The Arctic Circle is non-profit, volunteer organization made up of people who enjoy learning, talking and sharing information about the North.

The annual cost of membership is….

• Regular: (residents of the National Capital Region): $40.00
• Out of town: (living outside the National Capital Region): $30.00
• Students: $20.00

New members may join and memberships may be renewed in person at the meetings or by mailing this form or by sending an email with your name and contact information to treasurer@thearcticcircle.ca.

Note: Dues can be paid by cheque or by Interac e-transfer to: treasurer@thearcticcircle.ca

The Executive

Anne Adams Simpson (President) was born and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia, but she moved to Ottawa to study in 2012. She first became a member of the Arctic Circle in 2018 after attending several meetings with her grandfather, Peter Adams, who was a glaciologist and politician. In 2017, she had the opportunity to live in Yellowknife as part of her Master’s degree in International Affairs, experiencing the North for the first time. Beginning her career in negotiations with Crown-Indigenous Relations Canada, Anne then became Senior Advisor for Northern Affairs Canada. Anne then worked for the Inuit Circumpolar Council as the Policy Advisor on climate change for several years before returning to the federal government. Anne now works for the Department of National Defence in Intergovernmental Affairs and continues to volunteer for the Canadian Museum of Nature in her spare time.

John Wright (Vice-President) is originally from the UK, but following careers with the British Antarctic Survey and the British and Canadian Armies, he now calls Canada home. He has wide experience of both Polar regions and was awarded the British Polar Medal with Antarctic and Arctic clasp by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998. He has climbed and skied in many different parts of the world; it was his interest in mountaineering that led to his employment as a Field Guide with the British Antarctic Survey in the 1970s. He worked on the Polar Plateau and in the Shackleton Mountains and overwintered at Halley Station and unintentionally at the Argentine Belgrano Station. Throughout his subsequent military career John undertook expeditions to areas such as New Zealand, Greenland, Svalbard, and Borneo. Between family commitments he used periods of leave to guide on cruise ships in the Arctic. Since retiring from the Canadian Army John has expanded his guiding to include Antarctic cruises and has become an active fellow of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He has helped to secure significant historical artifacts for the Society including a sledge used on the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean and the last dog sled to be used in the Antarctic.

John Gilbert (Past-President) received his early education at King Alfred School under the headmaster Frederick Spencer Chapman, a member of the 1930-31 British Arctic Air-Route Expedition and the 1932–33 Greenland Expedition. Immigrating to Canada in 1953 he served as a Radio Operator at Resolute Bay and Eureka, Nunavut from 1956-58. He travelled to Eureka on the icebreaker D’Iberville. He then followed a career in telecommunications and information technology. He was the Executive Secretary of the 1984 Worldwide Commission on Telecommunications under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union, a UN specialized agency. He was associated for many years with UNESCO. John has maintained a life-long interest in the High Arctic and compiled a collection of photographs, documents and stories on the Joint Arctic Weather Stations: 1947-72 now held by the Nunavut Archives. He curated the 2014 exhibit "The Polar Adventures of Andrew Taylor" assisted by a Northern Studies Award and Research Grant Program from the University of Manitoba. John is a graduate of Carleton University and is married with two adult children.

Thomas Frisch (Secretary) is a geologist (BSc Hons, Queen’s University, 1962, PhD, University of California Santa Barbara, 1967) who spent his entire professional career with the Geological Survey of Canada. His first experience of the Arctic was as a student assistant on a GSC field party in central Ellesmere Island in 1962. Tom subsequently spent some 23 summers in the North, working in the Precambrian Shield of the Eastern Arctic, northern mainland and Greenland. Although he retired in 1996, Tom continued his association with the GSC on a volunteer basis until 2011. Besides geology, Tom’s interests extend to book collecting (geology and Arctica) and Arctic history.

David Terroux (Treasurer) (Biography to follow)

The Committee

January 2026

John Bennett is a specialist in Inuit culture and history. At the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (now ITK), he worked from the mid-1980s in the youth council program, and then as co-editor of the Inuit cultural magazine Inuktitut. Later as an independent researcher and writer he collaborated with Susan Rowley on the book Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut. John then worked in communications for the Canadian Polar Commission and its successor Polar Knowledge Canada, until 2023. John's interest in the Arctic was sparked by Graham Rowley, one of the Arctic Circle’s founders, with whom he studied in the MA program in Canadian Studies at Carleton University. Graham encouraged John to travel north to learn about the arctic directly from Inuit, which he was able to do thanks to Graham's assistance and the kindness of many people in Pangnirtung, Nunavut.

