Northern permafrost soon to be museum piece in Ottawa

The Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawawill soon have a cool new exhibit some actual permafrost core samples, collected nearly 6,000 kilometres away in Yukon.

"This hasn't been done in Canada before it's a first in that we can have cores presented in a museum, actually frozen cores," saidLouis-Philippe Roy, a researcher at Yukon Collegewho helped devise a way to display the samples while preserving them at the same time.

Storing permafrost samples in a regular chest freezer would cause the moisture to evaporate out over time, Roy said. The cores would also quickly degrade if they were regularly taken out of a freezerto be shown and handled.

Roy and another researcher, FabriceCalmels,came up with a new way to display the cores sealed in a glass jar filled with silicone oil, which preserves the permafrost and magnifies it for viewing. The samplescanthen be kept in a standard glass-frontrefrigerator.

"[It] allows us to have a nice clean display," Roy said. "It's going to allow other people that live in the southern provinces to see what is permafrost.

"We hear about permafrost thawing and climate change, but it's hard to really put an image on it."

'The Arctic is changing'

Two core samples, collected at a depth of 2.8 metres near Burwash Landing, Yukon, have already been sent to the museum, but won't be seen by the public until June. That's when the museum's new Arctic gallery will open.

"We're going to explore the geography of the Arctic, we're going to talk about climate, we're going to talk about sustainability ... and we're looking at the ecosystems," saidCaroline Lanthier, with the museum.

The permafrost samples will be displayed alongside things such as fossilized trees from Nunavut's Axel Heibergisland, and Thule cultural artifacts.

Lanthier says the permafrost samples will be part of an exhibit focussed on Arctic climate.

"The Arctic is changing, and with climate changethe permafrost is melting,and that's impacting infrastructure, that's impacting the flora and fauna living in the Arctic, and the people living in the Arctic," she said.

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, now we have the actual thing ...there's nothing that beats having the actual sample in front of you."

• Thawing permafrost is altering chemistry of northern rivers, researchers say

• Mapping Yukon's vulnerability to climate change