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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2016-02 Baffin Island: Field Research and High Arctic Adventure, 1961-1967 Ives, Jack D. University of Calgary Press Ives, J.D. "Baffin Island: Field Research and High Arctic Adventure, 1961-1967." Canadian history and environment series; no. 18. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/51093 book http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca BAFFIN ISLAND: Field Research and High Arctic Adventure, 1961–1967 by Jack D. Ives ISBN 978-1-55238-830-3 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. 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Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org chapter 10 B Career Development of A Members of the Field Team It was claimed in the opening pages of this account that the subsequent career development of so many of the field team is probably the most important contribution of those seven years of wide-ranging operations and ardent struggle for scientific results. Consequently, this chapter is devoted to brief overviews of the careers of as many former student field assistants and staff as are available to me, given the long lapse of nearly a half century. A total of seventeen “mini-biographies” are included. Many of those individuals have remained in close, or intermittent, personal contact with me over the years. Others I was able to contact via the Internet, their remarkable success rendering the effort easy. Not all of the more than fifty team members followed scientific or academic careers. Indeed, one of them contacted me out of the blue a couple of years ago (the first communication since 1967); he wanted to let me know, now he had retired, that while the Baffin experience did not directly shape his career path, it had made a profound and highly beneficial impact on his life. This would indicate that this chapter is somewhat incom- plete, as there are others whom I failed to contact. Another, related aspect is beyond my remit: the impact that these individuals have had on their own stu- dents and/or staff under their administrative guidance. As Professor Emeritus John England, now in very active “retirement,” remarked in a recent email, we are witnessing the development of a third generation of academics and scientists as well as their influence, which is already extending to yet a fourth generation. Many have written their own mini-biographies. Few modifications have been made, and the factual in- formation and the spirit of the communication carefully preserved. Most have been checked and approved by their originators. And to preserve all sense of spontaneity, no uniformity of presentation has been attempted. In thinking back over the last half century, it must be borne in mind that the entire approach to field research, even in regions still considered extremely remote, has changed. The extensive development of tech- nology, instrumentation, and Internet contact, as well as communication in the field, has driven this change. Much of the Baffin Island experience, despite the early acquisition of helicopter support, depended on hiking boots. Chapter 11 expands on this aspect. 157 on the western Arctic coast and Mackenzie River Student Field Assistants during the 1970s. However, the increasing difficulty of gaining permission for independent work in the Arctic, and the costs, led him to switch regional focus MICHAEL CHURCH to the western mountains; there, he worked on steep Mike was born in Preston, Lancashire, in 1942 and forest streams, contributing to the evolution of forest emigrated to Canada with his family at the age of practice rules for forest land use around streams and five. He first joined the Geographical Branch Baffin to major projects on Peace River and Fraser River. Island project in the summer of 1962 as field assis- Inspired by Sundborg’s example, he is one of the rel- tant to George Falconer in a reconnaissance of the atively few geomorphologists (until very recently) to Pilik River basin in northern Baffin Island. Travel tackle research on “big” rivers. was done partly by kayak and, as Mike was subse- Peace River provided the opportunity to docu- quently told, he attained the position because he was ment the response of the river to damming in 1967 the smallest, lightest applicant—well suited to kay- for hydropower production, while Fraser River pres- ak travel. He subsequently spent three summers at ents the problem of aggradation of gravel in a reach Lewis River, on the northern margin of the Barnes that is adjacent to Lower Mainland settlements but, Ice Cap, monitoring glacial runoff. The equipment at the same time, supports one of the richest river provided in the first summer proved inadequate for fisheries in the world. Mike’s focus has been on basic accurate gauging, so—armed with a copy of Åke research, most of which has been initiated in response Sundborg’s classic paper on the River Klarälven in to practical problems and all of it feeding directly Sweden—Mike decided to study the hydraulics and into river management issues. sedimentology of the outwash plain channels at the Mike was presented with the Kirk Bryan Award glacier front. This experience inspired Mike’s subse- by the Geological Society of America in 1977. In quent career as a fluvial geomorphologist. Following recognition of his river work, he was made a fellow the Lewis work, he embarked with branch support on in the Royal Society of Canada. Subsequently, he three seasons at Ekalugad Fiord, in Home Bay, where was elected RSC director of its Earth, Ocean, and his study of the outwash plain became the topic of his Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) Division of Academy PhD thesis, “Baffin Island Sandar.” III. He was also elected to fellowship in the Amer- After these experiences Mike looked forward to a ican Association for the Advancement of Science, career with the Geological Survey of Canada (which the Geological Society of America, and the British had absorbed much of the Geographical Branch) but Geomorphological Society (BGS). The BGS awarded was told that his style of process-oriented work was him its highest honour, the Linton Award, in 1996. not a priority for the organization. So he remained at In addition, Mike has been awarded the Massey his graduate university (the University of British Co- Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society lumbia) initially as a computer programmer, then as a and the G. K. Warren Award of the (U.S.) National lecturer and ultimately professor. His teaching career, Academy of Sciences. In 2008, Durham University in hydrology, geomorphology, field training, and en- (U.K.) conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate of vironment and resource studies, spanned thirty-eight Science. During the ceremony in Durham Cathedral, years. His Baffin experience was put to good use in he was acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost consultancy on prospective routes via the Macken- geomorphologists. zie Valley for an Alaskan oil pipeline (1971–1972), [Author’s note: As Mike couldn’t resist saying further work on Baffin in 1972 and 1976, and work when I had to press him for his statement, “Not so 158 BAFFIN ISLAND | Jack D.

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