Atmospheric and Climate Science Directorate

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Reducing the Risk of Hunting & Fishing at the Ice Edge

The Canadian Ice Service’s Floe Edge Advisory

Each year in Canada’s north, as winter’s grip gives way to longer days and rising temperatures, native communities like to venture out onto the ice, which has grown outward from the land during winter, until they reach the edge where the ice meets open water. The ice or floe edge is the best location for hunting and fishing. It is also the most dynamic and dangerous place in the spring “icescape”. Each year, unsuspecting people are set adrift as the ice edge fractures and large ice floes float out to sea, often in weather conditions that make airborne search and rescue efforts impossible.

It was just such an occurrence on June 2, 1997 that stirred sea ice experts at the Meteorological Service of Canada MSC to find some way to turn their scientific understanding into a service that would benefit northern settlements. On that day, 15 people from the community of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island were stranded on a 60x60 metre ice floe that drifted out into Baffin Bay in poor weather conditions. Search and Rescue had to wait for the weather to clear and were elated when they were able to pick up everyone without incident – three days later!

MSC’s Canadian Ice Service (CIS), with the support of the National Search and Rescue Secretariat, developed a prototype Floe Edge Advisory. Local input identified two locations for the trial, Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay – two communities that are very active users of spring ice floe edges. Community involvement was critical to the development of a service that would be meaningful and useful.

RADARSAT-1 image of the fracture of the Admiralty Inlet floe edge in July 2001. Fifty residents of Arctic Bay were caught on this large pan of drifting ice.

In 2001, the advisory program consisted of a seasonal outlook and a weekly update. In 2002, service delivery took a big step forward with the increased use of the Internet in the communities. The CIS places current satellite images along with vital information on ice strength, temperatures, tides and winds on their website for northerners to access. This information combined with traditional understanding enables communities to hunt and fish at the ice edge with an increased sense of security and less risk. Given the climatic changes expected in the Arctic, northerners will have to pay close attention to the shifting ice edge, as will Canadian Ice Service researchers - to help northern communities maintain their traditional lifestyle, but with enhanced safety.

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A sample of a floe edge update product that is distributed to the study communities by the Canadian Ice Service.

“By providing communities with up-todate ice information, the Floe Edge Information Service has increased the safety of those working around the floe edge.”
Brian Koonoo
Park Warden Sirmilik National Park

The Green Lane^TM,
Environment Canada's World Wide Web Site.