71st EASTERN SNOW CONFERENCE Boone, North Carolina, USA 2014 COMING SOON TO A WEBSITE NEAR YOU! RESOURCES FOR ESC RESEARCHERS. The McGill Sub-Arctic Research Papers (1956-1987) and McGill Axel Heiberg Expedition Reports (1961-1987). Miles Ecclestone1 Graham Cogley1 and Peter Adams1 INTRODUCTION Sixty years ago, the McGill Sub-Arctic Research Laboratory was founded in Schefferville QC, near the centre of the Québec-Labrador Peninsula. Fifty five years ago the McGill Expeditions to Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, were launched. Today’s McGill Subarctic Research Station in Schefferville and the McGill Arctic Research Station on Axel Heiberg are the descendants of those early, pioneering, enterprises. In addition to journal articles and theses, both the Laboratory and the Expeditions produced report series that extended over decades; both are currently being scanned, and will be posted on-line. These series, corresponding with the early years of the Eastern Snow Conference (ESC), are a treasure trove for cold weather researchers, especially those with an interest in the North, and for historians of science. This paper introduces both series and the website, (http://people.trentu.ca/gcogley/glaciology/index.htm) to members of the ESC. The McGill Sub-Arctic (or Subarctic*) Research Papers (1956-1987) The McGill Sub-Arctic Research Papers (1956-1987) contain material that is valuable for social and natural scientists and historians, especially those with interests in eastern Arctic Canada. In 1954, when the railroad from the port of Sept Iles reached Knob Lake (later Schefferville), Québec, to open up the huge iron mines of that region, the McGill Sub- Arctic Research Laboratory opened its doors. The “Lab” was an outpost of McGill University, Montréal, staffed year-round by a faculty member, and graduate students who ran the new community’s aviation weather station (“Knob Lake A”) and conducted research in the Québec-Labrador Peninsula. Until 1971, the Lab operated as a 24-hours a day weather station with four resident graduate students, a Director and Senior Meteorological Observer. The students worked as weather observers while taking courses from the Director, conducting local research projects and preparing for field-based thesis projects of their own. The Lab 47 71st EASTERN SNOW CONFERENCE Boone, North Carolina, USA 2014 also acted as a base for visiting researchers and field parties from Canada, the U.S.A. and overseas. In 1971 the weather station was moved to the local airport and the Lab ceased to be year-round residential, becoming the McGill Subarctic Research Station that it is today, a field base for researchers and students. In the early 1980s, the iron mines closed and the town of Schefferville shrank from a population of thousands to a few hundreds. From the opening of the mines to some years after their closing, the Lab. produced a series of more than 40 publications, the McGill Sub-Arctic Research Papers (Table 1). These can be grouped as annual reports, collections of articles on a variety of topics, monographs and bibliographies. This series provides a valuable source, in a wide range of disciplines, for researchers and others with interests in the Québec-Labrador Peninsula, the North and the nature of field science during the decades concerned. The period covered by the Papers, 1954-1987, was of particular interest for a number of reasons. It encompassed: the rise and fall of a single resource mining town (Schefferville); the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-1958, (which generated great interest in the polar regions); the International Hydrologic Decade (IHD), 1965-1975, the development, in the Québec-Labrador peninsula, of two of the world’s largest hydro power schemes, the Baie James and Churchill; the time when the air photo coverage of the Canadian North was completed; the period from the launch of Sputnik (1957) to the era of satellites and remote sensing; and, the Cold War, with the Lab located on one of North America’s Arctic distant early warning lines, the Mid Canada Line. The ESC was actively involved in many of these. Here are some samples of the contents of the Papers. The Lab, its region and times The work of the McGill Lab forms a vignette of northern research of its day. It was a residential laboratory and a base for field researchers. Staff and visitors published in the Papers as well as publishing theses and journal articles (including articles in the Proceedings of the ESC). The evolution and operation of the Lab are dealt with throughout the series presented in Table 1. The Annual Reports in the table contain accounts of each year’s activities in the Lab and its region as well as research articles by Lab residents and visitors. The record of official visitors, who flew in from around the world, is an interesting example of the value of the Papers. Individuals recorded in the Papers and their affiliations provide a glimpse of pre-internet