Third Northern Research Day Wednesday, January 23th, 2019 McGill Faculty Club, 3450 McTavish Street, Montréal, Québec 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. POSTERS ABSTRACTS 1. Highlighting the potential of peer-led workshops in training early career researchers for conducting research with Indigenous communities Gwyneth A. MacMillan1*, Marianne Falardeau2* (Co-Presenter), Catherine Girard3, Sophie Dufour-Beauséjour4, Justine Lacombe-Bergeron5, Allyson K. Menzies2 (Co-Presenter), Dominique Henri6 * Co-first authorship 1 Centre for Northern Studies, Department of Biological Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada 2 Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Québec, Canada, 3 Sentinelle Nord, Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada 4 Centre for Northern Studies, Centre Eau Terre et Environnement, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Québec, Québec, Canada 5 Mine of Knowledge, Department of Biological Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada 6 Environment and Climate Change Canada, Montréal, Québec, Canada For decades, Indigenous voices have been calling for changes to research approaches and researchers are also increasingly aware of the importance of community-collaborative research. However, in Canada, most researchers get little-to-no formal training on conducting research with Indigenous communities. This is particularly problematic for early-career researchers (ECRs) whose fieldwork often involves interactions with Indigenous communities. To address this lack of training, two peer-led workshops targeted to Canadian ECRs were organized with the following objectives: (a) to cultivate awareness about Indigenous cultures, histories and languages; (b) to promote sharing of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing; and (c) to foster approaches and explore tools for conducting collaborative research with Indigenous communities. Workshop success was evaluated based on five themes: scope and interdisciplinarity, Indigenous representation, context matters, skillful moderation and workshop outcomes. Here we present the Indigenous Intercultural Workshops, describe the methodology used to evaluate them and discuss the workshops’ success in reaching its objectives. Our findings show that peer-led workshops are an efficient way for ECRs to cultivate awareness of Indigenous realities and to learn about diverse ways of knowing, essential skills that are necessary for the type of collaborative research being requested by Indigenous Peoples. 2. Lateral Kindness, Supportive Social Environments in Eeyou Istchee Steven Stechly1, Anne Andermann1, George Diamond2, Marie Carmen Berlie2 1 Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada 2 Cree Board of Health and Social Services James Bay, Waskaganish, Québec, Canada Chisaawaatisiiwin is the Cree word referring to kindness, mercy, and grace. What is lateral kindness? It is a concept that draws on Cree values which promote and celebrate positive things that are taking place within the community. In the James Bay Cree culture, kindness was a trait that developed out of the will to survive. There exists an unwritten law that those out on the land must always be ready and willing to lend a helping hand. Today, lateral kindness is seen in platforms such as ‘Share the Love’. The purpose of promoting lateral kindness in Eeyou Istchee is to foster personal and communal well-being in a way that encourages Sikischaaymuuwin (peace) and Spaaymunn (hope). 1 Third Northern Research Day Wednesday, January 23th, 2019 McGill Faculty Club, 3450 McTavish Street, Montréal, Québec 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. 3. Updated palaeoclimatic reconstruction for a Cenomanian-aged angiosperm flora near Schefferville, Labrador Alexandre Demers-Potvin1 1 Department of Biology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada The terrestrial ecosystem revolution in the middle of the Cretaceous witnessed the evolution of many modern insect and angiosperm taxa. A better knowledge of local and regional climate trends in deep time can improve our understanding of these ecological and evolutionary trends. Here I present results from the first multivariate palaeoclimate analysis for the environment of a fossil flora dominated by leaves found in the Redmond no.1 mine, near Schefferville. The isolated location of this flora in a region otherwise devoid of Mesozoic sites, as well as its estimated Cenomanian age (93.9-100.5 Ma) make it an essential site for studying the palaeoecology of Cretaceous Eastern Canada. Our analysis reveals that the Redmond flora would have evolved under a mean annual temperature (MAT) of around 15.2°C. These results confer the region a warm temperate and fully humid climate, which agrees with previous palaeoclimate hypotheses. The flora is also well integrated to palaeolatitudinal MAT gradients that use other North American sites of similar age. Our study introduces 14 leaf morphotypes discovered during recent explorations of the Redmond mine alongside insect impression fossils, including freshwater nymphs and beetles that support the hypothesis of a lacustrine depositional environment. Their eventual description will improve our knowledge of the history of biodiversity on the Quebec-Labrador peninsula and can renew palaeontological interest in this region of Northern Canada. 