we're collecting all thisdata, we're managing all this
data, we've got all these,fleets out and people, and,
connections to community.
What, do you have a story or anexample of use of this data
that, that, that's been, thatsomething that wouldn't have

(34:27):
happened outside of yourefforts?

Tom (34:29):
Yeah, I mean, it varies widely for the, obviously the
research.
The University researchers thatwe're working with they're
publishing papers based off ofit, which can then be used.
The raw data that they'recollecting is published and can
then be used to betterunderstand how climate change
or, like for instance a studyinto Beluga Health how to
address those health outcomes,how to obtain contaminants

(34:52):
research, how to look intocontaminants flowing into Great
Slave Lake from the oil sands,and what effect that's having,
how to mitigate that.
Why cancer rates are so high inthe community of Délı̨nę[Deline]
in the Northwest Territories,where the uranium mines are
located and they don't know ifit's H.
pylori, they don't know if it'suranium or what, but there's
research being done into that,to, to determine that.

(35:13):
So those are some very specificones.
At the end of the day, it's, forus, it's all about the
communities, we don't care whatdata we're collecting so long as
it's useful to the communities.
And obviously we have theirpermission and it's done in
collaboration with them.
But there's a huge number ofdifferent stakeholders.
So community first.
And that again, could beanything from this is where the
animals are.
This is why their migrationpatterns are changing, this

(35:35):
water is contaminated or it'snot, or it's safe to drink.
These are where the contaminantsare coming from.
This is how to mitigate it.
Those are some of the practicalapplications.
Narvik, obviously, is about howto grow food in the north and
how to come up, but more thanthat, it's also about a social
and economic model.
How do we replicate this inother communities and make it
sustainable because we're payingthe salaries right now.
How do we generate, how do thecommunities figure out an

(35:58):
economic model to generateenough funds to make it
sustainable in the long term sothat it can be replicated in
other communities and they canhave fresh produce grown locally
as opposed to shipped up fromthe south and that it's, by the
time it hits the shelves, it'srotting and it costs$14 for a
bag of lettuce.
And also, we're in terms of thecamps sometimes some of that
will be filmed and thenpublished to the world at large

(36:20):
to tell these stories, which isalso what we're doing through
our website.
So it really there's a hugevariety but I think at the end
of the day, it's about servingthe communities, finding the
information that they reallywant, and also getting creating
a greater understanding of howthe ecosystem is changing in the
Arctic and what we need to doto, to remediate or stop that

(36:40):
or, what needs to happen on agrander scale to basically
inform both the scientificcommunity and policy makers and
just your average person.

Yeah, we live in a world that is changing in, in,
in climate ways.
It's changing in political ways.
It's changing in economic ways,and what we need to do is
understand.
And we need to understand what'shappening.
And so I, I am grateful for thework you do Tom, and I'm
grateful you took an hour out ofyour schedule'cause you have a
lot on the go clearly to sharesome of this with our with our

(37:10):
audience.
I think it's been fascinatingand I just can't wait to stay
tuned to what you're gonnaaccomplish next.
And good luck with theprocurement of your next
research vehicle.

Tom (37:18):
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
And just if I could add just onemore thing on the sovereignty
piece because that is such animportant issue now too.
We really desperately, Canadaneeds to, we're doing a lot of
work, but we're doing that kindof in spite of a lack of
government funding in a lot ofways.
Going to ISED[Innovation,Science and Economic Development
Canada] and ECCC[Environment andClimate Change Canada] and
whomever else, and just patchingtogether funding.
And that's something that we andeverybody has to do to, whether

(37:41):
it's doing a research project orbuilding a meat processing
plant.
It's extremely difficult and thefunding is not designed for
communities in the north toaccess it.
We just had an application thata community that we work with
was rejected because theyweren't able to log into the GC
[Government of Canada] Keywebsite because the internet is
so bad in the community, theycouldn't get past the two factor
authentication, and the agencywould not allow us to upload it

(38:04):
on their behalf.
So they were caught in a funddesigned for these communities,
they're not able to accessbecause of just poor planning.
And lack consultation andcollaboration on the
government's part, but we arereally falling behind.
China has already tried toinvest in several mines in the
north and it looks like theyhave managed through a

(38:25):
subsidiary to invest in one, inNunavut.
Huawei is offering to buildinternet infrastructure and
telecommunicationsinfrastructure.
For a lot of these communities,and you have to remember, these
are settled land claims.
These people own this land.
They're essentially sovereignnations.
If Canada doesn't do it, thenthey have no reason to not turn
to another country.
If we don't do it, someone elsewill.

(38:47):
That's a key thing to know.
Russia has just invested, Ithink two years ago, announced a
$300 billion investment into theRussian Arctic.
And just to give you an idea ofthe scale of the infrastructure
in the Arctic on the 69thParallel, that's where Gjoe
Haven is located, it's acommunity of 1300 people.
A city called, Norilsk, inRussia.

