Public Lecture

Johnson Geo Centre, Signal Hill

Tuesday, January 18^th, 7:30-8:30 pm

Exploring Northern Canada

Geographical Perspectives on Arctic Environmental Change

The public lecture will focus on the scientific, historic, and personal experiences of John England’s four decades of research across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago concerning the nature of high latitude environmental change. John will focus on the mountainous, northernmost coast of Ellesmere Island and the story of its spectacular “Ellesmere Ice Shelf” – the oldest sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere. This ice shelf forms an enormous floating apron of sea ice attached to the Ellesmere Island coast across more than 250 kilometres. It was used by the late 19th century sledging expeditions that described it as a rolling prairie landscape. It is now in rapid demise and despite its exceptional age, few in Canada know about this unique and disappearing landscape. In the course of his research across northern Ellesmere Island, historic notes were found from Sir George Nares (1875/76) and Adolphus Greely (1881/84), of the First Polar Year.