Fort Conger, historic High Arctic fort, to be preserved in 3D

A historic fort threatened by melting permafrost in oneof the most remote locations on Earth might be preserved thanks to3D technology.

Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island was established in 1875 byBritish explorers looking for the North Pole.

It also served as scientific headquarters for the ill-fated LadyFranklin Bay expedition and was used by U.S. polar explorer RobertPeary in his quest for the North Pole.

"Melting permafrost is causing the surface area to sink anderode and that's damaging the wooden buildings," said Peter Dawson,a University of Calgary archeology professor.

"A lot of these historical sites in the Arctic are actuallybeing impacted by the effects of climate change," he said.

"We were finding the depletion of sea ice was creating stormsurges which were flooding some sites like Herschel Island andthere's a large turn-of-the-century ... whaling settlement which hasbeen flooded several times in the last 10 years."

Dawson used a borrowed 3D digital scanner to record everybuilding, rock and artifact at Fort Conger in 2010.

He intends to do the same thing next year with his own scannerafter receiving a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

The scanner, about the size of a lunch box, sits on a tripod,rotates 360 degrees and emits beams of laser light millions of timesa minute. It measures how long it takes the beams to strike thesurface of a building or artifact and return to the scanner.

"We created a scan of the entire site an area of about 32,000square metres and captured all of the standing structures andbuilding foundations and artifacts. We now have basically a veryaccurate three-dimensional map and model of the site as it appearedat that time," Dawson said.

By re-scanning next year, he will be able to record anyadditional damage and, if necessary, mitigation work can be done.

Climate change, tourists affecting site

Damage from melting permafrost is just one of several risks asArctic ice opens up and allows more adventure tour companies tooperate in the region. That leads to more people wandering overdeteriorating sites.

"You can get 40 or 50 passengers disembarking at a time andwandering around and it's very difficult to monitor the impact thesevisitors are having," said Dawson.

"They can pick up artifacts or accidentally damage a building."

Lady Franklin Bay is an inlet on the northeastern shore ofEllesmere Island. The expedition in 1881 involved 25 men who setsail from Newfoundland to the bay, where they planned to collect awealth of scientific data. Three years later, only six survivorsreturned. Many of the men starved to death after attempts to bringin relief supplies failed.

"There's a lot of really significant heritage sites that areassociated with the heroic age of polar exploration and this
includes the search for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole,"said Dawson.

"It was one of the first co-ordinated attempts by circumpolarnations to gain some sort of understanding about the Arcticclimate."