How & Why Spiders Rule the World
Robb Bennett, PhD
Forest Entomologist, BC Ministry of Forests & Range
Member, COSEWIC Insects and Arachnids Subcommittee
Saturday, July 8, 2006
FIELD TRIP: 1:00 pm meet at Five Mile Lake Campground picnic shelter
LECTURE: 7:30 pm YTG Administration Bldg. meeting room, Mayo
Sunday, July 9, 2006
FIELD TRIP: 3:00 pm meet at Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre parking lot
LECTURE: 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
It’s big. It’s hairy. And it has eight legs. What is it: your worst nightmare or just another hapless arachnid? To really look at spiders up close, join Robb Bennett as he discusses their natural history and ecology. He will introduce you to interesting Canadian spiders in general and Yukon spiders in particular. And he will be touching on spider folklore and medical mythology along the way.
Join Robb for a 2 hour field trip as well as an evening lecture in both Mayo and Whitehorse.
Students on Ice: Antarctic Expedition
Amber Church, co-chair of the International Polar Year Youth Steering Committee, Master’s candidate, SFU
Sunday, June 18, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Penguins, seals, whales, icebergs, snow and fifty high school students! In late December and early January two Whitehorse residents, Amber Church and Tyler Kuhn, had the opportunity to visit the Antarctic. They did so as youth mentors for the Students on Ice Antarctic Expedition. Students on Ice is a non-profit Canadian organization that takes students to both the Arctic and Antarctic, providing them with a one-of-a-kind way to experience and learn about these important regions of the planet.
Amber will speak about her and Tyler's experiences on this trip: from teaching students about climate change, coming face to face with thousands of penguins, being inspired by the passion and drive of the participating students to getting a ship stuck in the pack ice. Join her as she shares stories and images from the journey.
The Secret Life of Flowers
Jim Pojar
co-author of Lone Pine plant guides, Executive Director, CPAWS-Yukon
Sunday, May 28, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Monday, May 29, 2006, 7:30 pm Teslin Public Library, Teslin
Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love
-from “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)” by Cole Porter
What do wind, water, flies, bees, bats, hummingbirds, and even mosquitoes have in common? Plants use them to pollinate their flowers, in remarkable and sometimes bizarre ways. Flowers contrive to get the job done - to have pollen transferred from the male sex organs to the receptive parts of the female sex organs – through a huge variety of shapes, colours and sizes. Their tools of seduction range from delicate perfumes to putrid smells and from passive passion to explosive devices.
Many flowering plants have evolved complex, mutually rewarding relationships with their pollinators, especially insects. But mutualists are still primarily looking out for number one; there’s a lot of cheating, larceny, sexual innuendo, false advertising, and even drugs, going on.
Join Jim Pojar, ecologist and co-author of the Lone Pine series of plant guides, to find out more about their manipulative techniques. He’ll also explore the reasons why so many alpine flowers are blue or yellow, and why so many early blooming species in the Yukon have purple flowers. In the end it’s all about reproduction, the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower”.
Birds and the Nostalgic Human Soul
Graeme Gibson, Award-winning author, Order of Canada recipient & Chairman of the Pelee island Bird Observatory
Sunday, April 23, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Monday, April 24, 2006, 7:30 pm Dawson City Museum, Dawson
Humans developed as a species in a world full of birds. Despite seeing images of the great flocks of waders and marsh birds in African wetlands, or the millions of nesting seabirds on northern sea-cliffs, it remains hard for us to conceive just how omnipresent birds must have been in the lives of our forebears.
Somewhere along the way we identified ourselves with them, and came to associate birds with the realm of spirits, as opposed to that of bodies and their carnal appetites.
Perhaps for that reason there’s an abundance of intriguing material about birds, from all times and all cultures. Not only do they feature in creation myths, in sagas and parables, in liturgies and in fairly tales, but poets, writers, story-tellers and artists in all ages have found them a fertile source of imagery and symbol.
Graeme’s talk will explore the richly varied and sometimes very intimate relationships that we have established with birds during the hundreds of thousands of years that we and they have shared life on earth.
