Skip to main content

Site Banner Ads

Site Search

Search

Up Here Publishing

Mobile Toggle

Utility navigation

  • Shop
  • Contact Us

Social Links

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Search Toggle

Search

Main navigation

  • Magazines
    • Latest Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Up Here Business
    • YK Guide
    • Move Up Here
  • Sections
    • People & Places
    • Arts & Lifestyle
    • History & Culture
    • Travel & Tourism
    • Nature & Science
    • Northern Jobs
  • Newsletters
  • Community Map
  • Contests
    • Arctic Adventure Sweepstakes
    • Sally Manning Award
  • Subscribe
    • Magazine
    • Digital Edition

Getting Smart

March/April 2021

As sea ice around the Arctic continues to recede, one company is combining traditional knowledge with cutting-edge technology to track its changes.

By Dana Bowen

Photo by Michael Schmidt/Courtesy of SmartICE

SmartICE team pulling a sensor across the ice

Breadcrumb

  1. Home
  2. Getting Smart

The Arctic doesn’t look like it used to. Temperatures are rising and sea ice is melting. That’s why the company SmartICE is combining traditional knowledge and new tech to measure ice while tracking the effects of climate change.

Ironically, it’s due to climate change that Rex Holwell is unable to fully do his job. By late January, he’s still waiting for the ice to be thick enough to deploy the sensors called SmartBUOYs. “This year has been unseasonably warm. Right now, it’s minus three. It should be minus 23,” says Holwell. “Last year was really strange for how late the ice freeze was and this year is even stranger.”

A lack of solid ice is detrimental to Nain,  a community of about 1,100 people in northern Labrador, as the frozen waterway acts as highway as well as hunting and fishing ground. So, although Holwell can’t stop the ice from melting, he tries to keep this place safe, while helping its youth flourish.

Holwell is the northern production and regional operations lead with SmartICE. His job starts at the production centre, where over five weeks he teaches people between 16 to 30 years old how to activate and deploy SmartBUOYs as well as the mobile sensor called SmartQAMUTIKs.

Holwell will then call on a few trained students who set out on their snowmachines, with SmartQAMUTIKs in tow, to find a solid stretch of ice. They’ll drill a hole and anchor the SmartBUOY device inside, where it measures the thickness of the sea ice. That data is added to an app called SIKU, for the public to check in with before venturing out. Holwell also prints maps and pins them throughout town for those without internet access.

While SmartICE is currently working in Nain, Pond Inlet and Gjoa Haven, executive director Carolann Harding says they plan to expand to the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. By adding the two territories, SmartICE will hire far more locals, while also collectively learning about how climate change impacts all of northern Canada.

But for Holwell, it’s about more than that; it’s about how traditional knowledge and modern technology can intermingle, and sharing those innovations with others.

“I don’t ask people to rely on our technology just by itself,” he says. “I ask people if they have traditional knowledge and a tech-savvy side to access this information. Maybe they can help spread their knowledge. People can merge two kinds of knowledges to find one safe route.”

March/April 2021

The territory's premiers weathering COVID-19.

The State Of The Northern Economies

Until widespread COVID immunity builds up, the northern economies will simply have to find ways to cope. The big question is: How do we recover our confidence?

By Cooper Langford

Illo by John Fraser

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

March/April 2021

Drawing of a child.

Drawing Up Memories

From an attic in the Netherlands to Baker Lake in the ’60s—there’s a story behind each one of Gabriel Gély’s Inuit portraits.

By Dana Bowen

PHOTO Courtesy Lambert van gils

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

Related Articles

Up Here Magazine - November/December 2022

Reindeer.

Rudolph the red-nosed… caribou?

Where did Santa’s flying reindeer come from? And what’s the difference between caribou and reindeer anyway?

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

Up Here Magazine - May/June 2022

Foraging for spruce tips.

Fireweeed. Lamb’s quarter. Spruce tips.

In the North, the land has long supported the people who live on it, who use plants and animals for food, clothing, shelter, medicine and more, including ornaments and spiritual purposes.

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

Up Here Magazine - May/June 2022

Mother moose and her two calves.

A Mother's Strength

While guiding a trip on the Tatshenshini/Alsek River in the Yukon, photographer Bethany Paquette  captured this heart- warming story of a mother moose fighting turbulent currents to save her calves.   

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

Up Here Magazine - March/April 2022

Arctic Fox

Adaptable Mr. Fox

Appearing at home in any environment, arctic and red foxes seem adorable and even approachable. But be advised, they don’t make good pets.

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

January/February 2022

An illustration of a subnivean environment.

The World Beneath

Where smaller mammals spend the winter.

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023

January/February 2022

Building Yellowknife's Snowking Castle each year takes weeks of carving.

The Art And Science of Snow

Free

A building block of northern life, snow falls, settles, melts, and even sounds differently depending on where you live.

January 28th, 2023 January 28th, 2023
Newsletter sign-up promo image.

Stay in Touch.

Our weekly newsletter brings all the best circumpolar stories right to your inbox.

Up Here magazine cover

Subscribe Now

Our magazine showcases award-winning writing and spectacular northern photos.

Subscribe

Footer Navigation

  • Advertise With Us
  • Work With Us
  • Write for Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimers & Legal

Contact Information

Up Here Publishing
4510-50th Ave., Ste. 102
Yellowknife, NT
X1A 1B9  Canada
Phone: 867.766.6710
Fax: 867.669.0626
Email: editor@uphere.ca

Social Links

Facebook Twitter Instagram
Funded by the Government of Canada