Scientists use ice canoe to study St. Lawrence floes

Researchers equipped with an ice canoeundertook a four-day study on the St. Lawrence River's Ha! Ha! Bay this week that aims tofacilitatenavigation in icy regions of the world.

Dany Dumont, a research professor at Rimouski's Ocean Sciences Institute, told Radio-Canada that the study was designed to explore ice movements on the bay that his team has been capturing on video since 2013.

Time-lapse floe movements on Ha! Ha! Bay

9 years ago

Duration 0:13

Time-lapse video captured by the research team shows ice cover movement on the St. Lawrence River's Ha! Ha! Bay.

Dumont said the study's ultimate goal is to shed light on floemovements in the marginal ice zones in the Arctic and Antarctica, where open ocean meets sea ice cover.

"The ice cover is subjected to the impact of waves in the areasand understanding that interactionis very important as navigation intensifies in those areas," he said.

Also key to the Ha! Ha! Bay study was acquiring data on the extent to which ice cover limits wave movement.

"It's an opportunity to make use of a natural platform that is really the envy of laboratories around the world," Dumont said.