Chris Burn  (Biography to follow)

Isabel Campbell is a Senior historian at the Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters.  She has published Cold War Workers. Labour, Family, and Community in a Nuclear State, (McGill-Queens, 2025: Cold War Workers), and other peer reviewed articles and books on military and naval Cold War history, including “A re-assessment of the Royal Canadian Navy’s 1948 northern voyages into Hudson Bay and its place in oceanographic research,” https://doi.org/10.1177/0843871419874004.  She is currently publishing on Cold War operational intelligence, focusing upon the WRENS.  She is a Senior Fellow at the Bill Graham Centre at the University of Toronto and an adjunct research professor in the History Department of Carleton University.

Carole Gobeil was born and raised in a small community near the historic French River. That is where her love of the outdoors came about by also following the footsteps of the Algonquin people and canoeing the route of the French voyageurs.  She has enjoyed an eclectic career in the Travel and Tourism industry since 1974.  Her curiosity to discover the world has brought her to all 7 continents. In 2005, she had an opportunity to travel by expedition ship from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik and explore the communities along the shores of Ungava and Hudson Bay. This was a new tourism venture (Cruise North) operated by Makivvik Corp. On that first adventure, 5 nights of Aurora Borealis got her hooked to the Arctic.  For 20 years now, she has ventured to most Nordic regions from Siberia, Alaska, Canadian Arctic (Nunavik, Nunavut, Nunatsiavut, NWT, Yukon), Greenland and Norway by accompanying small groups and exploring new territories. Her hands on experience became a valuable resource to better assist her clients realizing their dream of visiting the Arctic one day.  She has many amazing stories of customized trips for individual Nordic seekers wanting a deeper connection to the north to accompanying many small groups over the years. She has been blessed to have experienced the raw and pristine Arctic in the first 10 years.  Today, the environment and climate has definitely been an influencing factor on how to navigate in the north.  On her first voyage to Baffin in 2006, she was one of 3 Canadian travellers on board to her last voyage in 2025 where the majority were Canadians. Helping Canadians discover their own backyard has always been one of her mottos.  She has also completed an 8 year mandate as a Board Director for Travel Nunavut from 2016 to 2024 representing the travel trade.

Doug Hodgson retired from Geological Survey of Canada after 40 years (33 field seasons; >100 tent camps) examining surficial materials (mostly from the last glaciation and subsequent marine transgression) on many Arctic islands and some subarctic tracts.

Grant Karcich (Biography to follow)

Tom Lukowski  holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Physics from McMaster University and a Master of Science from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. He was introduced to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) in the RADARSAT Project Technical Office in the early days of that satellite program. He continued with a career specializing in satellite systems and operations and in microwave remote sensing from airborne and spaceborne platforms particularly the calibration and exploitation of Synthetic Aperture Radar systems.  Tom continues to be active in both the national and international remote sensing communities and to share his expertise in remote sensing and SAR.  His interest in the Arctic was kindled in the 1990s when he participated in experiments studying the microwave signatures of sea ice in the North with the C/X-SARs on board the Convair-580 of the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing.  Tom has been President of the Arctic Circle and served two terms as a member of the Committee of the Arctic Circle.

Cassandra Marion is a planetary geoscientist (BSc Hons., University of Ottawa; MSc, Memorial University of Newfoundland; PhD, Earth and Planetary Institute, Western University). Her research focuses on meteorite impact craters and lunar and Martian analogue environments in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic. Through 13 northern field expeditions, she has developed extensive expertise in leading and managing remote Arctic research campaigns. She has contributed to expedition and geology training for Canadian and American astronauts and has participated in and led simulated robotic and human missions designed to prepare for future exploration of the Moon and Mars. In her current role as Science Advisor at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, Cassandra focuses on the development and delivery of science programming that bridges research, exploration, and public engagement.

David Pantalony holds a BA (Hons) in Experimental Neuropsychology from Queen’s University and an MA and PhD from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. He is Curator of Science and Medicine at Ingenium - Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation and is currently heading up the development of a national inventory of precision instrument culture in order to map and document evolving patterns related to instrument manufacturing skills, training, component and material supplies, and use by scientists. David was the winner of the 2012 Paul Bunge Prize in the history of scientific instruments and is an Adjunct Professor in the history department of the University of Ottawa.

Lesley Reid  (Biography to follow)

Laura Thomson is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University and Canada Research Chair (Tier-2) in Integrated Glacier Monitoring Practices. With a background in geophysics, she spent her MSc developing ground-penetrating radar techniques for the characterization of permafrost, and she later worked with the Cryosat-2 radar altimeter validation team at the European Space Agency as a Young Graduate Trainee. Today, her research group focuses on glacier mass balance monitoring and downstream impacts of accelerating melt on Arctic watersheds. Research in the Ice, Climate, and Environment Lab (ICELab) integrates field, remote sensing, and modelling techniques to support the detection of glacier changes, build process understanding, and improve future projections. She serves as Canada’s national correspondent to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, supporting the continuity and growth of glacier mass balance monitoring efforts in Canada.