Adventures In The Arctic

From sunny Durbanville to snowy Nunavut in the far north of Canada… It’s not a move that many people would take on, but Sam de Beer did. Long, dark winter days, temperatures of -50°C, polar bears…Who’s scared?

- Toast Coetzer

Nunavut is a huge, sparsely populated territory of northern Canada, mostly made up of islands. On a map, those islands look like haphazardly scattered puzzle pieces. It’s freezing cold and the winters are long and dark.

“The conditions from October to March are rough,” says Sam de Beer (64), an earth scientist and geologist. “Temperatures go as low as -50°C and there are persistent storms that bring wind chills of -65°C.”

It’s dark all day long. Towns near the Arctic Circle – anywhere above 66,5° north of the equator – never see a sunrise. Despite all this, Sam chooses to live here, in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. “We see the sun for only one hour per day in December,” he says matter-of-factly.

The obvious question is why? Sam works for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), a state department that looks after the interests of indigenous people – including the Inuit and Métis – when it comes to mining and exploration in the region.

“Work keeps me busy indoors in winter,” he says. “I study the geological reports submitted by different companies and look at their plans for the upcoming year. In summer we do fieldwork to look at the geology of the area, how the drilling of the mining companies is progressing, and where they are doing exploration work in the remote parts of the territory.”

The journeyman geologist