(1915-2014) to Permafrost Science in Canada
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Proceedings of a Symposium to Commemorate the Contributions of Professor J. Ross Mackay (1915-2014) to Permafrost Science in Canada 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference Quebec City, QC 20-23 September 2015 Edited by C.R. Burn Proceedings of a Symposium to Commemorate the Contributions of Professor J. Ross Mackay (1915-2014) to Permafrost Science in Canada 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference Quebec City, QC 20-23 September 2015 Edited by C.R. Burn Introduction th Professor J. Ross Mackay, who passed away in 2014 shortly before his 99 birthday, was an iconoclastic influence on geocryology in Canada and around the world. A symposium to honour his contributions to th rd our field was held at the 7 Canadian Permafrost Conference in Quebec City, 20 – 23 September 2015. th The Permafrost Conference was embedded in the 68 Canadian Geotechnical Conference. This volume is the record of the symposium. Publication of the conference papers as a full Proceedings will occur, we hope, in 2016. A companion memorial to this volume, a special issue of Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, is currently in preparation. The majority of contributors invited to the symposium were Canadians, but a few international colleagues also presented papers that were chosen to represent particular dimensions of Ross’s career. The papers in this volume were prepared following the instructions and review procedures of the Canadian Geotechnical Conference. The conference organizers provided a template for style and a limit of 8 pages. The papers were submitted for review by a committee before acceptance and publication at the meeting. I am most grateful to Professor Richard Fortier for overseeing the review and preparation of the papers. The papers were published on flash drives given to every registrant but were not paginated or indexed. The pagination of the papers is unique to this volume. Otherwise the papers are reproduced as presented, except that errors incurred during production have been corrected, such as omission of diagrams submitted in the original copy. Copyright to each paper rests with the authors. I am grateful to all of the authors for allowing their papers to be included in this collection. The papers have been arranged into four sections, in which they are presented in alphabetical order of the last name of the first author. They represent: (1) reflections on the life and work of Professor Mackay; (2) regional studies on permafrost in Canada; (3) discussion of hydrologic effects; and (4) examinations of problems in geocryology. In addition to these authors, I am most grateful to Professor Antoni Lewkowicz and Dr Jerry Brown who filled spaces in the program that appeared due to emergencies before and during the symposium. The obituary for Dr Mackay published in Arctic is reproduced with kind permission of the Arctic Institute of North America and the journal’s editor, Dr Karen McCullough. Christopher Burn Carleton University Ottawa, ON December 2015 ARCTIC VOL. 68, NO. 1 (MARCH 2015) P. 129 – 131 http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic4464 J. ROSS MACKAY (1915 – 2014) John Ross Mackay, Canada’s pre-eminent authority on per- mafrost, died peacefully in the early morning of 28 October 2014. He was nearly 99 years old. Throughout the geocry- ological community, Ross was known as an exemplary researcher, an audacious feld scientist, and a loyal and friendly man. For more than three decades from the early 1960s, he was acknowledged as Canada’s pre-eminent Arc- tic scientist. His feld research in the western Arctic began in 1951 and continued without interruption from 1954 to 2011, although he offcially “retired” from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1981. He published 201 scien- tifc papers and two memoirs in toto, all but 13 as sole or senior author. His work is the benchmark on thermal con- traction cracking in permafrost and on pore-water expul- sion during freezing of sands. The permafrost community thus knows him best for his work on ice wedges and pingos, but his expertise on terrain conditions in the western Arctic J. Ross Mackay on the East Channel of the Mackenzie River, July 2010. was perhaps of more immediate material signifcance. He was told in the 1970s that his work had saved industry two equivalent to his academic research. His brother, Leslie, full years of investigations in preparation for hydrocarbon joined the RCAF, and was lost over the English Channel in development in the region. 