NR-M-98-40E

COAST GUARD ICEBREAKER RETURNS FROM ARCTIC MISSION

November 10, 1998

Dartmouth -- The Dartmouth-based Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent returned last Friday following a successful mission to Canada´s Arctic region. The Coast Guard´s largest vessel departed the Dartmouth Coast Guard base in late July to participate in various scientific activities in the far north.

During the voyage, the Louis distinguished itself as a platform for scientific research in the high Arctic. Some of its more notable accomplishments included the completion of 65 oceanic rosette stations around Devon Island including the notorious Hell´s Gate region. Hell´s Gate is known for its heavy multi-year ice and strong currents, which together make navigation very difficult. A rosette is a device which tests for different characteristics in the water column, including temperature, salinity, pollutants, etc.

The Louis next proceeded westward via Massey Sound and the Byam Martin Channel in order to complete the collection of samples during a historic passage through M´Clure Strait. This year´s passage through M´Clure Strait is a significant achievement because this region is normally choked with multi-year ice. Although the Louis had passed through this area in 1993 in its capacity as an icebreaker, this voyage marked the first time a vessel undertaking a science mission had ever made the passage.

The Louis also helped install 24 box core stations in deep trough areas within the Arctic Archipelago located near the Magnetic North Pole and Viscount Melville Sound. A box core station gathers data from the composition of the ocean bottom. The Viscount Melville Sound area was of particular interest because this region is usually covered in extremely thick ice and these experiments hoped to determine why this area is frequented so often by Beluga Whales despite the presence of the ice.

The Louis also assisted in the dismantling of the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project - a 13-month effort to study the transfer of heat between the ocean, ice and atmosphere in order to improve climate-forecasting models by gaining a better understanding of the interaction of the surface energy balance, atmospheric radiation, and clouds over the Arctic Ocean which affect, and are affected by, global weather patterns.

For more information:

Scott Verret
Communications
Fisheries and Oceans
Maritimes Region
Dartmouth, N.S.
(902) 426-6414