The World’s Freshwater Laboratory from the Air
It’s no secret that IISD Experimental Lakes Area—the world’s freshwater laboratory—is pretty unique.
And we can’t hide the fact that it’s pretty stunning. (Just check out our Instagram page for some superlative glamour shots of our lakes.)
But have you ever wanted to see us from a different angle? Thanks to the power of drone technology, you can now see us in a completely different light.
Take a look at the images and short videos below, and rediscover the world’s freshwater laboratory.
By the looks of the morning mist, it looks like Lake 240—one of our reference lakes—is still sleeping.
Here’s our Research Scientist Scott Higgins taking one of his patented mildly extreme selfies.
Here is what they look like standing together in an awkward sibling photo we made them take.
Lake 240 is at the back and Lake 239 appears in the foreground.
All in safe enclosures, of course. And this is what they look like.
Learn more here.
No worries; it looks as though our cooks are firing up the BBQ…
You know that ground-breaking freshwater research you just read about? Well, that’s actually down to you.
It’s only thanks to our generous donors that the world’s freshwater laboratory—an independent not-for-profit—can continue to do what we do. And that means everything from explore what happens when cannabis flushes and oil spills into a lake, to how we can reduce mercury in fish and algal blooms in fresh water—all to keep our water clean around the world for generations to come.
We know that these are difficult times, but the knowledge to act on scientific evidence has never been more important. Neither has your support.
If you believe in whole ecosystem science and using it to bring about real change to fresh water around the globe, please support us in any way you are able to.
Captured & Processed: Thousands of photographs and hundreds of thousands of fish
Living, working, and playing in: 1 world-renowned, whole-ecosystem research facility
I’ve exhausted: 2 backpacks, 2 lifejackets, and 2 pairs of fish pants;
Occupied: 3 residences, 3 positions, and 3 perspectives;
Experienced: 4 cooks and many 4-hour shuttle rides;
All in the course of: 5 years at IISD-Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA).
3 Residences & 3 Positions
Growing up spending summers at Lake of the Woods, I figured I had a very good (mildly obnoxious) grasp of freshwater biology concepts and was often informed (warned) by my parents that I could very easily be dropped at the end of the 30-kilometre gravel road to IISD-ELA to have the freshwater scientists set me straight.
Since then I have been supremely lucky and extremely humbled to experience the world’s freshwater laboratory in three Fish Crew capacities: as undergraduate assistant (2014); graduate researcher (2015-17); and biologist (2018). I have fortunately never had to walk into camp.
There were four undergraduate assistants hired in 2014, when IISD had just taken over the facility, and fewer than 20 people at the site. As much as IISD-ELA’s 50-year long-term dataset of whole-ecosystem experiments motivates and inspires, I would argue that meals are our main daily motivator; arriving in Hungry Hall on time for dinner is the greatest driving force at the research station.
Discussions of meals in the middle of a lake in northwestern Ontario occurs as often as discussions of weather in the middle of a city. This commonality reveals the best assessment of the yearly growth of IISD-ELA and the seasonal fluxes in students, researchers and visitors.
Case in point: the entire camp population fit around two tables in 2014. When I returned as a graduate researcher in 2015, the meal seatings grew from two- to four-top. Student positions were created, and field crews hired multiple students (including the rare breed of split-students). With more of an educational-mandated focus, tours poured in and arrivals of external researchers surged. The cooks increasingly accommodated dietary restrictions and preferences, and we experienced a supply-and-demand roller coaster of (initially) bacon and (later) cheese.
A month after my defense in Spring 2018 (and thanks to the even rarer breed of perfectly-timed babies), I accepted a biologist position covering a maternity leave for a year. This past field season was our biggest yet, both in terms of people and projects, and was buoyed by bonus enthusiasm for IISD-ELA’s 50th anniversary!
Right from the start (on a week in May where temperatures jumped to 30+ degrees Celsius and Fish Crew was inundated with thousands of spawning White Sucker and biting black flies), it was apparent that 2018 would break records. There were more than a dozen undergraduate assistants hired in 2018 along with a plethora of graduate researchers.
Our Hungry Hall experience increased to a regular six-top, and swelled on a couple of occasions to the point at which meals were relocated on the beach as we fed (shout-out to cooks, Frank McCann and Jesse Coelho) and accommodated (shout-out to User Services Coordinator Stephen Paterson) 140 people!
3 Positions & 3 Perspectives
I maintain that the position of undergraduate assistant is all sunshine, rainbows, limited internet and bonding over bonfires and canoe trips. Working on Fish Crew, your duties include capturing fish in seines, trap- and gill-nets; recording fish metrics for population estimates; downloading temperature loggers and acoustic fish tracking receivers; assisting with whole-ecosystem experiments; and entering and validating data. Undergraduate assistants are told they have one job: make sure you bring the scale in the field, or you will have a long boat-portage-boat-drive back to camp.