The Nature of Paleolithic Art
Dale Guthrie, Professor Emeritus, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Sunday, April 2, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Monday, April 3, 2006, 7:30 pm Kluane National Park Visitor Reception Centre
The cave paintings and other preserved remnants of Paleolithic peoples shed light on a world little known to us. While art historians have wrestled with the images and objects as artifacts of the visual, very few scientists have weighed in on Paleolithic art as artifacts of a complex, living society.
In his lecture, Dale Guthrie will examine Paleolithic art in light of his experience piecing together prehistoric environments and human behavior from the excavated remnants of the past. Based upon his most recent book, The Nature of Paleolithic Art, this lecture combines natural history, ethology and evolutionary biology in a new and controversial reading of Paleolithic art. Join Dale Guthrie in this recreation of a past environment through the images and objects created by its people.
Owls of the Yukon
Dick Cannings, Bird Studies Canada biologist, BC-Yukon Owl Survey Coordinator
Saturday, February 25, 2006, 7:30 pm Wye Lake Cabin, Watson Lake
Sunday, February 26, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
There are six species of owls resident in the Yukon, and three more that occasionally occur in the territory. These nine species range from the tiny Northern Pygmy-Owl to the powerful Snowy and Great Horned Owls. Each species has its own hunting style and adaptations, although they all share the characteristics that make owls so easy to identify: the large facial disks, forward-facing eyes and silent flight.
Join Dick Cannings as he discusses what makes owls unique as a group, and what makes the Yukon species unique among owls. By the end of the talk, you may even be able to go home and find some - in the dark!
Amphibians on the Edge
Harold Parsons, Herpetologist & Interpretive Planner
Monday, January 30, 2006, 7:30 pm Kluane National Park Visitor Reception Centre, Haines Junction
Amphibians, which in Canada include frogs, toads and salamanders, are amongst the most abundant vertebrates in warm, wet environments globally. They are also one of the most threatened with approximately one-third of the world’s species in danger of extinction.
Join herpetologist, Harry Parsons, as he introduces the wonder, beauty and adaptability of amphibians – as well as the reasons for both their evolutionary success and current decline - around the world, across Canada, and in the Yukon. He will also discuss the importance of these animals to the ecosystems they inhabit and their long cultural connections to humans.
Of Myth and Magic: Yukon Butterflies and Amphibians
Harold Parsons, Herpetologist & Interpretive Planner and André Langlois, Lepidopterist
Sunday, January 29, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Ever wonder how butterflies and amphibians survive up North? Find out with BC amphibian expert Harold Parsons and Yukon butterfly collector and enthusiast André Langlois. It’s two for one at this month’s Yukon Science Institute lecture. Peruse the display highlighting part of André’s extensive butterfly collection and be the first to get free copies of the new Yukon Amphibians and Yukon Butterflies booklets.
De la forêt à la côte : utilisation du bois dans les cultures Inuit d’autrefois et d’aujourd’hui
Claire Alix, Research Associate, Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
le mardi 13 décembre 2005 19 h 30 Centre de la francophonie, Whitehorse
Comment les Inuit s’approvisionnaient et employaient-ils le bois dans un milieu sans arbre? Les habitants de l’Arctique ont déployé beaucoup d’efforts pour collecter et parfois échanger des types de bois bien précis qu’ils utilisaient dans leur vie quotidienne.
Depuis plusieurs années, Claire Alix étudie des objets en bois trouvés dans des sites archéologiques et des bois flotté déposés sure les côtes de l’Arctique et du Sub-Arctique. Pour enricher et diversifier l’interpretation de ces données, elle a aussi conduit des entretiens avec des sculpteurs traditionels sure bois flotté. Son travail contribue ainsi à la reconstitution des systèmes naturels et culturels de la circulation du bois et de ses usages. Venez l’écouter présenter les résultats de ses recherches et discuter de la sélection et du travail du bois dans le Grand Nord.
From the Forest to the Coast: The Use of Wood in Prehistoric and Recent Inuit Cultures
Claire Alix, Research Associate, Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Sunday, December 11, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
How did Inuit people acquire and use wood in a treeless environment? Arctic inhabitants went to great effort to collect, and even trade for wood. Specific kinds of wood were used to produce the implements and objects of everyday life, for building materials, and even for firewood.