(39:09):
It's also on the 69th Paralleland it has 220,000 people and it
is not the largest city in theRussian Arctic.
There's two other Murmansk andand Yakutsk are also in the
Arctic.
Russia has major populationcenters in the Arctic, largely
based around mining for rareearth minerals.
And Canada has lagged so farbehind.

(39:32):
Russia has, nuclear poweredicebreakers that can pull up to
pull up to a community andprovide all the power for a
mid-sized city.
They have very small nucleargenerators that they can use as
well, that they can deploy asneeded.
They have giant land crawlersthat look like something from
Star Wars on Luke Skywalker'sown planet of Tatooine, the sand
crawler that goes along.

(39:52):
They have things that look likethat just built for the Arctic.
And we're so far behind inArctic infrastructure.
There is a huge dispute aboutthe Northwest passage, which is
Canadian sovereign territory.
But the United States our, ourclosest ally, maybe not at the
moment, but historically ourclosest ally disputes that claim
and only 10% of Arctic watersare mapped properly in Canada.

(40:17):
I've heard estimates that Chinaand Russia have 60% of our
waters mapped.
Russian submarines have beenpushing in to our territory as
well, and we don't have thesensors to know where they are.
We also don't have the sensorsin the north to know if Russia
launches hypersonic missiles.
There's a huge lack ofinfrastructure.
There's a lot of externalpressures for investment and

(40:37):
infrastructure that thesecommunities could turn to if
they want to.
And there's very little reasonfor them not to.
God knows Canada has not treatedthem well in the past.
We need to get our act togetherand we need to radically change
the way that we're deliveringprograms and infrastructure in
the Arctic and this piecemealapproach and have a whole of
government mandate for a crossdepartmental mandate, whole of

(40:59):
government approach todelivering programs and
infrastructure in the Arctic.
That's what the United Statesand other Arctic nations have.
Whereas our departments are alldoing it in little piecemeal
bits and pieces which is justnot effective and it won't be
effective if we don't change howwe do things.
We're gonna continue to lagbehind and we're gonna start
seeing impacts on oursovereignty as well.

This is a powerful call to action.
Your work is essential to this,but it's clear that Canada in
2025 is at an inflection pointhere, and we need to take the
north If we claim to be anorthern country.
And if we claim to have theArctic in these regions as part
of our borders, if you don'twant the maps to be redrawn, we
need to be president in thenorth and we can't be president
if we don't have the data.

(41:38):
If you don't understand theterrain, if you don't understand
the communities, if you don'thave relationships there.
So thank you for laying thegroundwork for what Canada can
become if we if we start to takethis seriously.

Tom (41:49):
My pleasure, thanks, thanks so much for having me.

Wonderful.
Tom, thank you so much.

Tom (41:54):
Alright, take care man.

Thanks so much for joining us for this
conversation.
Tom is a passionate leader andan advocate for data and
research.
I'm grateful for the work thatthe Arctic Research Foundation
does, and now I'm even morecommitted to finding my way to
this part of the world to seethe Arctic for myself.
I've been to Whitehorse andYellowknife and other cities in
Canada's north, but would lovethe opportunity to explore the

(42:22):
vast regions of Canada beyondthese cities.
Some of the themes in Tom's workthat are worth highlighting

include (42:28):
The Arctic Research Foundation is committed to
community led science andinfrastructure projects.
The foundation has a specialfocus on the cultural knowledge
of Indigenous groups to ensureCanada can benefit from their
history in the region whilerespecting their cultural
protocols.
Some of Tom's challenges includethe vast scale of the Arctic,

(42:49):
always inadequate governmentfunding, geopolitical tensions,
and the need to respect thecultural knowledge of Indigenous
communities that live there.
Canada wants to maintain itspresence and sovereignty in the
Arctic, and to do so, researchand data projects are critical.
Without the Arctic ResearchFoundation, none of this would
be possible.

(43:11):
I hope you enjoyed thisconversation.
Please do subscribe and followus for more.
I'd like to thank my colleagueswho work with me on this
podcast.
Kathy Watton is our showproducer and editor.
Frederick Brummer and AhmedKhalil created our theme music
and intro.
We're going to keep havingconversations like this.
Thanks for tuning in! If you'vegot ideas for guests we should

(43:32):
speak to, send us an email tothe311@Northern.Co.
The public serNaurvike is aboutall of us.
And when it's done right,digital can be a key ingredient
for a better world.
This has been The 311 Podcastand I'm your host, Paul Bellows.

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S2 E6 - Data and Discovery in the Arctic with Tom Henheffer

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S2 E6 - Data and Discovery in the Arctic with Tom Henheffer