Study Sites

Field work

Summer 2025

Report 1

Welcome to the first ThinIce expedition report of this August‘s fieldwork, our beloved project’s third and final effort out in the western arctic tundra. Let us start with some simple facts: Many people have been in the same place more than once, but nobody has ever been at the same point in time twice. It is, to our best knowledge, impossible to do so, as time only moves forward.

And so it comes that, even though many of our team have been up in Inuvik before, this time around feels a little different. Probably because this is a different August, we live in ever-so-slightly different houses, the weather is different, a little colder, we are not breaking temperature records this summer, but instead we cruise at a comfortable 20 degrees celsius. Part of the team has also changed: Some familiar faces are dearly missed, while some new faces are gladly welcomed into our ranks. 

The mission is the same, however, and in order to accomplish our goal of shining light on the state of the many drilling mud sites in the Mackenzie delta, we have changed the game plan a little. In order to visit some more remote sites we are lucky enough to have helicopter support on our site. Faced with new challenges and opportunities, we make out to the first of these, Nuna A32, located not too far north of the well known Kamik F38 site, located about 1.5 kilometers off the highway. The forty minute hike is sweetened by perfect blueberries, and the site itself offers a new perspective on the way these drilling mud sumps have been created.

So we all get to work, team soil digging pits even in the most ungrateful clay-rock mixture we have encountered so far. Team vegetation takes plots all around the lovely valley the site is situated in, team geophysics measures ground conductivity along extraordinarily long transects, and new permeameters allow team hydrology to gather a plethora of new datapoints.

And all of a sudden, since time only moves forward, we already find ourselves at the end of the first site’s investigation. The team takes a well-deserved rest day, while a few of us venture out to load the helicopter with our equipment to take it north to the next sites, two adjacent sumps that will allow us to concentrate our efforts on, hopefully, so far unseen scenarios near Tuktoyaktuk. A small stop at a very degraded site was also possible for a small task force, making for a perfect end to the first expedition week. We will leave you here, looking forward to the weeks to come, and are sure to come back again with another report all too soon. Because, you guessed it: Time doesn’t move backwards. It only marches on.

Report 2 

Week two of our expedition has concluded, and things have picked up in intensity. After the helicopter lifted all of our gear from the site Nuna A32 to the so-called “sump constellation”, the gear-lift crew took their delayed break day while the rest ventured out to the new sites: Tuk E20 and H30. A peculiarity about these sites is another, unregistered structure right adjacent to E20, sparking interest. Combine this with the adjacent lakes and, sure enough, the locations elicited a lot of excitement from our team. 

With kind assistance through the Inuvialuit Land Administration (ILA) we are able to use an access road to get close to the site. After some scoping, the best path through the tundra proved to be along the lake shores. Some creek crossings turned out to be challenging and manageable, and feet were kept (mostly) dry. When they didn’t, of course, our stock of extra socks saved the day.

We got to work, now already as a pretty played-in team. Team vegetation, namely Marianne and Johanna ventured around the larger vicinity, while Linnar and Rachele started to survey background soils and permafrost. Safety for these fairfield explorations was ensured by our truly wonderful wildlife monitor Randy, who was extra alert due to some bear tracks found at the beach. The same goes for our lake team, Emma and Daquiri, who were successful in retrieving several great sediment cores. Team hydrology, consisting of Danielle and Giel, measured sump cap and tundra permeabilities, often in the vicinity of the soil team: Verena, Darius, and Silian had more than enough work ahead of them given the interesting site geometry.

Surely enough, some pretty exciting samples were retrieved, coinciding with informative measurements of water electrical conductivity. Soil sampling was supported by Rachele and also Aaron, who otherwise had quite a bit of ground to cover with electromagnetic mapping. Serious geophysics was also conducted by Mehriban, who did a truly astounding number of ERT transects, and furthermore managed to install a whole monitoring cable - which is quite a bit more demanding than it may sound. She was supported by many team members as well as Moritz, who, most unfortunately, had to leave us on August 17th. 