For years, Claire Alix has been studying wood objects found at archaeological sites, and driftwood resources, in the arctic and subarctic. By combining the information she’s collected with interviews with modern driftwood carvers, her work contributes to the reconstruction of past natural and cultural systems of wood circulation and use. Join her as she shares the results of her findings, and illuminates the practical considerations underlying the selection and working of wood in the far north.
Can we solve the problems of the future?
Thomas Homer- Dixon, Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, and author of "The Ingenuity Gap"
Monday November 28, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
The challenges we face converge, intertwine, and often remain largely beyond our understanding. Most of us suspect that the "experts" don't really know what's going on and that as a species we've released forces that are neither managed nor manageable. This is the ingenuity gap, the critical gap between our need for ideas to solve complex problems and our actual supply of those ideas.
Poor countries are particularly vulnerable to ingenuity gaps, but our own rich countries are no longer immune either. In the north, we are challenged by our reliance on technology in a world of finite resources. We are increasingly sensitive to the environmental impact of that reliance as we face the immediate impacts of climate change, threats to our security, and a growing world shortage of energy.
Thomas Homer-Dixon uses his ingenuity theory to suggest how we might approach these problems -- in our own lives, our thinking, our businesses, and our societies.
Living with Bears
Phil Timpany, Bear behaviourist, Ecotourism consultant, and Film maker
Sunday November 27, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
TBA, Watson Lake
For 28 years, Phil Timpany has been living and working with grizzly bears at and around a salmon weir in the Taku River watershed. Over that period, people and grizzly bears have learned to tolerate one another at close distances. Staff at the site now work safely in the presence of many individual grizzly bears and bear families, some of which span 3 and 4 generations.
Join Phil as he explores how bears can become habituated to people, and peoples’ perception of, and attitude towards, bears. What does this mean for bear conservation? Combining video and lecture, Phil Timpany brings to life the process that allowed this unique relationship between humans and bears to develop.
Bats of the boreal forest: diversity, natural history and conservation
Tom Jung, Biologist, Yukon Department of Environment
Sunday October 30, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 7:30 pm Kluane Visitor Reception Centre, Haines Junction
Bats abound in the boreal forest of southern Yukon. Shrouded in secrecy, however, most people are unaware of the remarkable natural history of the bats in our backyards. In fact, bats are among the least appreciated and understood animals in the boreal forest because their night time habits and their ability to fly make them so difficult to study. Their unique role as regulators of nocturnal insect populations makes them an important component of forest ecosystems, not to mention a welcome guest in our backyards on buggy nights.
Join Tom Jung as he uncovers some of the secret world of bats, and examines how both natural and human caused changes to the boreal forest affect bat populations. Learn about the diversity and natural history of bats in the boreal forest, and discover why bats are fascinating biological models, how biologists study these secretive animals, and conservation measures for problem bat colonies.
Violence in the Sky: The Northern Lights
Gordon Rostoker, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Alberta
Sunday, September 18, 2005, 7:00 pm Westmark Whitehorse, Whitehorse
Monday, September 19, 2005, 7:30 pm Dawson City Museum, Dawson
The northern lights, or aurora borealis, have puzzled and amazed generations of people living close to the arctic circle. These northerners have created legends explaining the origins of the lights in ways that call on the spirits of their ancestors. Over the past two centuries, physical scientists have come to their own conclusions about how the lights are created. Gordon Rostoker will explore the scientific explanation of the origin of the northern lights by tracing the flow of energy from the sun. He will explain how that energy penetrates into the near earth environment, and ultimately produces the bright lights and giant electric currents that we see from 100 kilometres below, on thebxv earth's surface.
While many view the northern lights purely as a beautiful natural phenomenon, it turns out that they are a small part of a much larger disturbance that can knock satellites out of commission, destabililze electric power grids and severely corrode buried pipelines. Gordon Rostoker will also talk about the problems encountered by technological systems and how scientists are now able to reliably predict auroral activity up to an hour before it actually begins.