Fish Crew assistants are part of a very seasonally tasked team that is always late for dinner, faithfully pack field lunches on the best Hungry Hall lunch days, and only go on coffee breaks in the summer (we keep morale high with lots of snacks, seat cushions, extensive signage in the Fish Lab, and awful fish puns). As an undergraduate assistant, your IISD-ELA bubble is as big as you make it. You have endless opportunities to study new projects, network with scientists, and participate in outdoor events—the world is your freshwater mussel!
As a graduate researcher at IISD-ELA, you narrow your focus to one whole-ecosystem experiment or question, which is accompanied by more stress and less free time, but also more responsibility. You’re working on per diems, and have to coordinate your coursework to fit around your scheduled, overhauled, and rescheduled fieldwork. You mercilessly recruit people to help you in the field and laboratory (disguised as “Fishing for Science” derbies and mass-minnow-dissection evenings), but with enough good music and better company it becomes a party.
Difficulties in the field are shared by other students who are (literally) in the same boat as you, while later dread-lines in the laboratory and office have you fervently reminiscing about your summer(s) on the lakes. Fortunately, IISD-ELA attracts top scientists who are exceptionally generous with their time and knowledge, and very experienced in putting out (figurative) whole-ecosystem experiment fires, so this two- to five-year commitment (to character-building exercises) provides a whole bunch of exhausted gratification upon completion.
As a Fish Crew biologist at IISD-ELA, your work involves a ton of responsibility but also a ton of satisfaction; you rank comfortably between undergraduate assistants and graduate researchers for amount of stress and free time.
You schedule fieldwork, orchestrate sampling efforts, process fish, instruct students, reinforce health and safety, and report results. You try to create a balance of getting your work done and assisting other projects and crews, as you are compelled to give your time and energy to improving camp life (via capturing and processing thousands of photographs, or creating detailed dioramas and delicious pies—shout-out to biologist Lee Hrenchuk).
You constantly overthink the appearance of your unique workplace to the general public and visiting researchers, and always try to put in the extra effort assisting students with their projects (been there). As a Fish Crew biologist, you are acutely aware of how much capturing and processing one single fish costs in terms of equipment, efforts, and hours; no one, however, prepares you for the compromises, concessions, and bribes you will have to make when your over-zealous undergraduate assistants refuse to stop fishing.
Despite all the variation in levels of responsibility and intensity throughout my IISD-ELA experience, one thing has remained constant to my fish and photograph capturing and processing: an immense appreciation and admiration for Canada’s freshwater systems and the people that study and safeguard them.
Here’s to another 50 years!
Experience the World’s Freshwater Laboratory through the Eyes of James Culleton
Late in the 2018 research season, we invited Winnipeg-based artist and designer James Culleton, to spend some time out at IISD Experimental Lakes Area to experience it in all its majesty, and let us experience it anew through his eyes.
Below is just a taste of the artwork he came up with during his time as our very first Artist in Residence. We love his fresh approach to some of our favourite lakes and characters and hope you will too.
Want to learn more about James? Visit his website, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
Want to purchase some of the images below, either as prints or originals? Contact him directly at [email protected].
Fish studied as part of our classic Acid Rain study of the 1970s.
The iconic IISD-ELA cairn.
Cyndy Desjardins samples one of our lakes.
A docked boat at IISD-ELA’s Lake 239.
An artistic retelling of the ‘Great’ Fire of 1980 at IISD Experimental Lakes Area.
Dinner’s ready at IISD-ELA’s canteen—Hungry Hall.
IISD-ELA’s chemistry laboratory in the early days.
Lake 223 as it has never been seen before.
Out on Lake 223 to visit the weather station.
The beautiful vastness of Lake 223.
Looking out across the dock (of the bay) at Lake 239.
Ready to set out on to Lake 240 at IISD-ELA.
Floating Treatment Wetlands (otherwise known as Nature’s Boxed Beauties) out on Lake 260, sopping up nutrients.
Snippets of Cabin Five.
Lunchtime chatter during a well-earned break at the world’s freshwater laboratory.
The Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorder at our Meteorological Site.
Mike Paterson takes his backpack out to check the weather at our Meteorological Site.
Mysis, which disappeared from an acid rain-blighted lake back in 1970s has just been reintroduced back into a lake to celebrate our fiftieth year.
A Northern Black Bullhead looking joyful.
Just a smattering of some of our wonderful staff and students.
… and some more …
… oh, and a few more!
A sketch of a 1974 photo of Rawson Lake.
One of the cabins known as Schindlers Cabin, affectionately named after IISD-ELA legend David Schindler.
Some of the equipment on which we depend heavily in our chemistry laboratory.
Some of the equipment on which we depend heavily in our chemistry laboratory.
Some of the equipment on which we depend heavily in our chemistry laboratory.
Some of the equipment on which we depend heavily in our chemistry laboratory.
