Heroic Efforts - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 81

being a fait accompli . Marty Bergmann (then with Fisheries and Oceans Canada) and I
were given the task of preparing the first presentation on the objectives and possible costs
to the Canadian cabinet. The presentation was much changed by the time it reached the
cabinet room, but feedback told us it would be a hard sell. I retired soon after this, but
Marty moved on to become director of Canada's Polar Continental Shelf Program, where
he continued to be involved in IPY planning. We kept in touch, and from Marty, I learned
that much of the credit for securing Canada's commitment to IPY was due to the work of
Peter Harrison. In those years, Peter was roving between several Canadian environmental
ministries as a deputy minister. Marty's death in a plane accident at Resolute Bay in August
2011 was a great loss to Canada's Arctic scientific community.
The scientific organisation of the 2007-2008 IPY was quite different from that of its
predecessors. Gone was the singular focus on geophysics. Instead, more than 200 projects
were undertaken that supported one or more of the six themes. They are documentation of
the current status ofthe environment inpolar regions; understanding environmental andso-
cial change and projecting future change; linking polar environmental processes with other
regional and global processes; investigating the frontiers of science in the polar regions;
using the unique features of the polar regions to study terrestrial and cosmic geophysics;
and investigation of the cultural diversity, resilience and sustainability of circumpolar hu-
man societies. Interdisciplinary observational strategies were then developed to address the
six research themes. A number of the most recent advances in knowledge included in this
story came from the 2007-2008 IPY.
More than 60 countries participated in the 2007-2008 IPY. It will go into the history
topics as setting a new standard for how an international heroic effort can be organised and
executed. Much attention was given to showing the general public why the research themes
were and are important. More than 50 of the projects were related to education, outreach
and policy implications. One such project created the Association of Polar Early Career
Scientists (APECS) that has become an ongoing legacy of IPY. It continues to promote in-
teraction and cooperation between students and young and established researchers. Organ-