Needless to say, the night before was a blast. This was due to several factors: Sonya, who took right over from Moritz as expedition lead and ERT support, arrived the night before. In order to celebrate this, a traditional southern-German dish (Kasspatzn!) was whipped up by Moritz and the crew the night of the 16th, giving Sonya a warm welcome. The whole process was, and this is an understatement, an absolute blast. Spirits were high, and we looked forward to taking a break on the 17th in order to give Sonya a chance to settle in.

Refueled and happy, we continued to work on the sump constellation from the 18th on, the secrets of which we are still in the process of uncovering as of now. Except for one bad weather day, which presented us with 40 km/h winds and wet air, we have been getting by, and at least one day finally allowed Johanna to conduct some drone flights. We will leave you with this, best wishes from the western Canadian arctic, and hopefully a halfway decent impression of what we’ve been up to.

Report 3

A strange, satisfied kind of melancholia has taken over the group ever since our last field day ended. It was a slow process. For the last few days, fewer and fewer people ended up joining the fieldwork - mostly due to the fact that these last four days hosted our revisits. Sites we had previously gone to, last summer or winter, sites we were glad to see, almost like visiting an old friend you haven’t seen in a while. We collected data from our loggers, which takes only a handful of people, and working in smaller groups added to that feeling, a feeling that slowly but surely, things were coming to an end. It only seems appropriate that falltime has commenced by now. The leaves in Inuvik turn yellow, the temperatures drop to three degrees, and the Tundra slowly but surely exchanges its last shades of green for a beautiful red that shines in the rain.

While some read out loggers, others sorted our plethora of samples for shipment, packed our freight, and organized data and devices. Of course the new multitude of information filled us with joy and our calendars with work for the coming months, but the fact that this would be the last major ThinIce expedition to ever take place did add an emotional component to our final days in Inuvik. Still, spirits are high, and the last days together are spent as a group that, over the course of a year, has turned colleagues into friends. We are furthermore delighted to report that, even though our work was quite physically demanding at times, we completed all three expeditions safely and without injury.

Safety comes first, but data comes second, and about this we are also extremely happy to report high satisfaction: Both in terms of quality and quantity. The remaining days at the sump constellation continued to be fruitful. A further quick visit on our last helicopter day to a new site, Tuk J29, allowed us to gain more insight on the anatomy and state of the drilling mud sumps that we have spent so much time with by now. All in all we now possess a plethora of data on, in total, ten sites. We are very much looking forward to analyzing and integrating this information now, the interdisciplinary nature of which poses a plethora of interesting questions to solve. Safe to say, we are quite excited to put our findings into research papers going forward.

A first step toward this was a meeting with the Inuvialuit Land Administration (ILA) we held on August 29th. Working with this group, which manages the Indigenous-owned lands we had been working on, provided us with incredibly important insights on the nature of our work. Left with a feeling that our research has direct implication and relevance for the people native to the Canadian Arctic, the departure of people commenced. Team Lake left us right after said meeting, and shortly after, the Swedish group (Marianne, Linnar, and Johanna) took their flight. Team hydrology (Danielle and Giel) flew out just the day after.

Left with now only six people, only a few things remain to be done: Finalizing the freight, packing our luggage, cleaning the houses, driving Silian and Darius to the airport, and preparing for the last departures: Sonya, Verena, Mehriban, and Aaron will depart on September 1st to Edmonton before the group will finally disperse on its way onwards to home institutions, labs, conferences. And so on. We are left with that satisfied melancholia, and a feeling of deep gratitude and appreciation for the impressions and insights we were left with. Our gratitude also goes out to you, dear readers, for keeping up with our work, and showing interest in our beloved ThinIce project. And while this may be the last ThinIce expedition report for now, it surely won’t be the last you hear from us.

PS: The last night of our stay, we made a great discovery of theoretical nature. Deep inside the Aurora Research Institute’s library we found a great deal of very helpful literature about drilling mud sumps. These reports, previously undigitized and therefore unknown to us, obviously had to be exploited before we left. What ensued was a late night library session, with us digging through old records until 2AM. The hard work was twice rewarded: New valuable information was retrieved. And on the way home, we were greeted with the first polar lights of the season!