Learning how to use a seine net out on the lakes at IISD-ELA.
Exactly what it looks like—a detail of tree bark out at IISD-ELA.
A Yellow Perch giving us his best angle.
#ELA50 Then and Now: Recreating classic photos from the history of IISD Experimental Lakes Area
IISD Experimental Lakes Area turns 50 in 2018!
To celebrate, we are looking back through the archives, and have found twelve classic shots from the last 50 years of IISD-ELA. And never being content with focusing on the past, we decided to update them by recreating them with the current generation of staff and researchers.
Each month we will be revealing a new photo, so keep coming back…
January: A female researcher guides a helicopter towards Lake 223, in 1973 and 2018
February: Ken Beaty and Ken Sandilands take notes beside a lake in different decades
March: Chandra Rodgers and Mike Rennie relive a classic fish sampling shot
April: Two different decades. Same reliable analysis in our chemistry laboratory
May: The way we spend our downtime hasn’t changed much over the last 50 years
June: The IISD-ELA researchers have always been a multi-talented bunch…
July: Welcome to the world’s freshwater laboratory! Here is what the entrance to IISD Experimental Lakes Area’s camp looked like in 1969, and what it looks like now…
August: We celebrate the grand old tradition of “pouring” at IISD-ELA, decades apart.
September: Who would have known when we start sampling back in 1968 that our long-term dataset would still be maintained 50 years later…?
October: The safest way to recreate the Great Fire of 1980…
November: Pauline Gerrard proves herself to be a superstar limnologist 25 years apart…
December: Pauline Gerrard proves herself to be a superstar limnologist 25 years apart…
The IISD-ELA Fish Crew’s Top 8 Highlights of the 2015 Research Season
The fish crew had a busy field season at IISD Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA) in 2015!
First up, we added to the long-term ecological research (LTER) data set by studying all of the fish species present in a variety of lakes; several whole-ecosystem experiments successfully continued to examine the effects of factors such as mercury pollution, nanosilver and climate change on fish; we collaborated with external researchers and graduate students from a variety of institutions including the University of Manitoba, Lakehead University, Trent University, University of Toronto, Environment Canada, Milne Technologies, Sonotronics, and Kongsberg; and were pleased to provide expertise and hands-on field experience for several high school and university field courses.
Here are eight photos that depict our highlights from the past field season:
- Fish research doesn’t stop when the lakes are ice-covered! Our fish-tracking receivers stay in the lake throughout the year to track depths and spatial positions of fish in several IISD-ELA lakes. Biologist Lee Hrenchuk puts a receiver back into the lake after downloading the data in January 2015.
- In May we started testing out some new fish tags with lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) in Lake 658. These tags get attached to the outside of the fish and measure the temperature and oxygen concentrations of the water as the fish swims around.
- Each year before the water warms up we perform a few surgeries to implant tracking tags in lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush). These tags send out signals every few minutes that are detected and recorded by the tracking system in the lake. By tracking these fish, we can figure out where they like to hang out, what depths they prefer, and how they interact with one another. Biologists Lee Hrenchuk (left) and Chandra Rodgers are the surgeons for this lake trout. You can watch a video of the surgery process here.
- To track tagged fish in the lakes, we set out arrays of receivers called VR2Ws (black oblong item on left). These receivers are submerged in the lakes, attached to an anchor and a float. Twice a year, we pull up the systems and download the data. Here, fish crew field assistant Phil Anderson gets ready to deploy a receiver in Lake 224.
- IISD-ELA hosted a field course for five students from two Winnipeg high schools. Two of the students conducted independent research projects to assess minnow bait preference and escape from minnow traps on Lake 114. Here, the students are sorting minnows by species into different buckets for counting.
- Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne (centre, in pink) stopped by IISD-ELA while on a canoe trip in September. After giving her a tour of the camp, she helped us pull in a beach seine net on Lake 240 to capture some yellow perch.
Photo credit: Lauren Hayhurst.
- The spring and fall at IISD-ELA involve a lot of trap netting for the fish crew. These nets are efficient, passive methods of collecting lots of fish in a short period of time without harming them. The image on the left shows an aerial view of two trap nets set in Lake 239 near the rocky lake trout spawning shoal. Trap nets capture fish of all sizes and can be very heavy when they are full! In the photo on the right, field assistant Phil Anderson (left) and Biologist Chandra Rodgers remove the catch from a trap net in Lake 224. These fish will be weighed, measured, some will be tagged, and then released back into the lake.
Photo credit: AJ Chapelsky.
- Lake trout, one of our key study species, spawn on shoals of rock cobbles in shallow water when water temperatures drop below 12° C (usually in October). The calorie-rich eggs make good food for egg predators like this bottom-dwelling slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus) who come onto the shoals and stuff themselves with eggs. You can even see the shape of an egg protruding from this sculpin’s belly!