Robb Bennett, PhD
Forest Entomologist, BC Ministry of Forests & Range
Member, COSEWIC Insects and Arachnids Subcommittee
Saturday, July 8, 2006
FIELD TRIP: 1:00 pm meet at Five Mile Lake Campground picnic shelter
LECTURE: 7:30 pm YTG Administration Bldg. meeting room, Mayo
Sunday, July 9, 2006
FIELD TRIP: 3:00 pm meet at Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre parking lot
LECTURE: 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
It’s big. It’s hairy. And it has eight legs. What is it: your worst nightmare or just another hapless arachnid? To really look at spiders up close, join Robb Bennett as he discusses their natural history and ecology. He will introduce you to interesting Canadian spiders in general and Yukon spiders in particular. And he will be touching on spider folklore and medical mythology along the way.
Join Robb for a 2 hour field trip as well as an evening lecture in both Mayo and Whitehorse.
Students on Ice: Antarctic Expedition
Amber Church, co-chair of the International Polar Year Youth Steering Committee, Master’s candidate, SFU
Sunday, June 18, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Penguins, seals, whales, icebergs, snow and fifty high school students! In late December and early January two Whitehorse residents, Amber Church and Tyler Kuhn, had the opportunity to visit the Antarctic. They did so as youth mentors for the Students on Ice Antarctic Expedition. Students on Ice is a non-profit Canadian organization that takes students to both the Arctic and Antarctic, providing them with a one-of-a-kind way to experience and learn about these important regions of the planet.
Amber will speak about her and Tyler's experiences on this trip: from teaching students about climate change, coming face to face with thousands of penguins, being inspired by the passion and drive of the participating students to getting a ship stuck in the pack ice. Join her as she shares stories and images from the journey.
The Secret Life of Flowers
Jim Pojar
co-author of Lone Pine plant guides, Executive Director, CPAWS-Yukon
Sunday, May 28, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Monday, May 29, 2006, 7:30 pm Teslin Public Library, Teslin
Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love
-from “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)” by Cole Porter
What do wind, water, flies, bees, bats, hummingbirds, and even mosquitoes have in common? Plants use them to pollinate their flowers, in remarkable and sometimes bizarre ways. Flowers contrive to get the job done - to have pollen transferred from the male sex organs to the receptive parts of the female sex organs – through a huge variety of shapes, colours and sizes. Their tools of seduction range from delicate perfumes to putrid smells and from passive passion to explosive devices.
Many flowering plants have evolved complex, mutually rewarding relationships with their pollinators, especially insects. But mutualists are still primarily looking out for number one; there’s a lot of cheating, larceny, sexual innuendo, false advertising, and even drugs, going on.
Join Jim Pojar, ecologist and co-author of the Lone Pine series of plant guides, to find out more about their manipulative techniques. He’ll also explore the reasons why so many alpine flowers are blue or yellow, and why so many early blooming species in the Yukon have purple flowers. In the end it’s all about reproduction, the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower”.
Birds and the Nostalgic Human Soul
Graeme Gibson, Award-winning author, Order of Canada recipient & Chairman of the Pelee island Bird Observatory
Sunday, April 23, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Monday, April 24, 2006, 7:30 pm Dawson City Museum, Dawson
Humans developed as a species in a world full of birds. Despite seeing images of the great flocks of waders and marsh birds in African wetlands, or the millions of nesting seabirds on northern sea-cliffs, it remains hard for us to conceive just how omnipresent birds must have been in the lives of our forebears.
Somewhere along the way we identified ourselves with them, and came to associate birds with the realm of spirits, as opposed to that of bodies and their carnal appetites.
Perhaps for that reason there’s an abundance of intriguing material about birds, from all times and all cultures. Not only do they feature in creation myths, in sagas and parables, in liturgies and in fairly tales, but poets, writers, story-tellers and artists in all ages have found them a fertile source of imagery and symbol.
Graeme’s talk will explore the richly varied and sometimes very intimate relationships that we have established with birds during the hundreds of thousands of years that we and they have shared life on earth.