Report 2

The second ThinIce expedition progressed on as week two passed by. This means that our time based in Inuvik is already over - as per March 19th we will leave the cozy rowhouses of the Aurora Research Institute and move onward to Tuktoyaktuk for the second half of fieldwork.

Emma’s birthday started off the second week, which was celebrated with a homemade cake (yes, we used a cake mix. Flavor: Birthday cake). Two sites were visited in the subsequent days: Kamik-F38, which we’d already seen in August ‘24, and Imnak-J29, a site new to the whole team. On Kamik several ERT and GPR transects could be collected in an effort to more closely locate potential contaminant migration pathways. Accompanied by the singing of Ptarmigans (puffy Arctic birds that travel around in large flocks and are incredibly well camouflaged as snowballs) we packed up the site.

Other notable wildlife encounters include a black Arctic fox, as well as a lynx and some incredible dark purple Arctic ravens. Even more exciting was then the visit to the Imnak site, which was new to everyone and therefore, much was to explore. In only two days an array of coring and geophysical measurements was conducted, which included the installation of ERT electrodes underneath partly meter-high snow cover into the solid frozen ground. Needless to say the day of packing was welcomed as an opportunity to collect some energy, and the evening before was utilized to get acquainted with local culture, hearing about the legend of the Mad Trapper and a lovely aurora on the way home. Once again we would like to thank our amazing wildlife and environmental monitors Miles and John, who have made our work out of Inuvik very productive and enjoyable.

Report 3

Week three. It is negative 30 degrees celsius up in Tuktoyaktuk, the sun has been keeping us company every day, and the wind, which is the only thing out here that bites (no polar bears so far, luckily), has been largely absent. We receive news from our colleagues on the Antarctica station of windy weather and negative fifteen celsius - seems like fall is approaching for them, while here, up in the Arctic, spring is slowly but surely creeping up on the tundra.

Two sites are on the agenda for the Tuktoyaktuk trip. Based in local resident Roger Gruben’s houses, who has been a very gracious host and quite informative on local culture, we have the luxury of visiting the “Tuk sites”, TukTuk A12 and Tuk L09, by hopping on a short car ride of only about twenty minutes. This enables a bit more sleep and a bit of extra energy, which is well needed considering the deep and often soft snow we find up here.

Deep snow may be the dream of any winter sport enthusiast, but can be quite exhausting for fieldwork. Just ask Mehriban, who, with the help of Benny, has been digging meter-deep holes for her electrical tomography electrodes. Or ask Aaron, who has been strapping on snowshoes and put in some serious mileage mapping subsurface electrical conductivity (or rather, ask his legs). Or just ask Frederieke, who’s been dutifully logging all these snow depths all over the place. While all these activities were going on, Moritz and Emma have been gathering plenty of sediment cores on nearby lakes.

The weather and data we could gather have kept up the mood, in addition to the previously mentioned precious extra sleep hours. We are in good health and quite confident that all the work will be able to shine a better light on the state of these Arctic waste sites we’re investigating. Suffice to say, the ThinIce team is quite happy and enjoying their time in Tuktoyaktuk as the campaign is already slowly approaching its end - only a few more days remain on Tuk L09, after which only a few days of packing and freight preparation lie between the team's departure. But that will only be next week and we remain here for the time being. So we say goodbye and sleep tight until our next, and final report.

Report 2

Week two of the expedition went by quite quickly. The way through the tundra, albeit shorter than on Parsons E-02, proved more difficult due to more swampy conditions, higher vegetation and some mean tussocks along the way. On certain days the weather was favorable which helped with the walk. A break-day after hauling out the equipment charged everyone’s batteries to go into investigations with renewed energy. This strategy proves quite useful by now, as the unfavorable paths to the sites tend to drain one’s energy when pulling more than 20 kg of equipment. However, the motivation for the interesting science as well as the feeling of doing impactful work for the local communities continue to keep the spirits of all participants lifted.

