Eureka is a small research base on
Fosheim Peninsula,
Ellesmere Island,
Qikiqtaaluk Region, in the
Canadian territory of
Nunavut. It is located on the north side of Slidre Fiord, which enters
Eureka Sound
Eureka Sound is a high Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk
Qikiqtaaluk (ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ formerly Sillem Island is an uninhabited island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is the second largest (after Bylot Island) of the several hun ...
farther west. It is the third-northernmost permanent research community in the world. The only two farther north are
Alert, which is also on Ellesmere Island, and
Nord, in
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
. Eureka has the lowest average annual temperature and the lowest amount of precipitation of any weather station in Canada.
Eureka's
postal code
A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...
is X0A 0G0 and the
area code is
867.
Divisions
The base consists of three areas:
![Astro-Lab (04-08-97)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Astro-Lab_%2804-08-97%29.jpg)
*the
Eureka Aerodrome which includes "Fort Eureka" (the quarters for military personnel maintaining the island's communications equipment)
*the
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; french: Environnement et Changement climatique Canada),Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment ...
Weather Station
*the
Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory
The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) is an atmospheric research facility in the Canadian High Arctic, located on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. Considered one of the most important Arctic research labs in the world, it was ...
(PEARL), formerly the Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Observatory (AStrO)
PEARL is operated by a consortium of Canadian university researchers and government agencies known as the Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change. PEARL announced it would cease full-time year-round operation as of April 30, 2012, due to lack of funding, but this decision was reversed in May 2013 with the announcement of new funds.
History
Eureka was founded on April 7, 1947, as part of an initiative to set up a network of Arctic
weather station
A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...
s. On this date, of supplies were airlifted to a promising spot on Ellesmere Island, and five prefabricated
Jamesway hut
The Jamesway hut is a portable and easy-to-assemble hut, designed for polar weather conditions. This version of the Quonset hut was created by James Manufacturing Company of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. A Jamesway hut had wooden ribs and a type o ...
s were constructed. Regular weather observations began on January 1, 1948. The station has expanded over the years. At its peak, in the 1970s, at least fifteen staff were on site; in 2005, it reported a permanent population of zero with at least 8 staff on a continuous rotational basis.
Several generations of buildings have been developed. The latest operations centre, with work areas and staff quarters in one large structure, was completed in 2005.
Location and accessibility
![Eureka station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Eureka_station.jpg)
The complex is powered by diesel generators. The station is supplied once every six weeks with fresh food and mail by air, and annually in the late summer, a supply ship from
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
brings heavy supplies. On July 3, 2009, a Danish
Challenger 604 MMA jet landed at Eureka's aerodrome.
[
]
The jet is a military observation aircraft based on the Challenger executive jet. This jet visited Eureka on a familiarization trip, in order to prepare for the possibility of Danish aircraft assisting in
search and rescue missions over Canadian territory. The ''
Canadian American Strategic Review The Canadian American Strategic Review was an influential Canadian think-tank that comments on Canadian Defence and sovereignty issues.
The think-tank operated, for many years, from the campus of Simon Fraser University.
History
In 2007 the '' Can ...
'' noted critically that the first jet to fly a mission to Eureka was not Canadian.
At Eureka's latitude, a geosynchronous
communications satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...
, if due south, would require an
antenna
Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to:
Science and engineering
* Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves
* Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...
to be pointed nearly horizontally; satellites farther east or west along that orbit would be below the horizon. Telephone access and television broadcasts arrived in 1982 when
Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device. A plutonium implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation H ...
resulted in the establishment of a satellite receiving station at nearby Skull Point, which has an open view to the south. The low power Channel 9 TV transmitter at Skull Point was the world's most northern TV station at the time. In the 1980s, TV audio was often connected to the telephone to feed CBC-TV news to
CHAR-FM in isolated
CFS Alert
Canadian Forces Station Alert (french: Station des Forces canadiennes Alert), often shortened to CFS Alert (), is a signals intelligence intercept facility of the Canadian Armed Forces at Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada.
Loc ...
. More recently, CANDAC has installed what is likely the world's most northerly
geosynchronous
A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...
satellite ground-station to provide Internet-based communications to PEARL.
Other inhabited places on Ellesmere Island include Alert
and
Grise Fiord
Grise Fiord (; iu, ᐊᐅᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ, translit=Aujuittuq, lit=place that never thaws, italics=no) is an Inuit hamlet on the southern tip of Ellesmere Island, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of three populated places on ...
.
Flora and fauna
Eureka has been described as "The Garden Spot of the Arctic" due to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Fauna include
muskox
The muskox (''Ovibos moschatus'', in Latin "musky sheep-ox"), also spelled musk ox and musk-ox, plural muskoxen or musk oxen (in iu, ᐅᒥᖕᒪᒃ, umingmak; in Woods Cree: ), is a hoofed mammal of the family Bovidae. Native to the Arctic, ...
,
Arctic wolves
The Arctic wolf (''Canis lupus arctos''), also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra of Canada's Queen Elizabeth Islands, from Melville Island to Ellesmere Island.https://ecor ...
,
Arctic fox
The Arctic fox (''Vulpes lagopus''), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. It is well adapted to living in ...
es,
Arctic hare
The Arctic hare (''Lepus arcticus'') is a species of hare highly adapted to living in the Arctic tundra and other icy biomes. The Arctic hare survives with shortened ears and limbs, a small nose, fat that makes up close to 20% of its body, and a ...
s, and
lemming
A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also includ ...
s. In addition, summer nesting geese, ducks, owls, loons, ravens, gulls and many other smaller birds nest, raise their young, and return south in August.
Climate
Eureka experiences a
polar climate (''
ET''). The settlement sees the
midnight sun
The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the Sun remains visible at the local midnight. When the midnight sun is seen in the Arctic, t ...
between April 10 and August 29, with no sunlight at all between mid-October and late February. Eureka has the lowest average annual temperature and least precipitation of any weather station in Canada with an annual mean temperature of . However, summers are slightly warmer than other places in the
Canadian Arctic because Eureka is somewhat landlocked, being near the centre of
Ellesmere Island. Even so, since record keeping began, the temperature has never exceeded , first reached on July 14, 2009.
Although a polar desert, evaporation is also very low, which allows the limited moisture to be made available for plants and wildlife. Its frost-free season averages 56 days, much longer than many other places nearby.
See also
*
List of research stations in the Arctic
References
Bibliography
* Couture, Nicole J. ''Sensitivity of Permafrost Terrain in a High Arctic Polar Desert An Evaluation of Response to Disturbance Near Eureka, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut''. Ottawa: National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2003.
* Whyte, L. G., B. Goalen, J. Hawari, D. Labbe, C. W. Greer, and M. Nahir. 2001. "Bioremediation Treatability Assessment of Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Soils from Eureka, Nunavut". ''Cold Regions Science and Technology''. 32, no. 2-3: 121–132.
Eureka at theAtlas of Canada
The Atlas of Canada (french: L'Atlas du Canada) is an online atlas published by Natural Resources Canada that has information on every city, town, village, and hamlet in Canada. It was originally a print atlas, with its first edition being publishe ...
External links
*
{{Subdivisions of Nunavut
Populated places established in 1947
Extreme points of Earth
Weather extremes of Earth
Ellesmere Island
Arctic research
Populated places in Arctic Canada
Populated places in the Qikiqtaaluk Region
1947 establishments in the Northwest Territories
Meteorological stations