The Nature of Paleolithic Art
Dale Guthrie, Professor Emeritus, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Sunday, April 2, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Monday, April 3, 2006, 7:30 pm Kluane National Park Visitor Reception Centre
The cave paintings and other preserved remnants of Paleolithic peoples shed light on a world little known to us. While art historians have wrestled with the images and objects as artifacts of the visual, very few scientists have weighed in on Paleolithic art as artifacts of a complex, living society.
In his lecture, Dale Guthrie will examine Paleolithic art in light of his experience piecing together prehistoric environments and human behavior from the excavated remnants of the past. Based upon his most recent book, The Nature of Paleolithic Art, this lecture combines natural history, ethology and evolutionary biology in a new and controversial reading of Paleolithic art. Join Dale Guthrie in this recreation of a past environment through the images and objects created by its people.
Owls of the Yukon
Dick Cannings, Bird Studies Canada biologist, BC-Yukon Owl Survey Coordinator
Saturday, February 25, 2006, 7:30 pm Wye Lake Cabin, Watson Lake
Sunday, February 26, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
There are six species of owls resident in the Yukon, and three more that occasionally occur in the territory. These nine species range from the tiny Northern Pygmy-Owl to the powerful Snowy and Great Horned Owls. Each species has its own hunting style and adaptations, although they all share the characteristics that make owls so easy to identify: the large facial disks, forward-facing eyes and silent flight.
Join Dick Cannings as he discusses what makes owls unique as a group, and what makes the Yukon species unique among owls. By the end of the talk, you may even be able to go home and find some - in the dark!
Amphibians on the Edge
Harold Parsons, Herpetologist & Interpretive Planner
Monday, January 30, 2006, 7:30 pm Kluane National Park Visitor Reception Centre, Haines Junction
Amphibians, which in Canada include frogs, toads and salamanders, are amongst the most abundant vertebrates in warm, wet environments globally. They are also one of the most threatened with approximately one-third of the world’s species in danger of extinction.
Join herpetologist, Harry Parsons, as he introduces the wonder, beauty and adaptability of amphibians – as well as the reasons for both their evolutionary success and current decline - around the world, across Canada, and in the Yukon. He will also discuss the importance of these animals to the ecosystems they inhabit and their long cultural connections to humans.
Of Myth and Magic: Yukon Butterflies and Amphibians
Harold Parsons, Herpetologist & Interpretive Planner and André Langlois, Lepidopterist
Sunday, January 29, 2006, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Ever wonder how butterflies and amphibians survive up North? Find out with BC amphibian expert Harold Parsons and Yukon butterfly collector and enthusiast André Langlois. It’s two for one at this month’s Yukon Science Institute lecture. Peruse the display highlighting part of André’s extensive butterfly collection and be the first to get free copies of the new Yukon Amphibians and Yukon Butterflies booklets.
De la forêt à la côte : utilisation du bois dans les cultures Inuit d’autrefois et d’aujourd’hui
Claire Alix, Research Associate, Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
le mardi 13 décembre 2005 19 h 30 Centre de la francophonie, Whitehorse
Comment les Inuit s’approvisionnaient et employaient-ils le bois dans un milieu sans arbre? Les habitants de l’Arctique ont déployé beaucoup d’efforts pour collecter et parfois échanger des types de bois bien précis qu’ils utilisaient dans leur vie quotidienne.
Depuis plusieurs années, Claire Alix étudie des objets en bois trouvés dans des sites archéologiques et des bois flotté déposés sure les côtes de l’Arctique et du Sub-Arctique. Pour enricher et diversifier l’interpretation de ces données, elle a aussi conduit des entretiens avec des sculpteurs traditionels sure bois flotté. Son travail contribue ainsi à la reconstitution des systèmes naturels et culturels de la circulation du bois et de ses usages. Venez l’écouter présenter les résultats de ses recherches et discuter de la sélection et du travail du bois dans le Grand Nord.
From the Forest to the Coast: The Use of Wood in Prehistoric and Recent Inuit Cultures
Claire Alix, Research Associate, Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Sunday, December 11, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
How did Inuit people acquire and use wood in a treeless environment? Arctic inhabitants went to great effort to collect, and even trade for wood. Specific kinds of wood were used to produce the implements and objects of everyday life, for building materials, and even for firewood.