Kamik F-38 showed to be an interesting site, with interesting features to observe. Focusing on certain parts of the sump, the team geophysics & geotechnics consisting of Mehriban, Raul, and Aaron aligned their efforts to obtain well – resolved data in these areas. These coincided partly with the soil & hydrological transects done by Verena, Darius and Georg. Integrating these data should give a nice coherent picture of the datasets collected. Danielle found some interesting features with her infiltrometer tests. Unfortunately the site conditions were not too favorable for Emma and Antje to take a lake sediment core, which has been postponed to the next site, Tuktuk A-12. They ended up helping out the other teams, which was indeed very helpful as the four days allocated to the site could barely support all the investigations that wanted to be done – just like Parsons, Kamik is quite an interesting location. Cores were taken with a pipe instead of the Sipre as demonstrated by Rachele, with ample support by Moritz, yielding an array of interesting samples. When Johanna and Matthias were not taking high resolution drone images, they and Rachele joined forces in the lab drying and classifying vegetation samples they had taken throughout the day. 

The final day the weather turned on us, with heavy rain and mean wind bursts. For that reason, the day was kept quite short to ensure everyone’s wellbeing. Some personnel changes ensued: Tim and Logan departed at the beginning of the week, who had been a terrific help in assessing the sites so far. Jennika arrived at the last day working at Kamik, and Raul unfortunately departed for Germany the day after. As a replacement arrived Neri, who will be supporting the geotechnical and geophysical investigations from now on. Scouting the Tuktuk A-12 site on the same day, we also took the opportunity for a short walk into the town of Tuktoyuktuk to see the Arctic ocean and mix with the locals for a while. With motivation and prepared for the slowly ensuing fall weather, we now look forward to the next week of our investigations.

Report 3

The final week of the ThinIce 2024 summer expedition seemed to just fly by. Speaking of flying, by the time of writing this report half of the group is already on their way back home. This was, however, not before some essential events took place. Thanks to a now quite well-adjusted team the first Tuk site (Tuktuk A-12) fully investigated within only three days. The work got on well and both the quality and quantity of samples and data was more than satisfactory. We finished our work by collectively digging a 120 m trench to bury an ERT monitoring cable weighing at least 50 kg. Located quite close to Tuktoyaktuk, the drive of almost two and a half hours (one way) meant some early mornings and late dinners. Driving duties were divided and roadtrip playlists were created in order to keep the spirits up.

Finishing Tuktuk A-12 in three days allowed for a more expansive trip to a fourth sump. Keeping in mind that the minimum goal was to visit at least one site, this fourth one was regarded as a big bonus, and due to the time constraint of two days, a smaller investigation set was targeted. Tuk L09, the final site, turned out to be a very interesting site for all teams - team geophysics & -mechanics, team soil, team hydro, as well as team remote sensing really dug in their heels to gather as much information on this site as possible. Mehriban and Jennika had, at this point, just left for Trail Valley Creek camp for a week to install and read out sensors. Their presence at the last site was dearly missed, in particular the ERT cables.

Due to the great motivation of the team, the last site was almost completely investigated in just two days, leaving us with a very satisfied feeling at the end of our last field day. Before Georg, Antje, Neri, Emma, and Darius departed on the 28th, two days were needed to organize and sort out samples and to clean the cars and the equipment which had collected a considerable crust of dirt during the 3000 km drive up and down the highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. After some very motivated late night lab sessions Johanna departed the day after. Meanwhile, Moritz, Danielle, Verena, and Aaron revisited the Kamik site to collect some additional data. Shortly before writing this report, Mehriban and Jennika returned from Trail Valley Creek to join for one last dinner together before we should all leave the lovely town of Inuvik in the coming days. Besides samples we take with us some deep impressions of fascinating science, incredible landscapes, and truly amazing team work. Processing all this should take about as much time as processing all our data - so hopefully, not too long.