networks of northern science and a sample of polar scholars of the day. A few examples illustrate this point. The visitors included: John Andrews (Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Boulder, Colorado); Terence Armstrong (Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England); Hans Boesch (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland); Nora Corley (Librarian, Arctic Institute of North America, Montréal Qué); Ron Dagon (NewYork Botanical Gardens); Ilmari Hustich (geobotanist and Cabinet Minister, University of Helsinki, Finland); Paul Macar, University de Liège, Belgium); Gunnar Ostrem ( Norwegian Water Resources); Gunnar Wassen (Uppsala 48 71st EASTERN SNOW CONFERENCE Boone, North Carolina, USA 2014 University, Sweden) and many visitors from the universities of North America (including a long association with Dartmouth College, NH, which, in those days, ran its own Arctic expeditions) and Canadian organizations like the Dominion Observatory, the Geological Survey and National Research Council. The Lab was a base for projects conducted by such visitors and staff during the IGY and IHD. The opening of the Lab and Schefferville are dealt with in the early Papers, including monographs such as “Sept-IĬes: Canada’s Newest Seaport” (Paper #2, 1957) and the wind-down of both in the later Papers (e.g. Paper # 35, 1981, “…Change in the Iron- Ore Mining Region of Québec-Labrador”). The rise and fall of Schefferville and its region is a good example of the experience of single resource company towns of that era. The rise and fall of the Lab as a residential outpost of McGill, and as a remote weather station, reflects changes in northern research as communications and travel improved. The Lab’s involvement with the Mid Canada Line (use of helicopters and other support), built for the Cold War across Québec-Labrador, is another interesting glimpse of the times. So are the descriptions of the operation of an official aviation weather station in the days when hourly outside observations and teletype communication were the order of the day. There are articles on local First Nations in many of the Papers and some Papers are devoted to this topic. Climate and Glacial Geomorphology Professor F. K. Hare of McGill was a prime mover in the establishment of the Lab. His research interests included paleo- and modern-day climate, notably the onset and decay of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, final remnants of which were situated not far from the site of Schefferville. Hare’s interests and the simple fact that the Lab was a weather station explain the great emphasis on weather and climate in the Papers with articles and data on all standard measures of weather, notably snowfall, snow cover and lake ice cover, in a majority of the Papers, with seven Papers (e.g. #10, ”A Synoptic Climatology for Labrador-Ungava”), devoted to these topics. Interest in the Laurentide Ice Sheet also spawned research in Glacial Geomorphology which permeates the Papers. Early Lab staff was involved in the interpretation of the still-new air photo coverage of Québec-Labrador. This work revealed the pattern of deglaciation of the peninsula, centring on the Schefferville region. An overview of the various stages of glacier retreat, such as glacial lakes and patterns of eskers and drumlins, became visible for the first time, from the Labrador Sea to Hudson Bay and from the St. Lawrence to Ungava Bay. This pattern became a guide for field parties, based at the Lab, which selected sample study areas to field-test the air photo evidence. Decades of this work, encompassing much of the huge Québec-Labrador peninsula, appears in articles and monographs in the Papers and in graduate theses listed in the bibliographies. Most of the Annual Reports include articles on glacial geomorphology. Paper #20, “Ten Years (1954-64) of Field Research in Labrador- 49 71st EASTERN SNOW CONFERENCE Boone, North Carolina, USA 2014 Ungava”, is devoted to journal articles illustrating the main focuses of Lab work but has a strong emphasis on Glacial Geomorphology. Vegetation and soils The early air photo interpretation also, for the first time, gave an overview of the zones of vegetation cover of Québec-Labrador, from tundra to Boreal forest. In various years, there was great interest among Lab personnel and visitors, in these patterns, notably the “Lichen Woodland” zone within which Schefferville is situated. Again, articles on this work and detailed studies of vegetation (including vegetation-snow studies) and soils that flowed from it, are scattered throughout the Papers with some notable monographs such as Paper #1(“The Lichen Woodlands of the Knob Lake Area…”) and Paper #9 (“The Bogs of Central Labrador..”). Hydrology including snow and ice and lakes Routine measurements and observations at the aviation weather station that was the organizational basis of the Lab, included precipitation notably snow fall, snow on the ground and lake ice.