1942. He mourned his brother, taken prematurely like so Ross was born in Tamsui, Formosa (now Taiwan), to many others, for the rest of his life. Canadian missionary parents. His family is renowned in Ross joined McGill University as an assistant profes- Taiwan, particularly for the extensive medical and educa- sor in 1946 and at the same time started his PhD research, tional work initiated by Ross’s paternal grandfather, George enrolled at the University of Montreal. His “offce” was a Leslie Mackay, who founded the Presbyterian Church desk in the department library. During the regular session there. Ross’s paternal grandmother, Tiuⁿ Chhang-miâ, was he taught large classes, dominated by veterans, using only a Taiwanese and this, along with his time in Tamsui, gave blackboard and chalk. He then joined the summer school at him a lifelong affnity with the country. When Ross visited Stanstead, QC, where he met V. Stefansson and N.E. Odell. Taiwan, he was treated as an icon, with people, particularly His PhD thesis (1949) was on the regional geography of the nurses-in-training, queuing up to be photographed with lower Ottawa valley, but the major paper that he published him. In Tamsui, where he had developed a fondness for ani- from it is primarily a robust reinterpretation of the existing mals and atlases as a child, he was given the key to the city. theory on the origin of the landscape. As early as 1949, he His paper in Economic Geography (1951) declared “geogra- demonstrated a trademark ability to read the landscape in phy of the Far East” as one of his research interests. historical terms and to set straight the published record. He Ross was sent to school at the Canadian Academy in moved to UBC the same year, where he then remained. He Kobe, Japan, and went on to Clark (BA, 1939) and Bos- was in the offce daily from seven to fve, and nine to fve ton (MA, 1941) universities, where he shone. The Second on Saturdays. There he was a reserved man, but an inspira- World War interrupted his academic career; nevertheless, tion and mentor to colleagues with interests quite different he regarded his military service in 1941 – 46 as his greatest from his own, always considering how their work could be contribution. He enlisted as a gunner (private) in the Royal incorporated into his research. Canadian Artillery, and transferred to the Canadian Intel- Ross began his Arctic research in the Darnley Bay area ligence Corps in 1942. He spent the war breaking Japanese of the western Arctic coast, providing interpretive keys that codes, particularly with respect to routing of messages, were urgently needed by the newly formed federal Geo- serving in Ottawa in the same offce as Diamond Jenness. graphical Branch for aerial photographs, given the recent A formal history of his unit described him quite simply availability of stereoscopic coverage. He was hired for his as “brilliant.” In 1945, an American general told him that stellar reputation and as one of the very few Canadians who his work had saved a division (more than 15 000 men). He had advanced training in physical geography at that time. ended his service with the rank of major, as Commanding He walked south and east from Paulatuk with his assis- Offcer No. 1 Discrimination Unit, Directorate of Military tants J. Keith Fraser, from the Geographical Branch, and Intelligence, Ottawa, having commanded the Intelligence Joe Thrasher, from the community, accompanied by six Unit, No. 1 Canadian Special Wireless Group, Darwin, pack dogs. They had no maps or radios. For navigation, they Australia, in 1945. His subsequent career was founded on relied on the aerial photos, a compass, and Joe’s knowledge the reputation he had acquired in the Intelligence Corps. of the terrain. The journey began a life-long friendship with Ross described his activities in cryptanalysis as generically the people of Paulatuk. It also led to Ross’s frst paper on 130 • OBITUARY Arctic geomorphology, published in 1952. On the journey north from Yellowknife by foat plane, the pilot, Ernie Boffa, had been concerned that the water bodies were still frozen about 200 miles short of their destination, so he turned back and dropped down on a small lake, left Ross and Keith there, and said he would return in a week’s time. Neither Boffa nor Mackay had a map! In 1960, Ross published observations made during that hiatus. The lake now has a permanent name on the maps of Canada. It is called Stopover Lake. During the 1950s, after a season on Cornwallis Island in 1952, Ross began to accumulate feld experience through- out the western Arctic, traveling by boat along the coast east and west of the Mackenzie delta and walking inland. Most of his journeys were by freighter canoe, driven by J. Ross Mackay recording the deformation of an antisyngenetic ice wedge at a 5 or 10 hp motor, and by schooner. He ran feld parties Garry Island, June 1992. for the Geographical Branch, four times with John Stager, usually with someone from the region as guide and assis- feld measurements on the dynamics of thermal-contrac- tant. His published record from the period was dominated tion cracking and ice-wedge polygon development.