4. Improved sea ice drift estimates in Lagrangian methods for sea ice forecasting Charles Brunette1, Bruno Tremblay1, Robert Newton2 1 Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 2 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York, USA We have recently developed a Lagrangian Ice Tracking System (LITS) for the Arctic Ocean. The LITS tracks motion of sea ice in a Lagrangian framework using sea ice drifts. It has been used to develop a seasonal forecasting model of the minimum sea ice extent (Williams et al. 2016) based on observational drifts. In continuity, we are working on the seasonal predictability of the sea ice system on a regional scale (Brunette et al. 2018). The current version of the LITS uses the Polar Pathfinder sea ice motion vectors (V3, Tschudi et al. 2016). However, the raw drift vectors used to construct Polar Pathfinder contain biases. The satellite-derived velocities (from SMMR, SSM/I, AMSRE, AVHRR) and free drift estimates present a low bias when compared to the buoy drift observations, taken to be essentially true. Biases are larger in the summer, when fewer satellite-derived drifts are available and the composite sea ice drift relies more heavily on the free drift estimates. While being useful for climatic studies and model validation (Sumata et al., 2015), the issues found in Polar Pathfinder become more apparent when building a regional forecasting model. We propose to recompile a new optimally interpolated sea ice drift dataset, using new free drift estimates derived from wind reanalyses, bias-corrected and error- weighted raw drift vectors from Polar Pathfinder, buoy data, and other available satellite-derived drifts. Preliminary work on the derivation of free drift estimates from wind reanalyses will be presented. 2 Third Northern Research Day Wednesday, January 23th, 2019 McGill Faculty Club, 3450 McTavish Street, Montréal, Québec 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. 5. The Canadian Integrated Northern Greenhouse: Results and future development David Leroux1 1 Department of Bioresource Enginnering, McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada Last year, at the 2nd McGill Northern Research Day, I presented the Canadian Integrated Northern Greenhouse (CING), a hybrid between a northern greenhouse and growth chamber housed in a shipping container, developed by McGill’s Biomass Production Laboratory. Following this presentation, the CING completed two harvests, one in spring, one in summer and the third run has started this November. Lettuce was grown in the CING in hydroponic conditions, and the yield was compared to an equal amount of lettuce grown in a research greenhouse in the same hydroponic conditions, in simultaneous. Moreover, two nutrient solutions were compared with this experiment in both growing environments, one based off chemical nutrients according to the Hoagland recipe and one based off vermicomposting leachate, an attempt to provide nutrients for biomass production out of food waste, increasing the independency of these systems designed for remote location operation. The first sets of cold climate data from the CING being collected, the CING is still a prototype. However, the concept of shipping container-based biomass production unit is getting more attention for its potential in Northern climate. The building of another prototype in Northern conditions is the second obvious but imposing step this project must take. Hence, this presentation aims at sharing ideas and meeting potential partners for such a project to occur, in the optic to increase the local food production in Northern Canada. 6. Design and implementation of a bioreactor and nutrient sensing device for northern food production David Leroux1, Peter Tikasz1 1 Department of Bioresource Enginnering, McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada Northern food production is limited by a short growing period and cold temperatures. PoultryPonics is a two-level food-production facility designed for northern regions with a hydroponic plant growth system built on the second floor and the chicken production on the first floor. Using the heat produced by the