Parks Day draws crowds to Iqaluit’s Sylvia Grinnell

A young researcher checks out tiny worms that are actually juvenile flies at a July 16 Parks Day event at Sylvia Grinnell territorial park near Iqaluit. Researchers are monitoring insects in Iqaluit’s rivers to determine the overall health of those bodies of water. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

York University PhD candidate Chris Luszczek pours out samples of insects from along the bottom of the Sylvia Grinnell river July 16 for visitors at the territorial park’s July 16 Parks Day activities. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Park visitors around Nunavut got a little closer to nature this past July 16 during annual Parks Day celebrations.

In Iqaluit, hundreds of people spent the afternoon at Sylvia Grinnell territorial park for its annual event.

With Arctic flowers in full bloom, Iqaluit author Carolyn Mallory took groups on interpretive walks to see the territory’s plant life up close.

A look downwards revealed a colourful array of flowers, including the small white blooms of the nodding saxifrage, the intense fuchsia petals on the dwarf fireweed, and the tiny pink flowers on patches of moss campion.

“Being in the North, it’s hard for plants to survive,” said Mallory, the co-author of Common Plants of Nunavut. “The soil conditions are poor and some plants have only 15 centimetres of active soil to grow in above the permafrost.”

The growing season on Baffin Island and throughout much of the Arctic is brief – between 50 and 60 days – but that doesn’t stop more than 360 flowering plants from blooming each year, Mallory said, including grasses, willows and birches.

Visitors marvelled over the Arctic’s smallest tree species, such as the snowbed willow, which is more like a ground cover, although it produces wood.

“We lack trees in the North, but we like to call them that,” Mallory said.

While some at Parks Day brushed up on the plant terminology, others discovered microscopic bugs along the bottom of Sylvia Grinnell river with York University biology researchers Chris Luszczek and Ray Riastoch, who are working with the Nunavut Research Institute in Iqaluit to monitor insect life in the city’s rivers.

Many insects spend their juvenile life underwater before they emerge into the air, explained Luszczek as he poked along the Sylvia Grinnell river for samples.

These feed off the algae in the rivers, and then in turn are eaten by local fish.

So the health of the insects can indicate the health of the entire river system, Luszczek told a group of curious onlookers.

“Bugs are intermediaries between the chemistry of water and the biological environment,” he said. “We can see change in the bugs before the fish.”

Once he captured his samples, Luszczek poured them into plastic bins for his young audience to sift through with tweezers.

There were audible “ewwws” and “cool” as the children discovered tiny mites, squirming midges and mayflies.

The presence of a mayfly is a sign of a healthy river, both researchers said.

They’ve found samples of the mayfly in all but two sites they’ve sampled around Iqaluit – those two come from what is known as Airport creek.

Otherwise, the Apex creek is “very healthy,” Luszczek said.

Now, their goal is to pass their research skills onto local people and — judging by their keen crowd that slowly attracted adults and elders — there won’t be a lack of interest.

“It will be a very powerful tool, giving local people the ability to detect changes in their local bodies of water, instead of always being told,” Luszczek said.

Iqaluit wildlife author Carolyn Mallory, centre, gives an interpretive walk on local plants July 16 at Sylvia Grinnell territorial park. That was one of the many activities offered on Parks Day, which drew hundreds from Iqaluit to celebrate their local park. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)