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….
New members may join and
memberships may be renewed in person at the
meetings or by mailing this
form. Note: Dues can be paid by
Interac e-transfer to dterroux@sympatico.ca The Executive John
Gilbert (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. Anne Adams
Simpson (Vice-President) was born and
raised in British Columbia, but she
moved to Ottawa to study and 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 is now a Senior Advisor
for Northern Affairs Canada.
Personally and professionally, Anne
has a passion for the North. Kathleen
Tipton (Past -President) graduated from
Ryerson’s School of Interior Design in Toronto in
1985. Her thesis centred on a proposal for the
design and construction of a Scientific Resource
Centre situated near Radstock Bay on Devon Island,
Nunavut. The Government of Canada produced a White
Paper on the subject of a resource centre for
Maxwell Bay one month following the publication of
her thesis. She moved to Finland in 1986 to work
with various architectural firms, and in 1995
co-founded Arkos Arkkitehdit, a multidisciplinary
design cooperative. During this period she also
studied architecture at Helsinki University of
Technology as well as Finnish, philology, film and
Russian architectural history at the University of
Helsinki. After returning to Canada, she embarked
on aircrew training in 2005 with the Royal
Canadian Air Force at the Canadian Forces Schools
of Aerospace Control Operations (Cornwall) and Air
Navigation (Winnipeg), finishing a course of study
in Borden at the CF School of Administration and
Logistics as an Air Logistics Officer in
Transportation and Air Movements in 2010. She
returned north of the 60th parallel in
2015, serving as Liaison Officer for CJOC’s Joint
Task Force North, Detachment Yukon. In 2018, she
received the Commissioner’s Commendation Award
from the Honourable Doug Phillips, Commissioner of
Yukon, for her excellence while serving as the
Commissioner’s military aide-de-camp. Currently in
Ottawa with Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group
J4 in charge of infrastructure for CAF TG
Transition Units and Transition Centres across
Canada. 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
2025 Bea
Alt
(Biography to
follow) 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)
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. Caroline
Forcier
Holloway, is
an Arctic
researcher and
a retired
Senior
Audiovisual
Archivist from
Library and
Archives
Canada (LAC),
who holds an
undergraduate
degree in
history from
the University
of Ottawa. Her
interest in
the Arctic
evolved as a
Reference
Archivist and
expanded when
she became the
archivist for
Indigenous and
Northern
Content, and
Oral History.
During her
career,
Caroline
conducted
professional
interviews for
the Workers’
History
Museum, LAC,
and academic
journals. In
particular,
she
co-produced
the video Lure
of the Lens: A
father and
son’s
experience of
the North,
mixing an
interview she
conducted with
silent home
movies of an
RCMP
constable’s
activities in
the Yukon in
the 1930s.
Caroline also
interviewed
filmmaker
Roger Racine,
a young
National Film
Board recruit,
about his
extreme cold
weather
filming during
the Canadian
military’s
Exercise
Musk-Ox in
1946. In 2009,
at a Nunavut
10th
anniversary
celebration in
Ottawa,
Caroline first
publicly
screened Inuit
Scenes at
Avvajja,
Igloolik,
a rediscovered
archival film
made in 1937
by
archaeologist
Graham Rowley,
documenting
Inuit and
places
encountered
while
excavating
with the
British-Canadian
Arctic
Expedition.
The
rediscovery
inspired
Caroline to
survey LAC’s
film
collection for
footage of
northern
content
revealing
sizable
amounts of
footage on
Arctic
expeditions,
contributing
towards the
Arctic’s
narratives of
the
relationship
between Inuit
and explorers,
and eventually
aligning with
the Truth and
Reconciliation
Commission’s
Calls to
Action, LAC’s
digitization
initiative,
and the
decolonization
of archival
descriptions.
Currently, as
an archivist
with the
Nunavut
Archives
Program,
Government of
Nunavut,
Caroline is
processing the
Thomas H.
Manning papers
and collection
of rare
literature on
Arctic
exploration,
which the
Arctic
explorer and
zoologist
willed to the
people of
Nunavut. She
is also
working on a
biography of
Thomas H.
Manning and a
bibliography
of his
scientific
publications
and
collections. Edward
(Ted) Johnson, OC,
has worked in
the
government,
business and
not-for-profit
sectors. He
has been a
repeat visitor
to Canada’s
Arctic since
the nineteen
seventies and
participated
in some
sixteen canoe
expeditions
North of
Sixty,
including what
are believed
to be first
descents of
the Ruggles,
Rowley,
Isortoq and
Ajaqutaliq. He
is a Fellow of
the Royal
Canadian
Geographical
Society and
the Royal
Geographical
Society, and a
Member of the
Arctic Circle
for over
thirty years. 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.
Peter
MacKinnon is a
management
consultant and
academic.
He has a
professional
background
built on a
wide range of
experiences
derived from
holding
positions as a
scientist,
business
manager,
entrepreneur,
bureaucrat,
executive,
diplomat,
management
advisor and
academic.
His
experiences
span the
world.
He has worked
with clients
on every
continent and
a number of
island
nations. Dr.
R.I. Guy
Morrison is a
Scientist
Emeritus at
the National
Wildlife
Research
Centre of
Environment
and Climate
Change Canada,
following a 38
year career
researching
shorebirds for
the Government
of Canada. He
continues
active
research,
specializing
in aerial
surveys for
Red Knots and
other
shorebirds in
North and
South America.
Dr. Morrison's
work has had a
profound
impact on the
conservation
of Arctic
shorebirds.
His
low-altitude
aerial
population
surveys of
migratory
sites in South
America,
Central
America and
Mexico led to
the creation
of the
Western
Hemisphere
Shorebird
Network, which
currently
protects 120
key sites used
by shorebirds
in 20
countries
stretching
from Alaska to
Tierra del
Fuego. A role
model and
mentor to
ornithologists
throughout the
Americas, he
continues to
spend
considerable
time in the
field and, in
recent years,
has focused on
Arctic bird
species that
are the most
vulnerable to
climate
change. In
2016, Dr.
Morrison was
appointed as a
Member of the
Order of
Canada. David Pantalony (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. John Wright 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
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