For years, Claire Alix has been studying wood objects found at archaeological sites, and driftwood resources, in the arctic and subarctic. By combining the information she’s collected with interviews with modern driftwood carvers, her work contributes to the reconstruction of past natural and cultural systems of wood circulation and use. Join her as she shares the results of her findings, and illuminates the practical considerations underlying the selection and working of wood in the far north.
Can we solve the problems of the future?
Thomas Homer- Dixon, Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, and author of "The Ingenuity Gap"
Monday November 28, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
The challenges we face converge, intertwine, and often remain largely beyond our understanding. Most of us suspect that the "experts" don't really know what's going on and that as a species we've released forces that are neither managed nor manageable. This is the ingenuity gap, the critical gap between our need for ideas to solve complex problems and our actual supply of those ideas.
Poor countries are particularly vulnerable to ingenuity gaps, but our own rich countries are no longer immune either. In the north, we are challenged by our reliance on technology in a world of finite resources. We are increasingly sensitive to the environmental impact of that reliance as we face the immediate impacts of climate change, threats to our security, and a growing world shortage of energy.
Thomas Homer-Dixon uses his ingenuity theory to suggest how we might approach these problems -- in our own lives, our thinking, our businesses, and our societies.
Living with Bears
Phil Timpany, Bear behaviourist, Ecotourism consultant, and Film maker
Sunday November 27, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
TBA, Watson Lake
For 28 years, Phil Timpany has been living and working with grizzly bears at and around a salmon weir in the Taku River watershed. Over that period, people and grizzly bears have learned to tolerate one another at close distances. Staff at the site now work safely in the presence of many individual grizzly bears and bear families, some of which span 3 and 4 generations.
Join Phil as he explores how bears can become habituated to people, and peoples’ perception of, and attitude towards, bears. What does this mean for bear conservation? Combining video and lecture, Phil Timpany brings to life the process that allowed this unique relationship between humans and bears to develop.
Bats of the boreal forest: diversity, natural history and conservation
Tom Jung, Biologist, Yukon Department of Environment
Sunday October 30, 2005, 7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse
Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 7:30 pm Kluane Visitor Reception Centre, Haines Junction
Bats abound in the boreal forest of southern Yukon. Shrouded in secrecy, however, most people are unaware of the remarkable natural history of the bats in our backyards. In fact, bats are among the least appreciated and understood animals in the boreal forest because their night time habits and their ability to fly make them so difficult to study. Their unique role as regulators of nocturnal insect populations makes them an important component of forest ecosystems, not to mention a welcome guest in our backyards on buggy nights.
Join Tom Jung as he uncovers some of the secret world of bats, and examines how both natural and human caused changes to the boreal forest affect bat populations. Learn about the diversity and natural history of bats in the boreal forest, and discover why bats are fascinating biological models, how biologists study these secretive animals, and conservation measures for problem bat colonies.
Violence in the Sky: The Northern Lights
Gordon Rostoker, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Alberta
Sunday, September 18, 2005, 7:00 pm Westmark Whitehorse, Whitehorse
Monday, September 19, 2005, 7:30 pm Dawson City Museum, Dawson
The northern lights, or aurora borealis, have puzzled and amazed generations of people living close to the arctic circle. These northerners have created legends explaining the origins of the lights in ways that call on the spirits of their ancestors. Over the past two centuries, physical scientists have come to their own conclusions about how the lights are created. Gordon Rostoker will explore the scientific explanation of the origin of the northern lights by tracing the flow of energy from the sun. He will explain how that energy penetrates into the near earth environment, and ultimately produces the bright lights and giant electric currents that we see from 100 kilometres below, on thebxv earth's surface.
While many view the northern lights purely as a beautiful natural phenomenon, it turns out that they are a small part of a much larger disturbance that can knock satellites out of commission, destabililze electric power grids and severely corrode buried pipelines. Gordon Rostoker will also talk about the problems encountered by technological systems and how scientists are now able to reliably predict auroral activity up to an hour before it actually begins.