By: Gerry Klein

The magnificent remnants of a 45-million-year-old enchanted forest in Canada’s Arctic have become the battleground between University of Saskatchewan and University of Pennsylvania researchers.

Jim Basinger, a paleo-botanist who heads the U of S geology department, has worked on the fossilized forests on Axel Heiberg Island, well above the Arctic Circle, for bout 15 years.

This past summer his expedition came face to face with a well-funded team from the American university that Basinger feels pulled an end run on his work and may put it – and the fragile and tiny site – in jeopardy.

The forest grew during a warm period in earth’s past when giant redwood- and cypress-like trees could exist at a latitude where they would be thrown into a relatively warm, dark night for four months of the year. This allowed the development of a unique and magical biosystem with plants and animals adapted specifically to live during the four-month period of daylight and the equally long period of darkness.

By luck, evidence of that mysterious would was buried in a wet grave that allowed the forest and its floor to be preserved in a mummified form rather than being petrified or turned to coal. Forty-five million years of burial, then erosion, have finally exposed the tiny portion of that forest which Basinger has been studying since the mid-1980’s.

But the remains tell such a unique story, Art Johnson and Ben LePage from the U of Penn also want a chance to conduct their own research in the area.

At stake is this very fragile area, Basinger said in a recent interview. Also at stake is Canada’s apparent inability to control and protect such a fragile environment.

Basinger hopes the experience over this one unique corner of the planet will help convince the federal government it must take control of such matters and put proper scientific evaluation and protection in place so that a similar situation doesn’t happen again.

Johnson also hopes Canada will get it’s act together. He feels his team did nothing wrong, went through all the hoops in order to get permission from the federal and Nunavut governments and was diligent is protecting the fragile environment and making sure there will be something for future generations to study.

The problem is the fundamental difference that exists between the way Canadian and American scientists conduct their work, Basinger said. In Canada, where underfunding is a constant problem, researchers tend to take a conservative and long-term view of research.

Canadian scientists – particularly in the Arctic where research work is costly and access is restricted to a short period each year and difficult to attain – tend to conduct their work and publish incrementally and plan to come back year after year.

American researchers have access to a much greater pool of funds and like to come in with a larger team and get the job done. That is exactly what LePage and Johnson did after getting a $1.6-million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Using expensive equipment and a relatively large team, they went to the site this summer and conducted a survey, identified large logs and stumps, dug a trench to retrieve buried logs and identify the various kinds of forest floor and used chainsaws to extract samples in order to learn what kind of world could grow such wonders.

The crews didn’t work haphazardly or in a manner that endangered the site, Johnson said in an interview from Pennsylvania.

"Our proposal was reviewed by a group of scientific peers," he said.

Initially, it was deemed to have a strong scientific background but some concern was expressed over the impact it would have on the site. In light of that, LePage and Johnson re-submitted a proposal reducing the excavation from a proposed 3,000 square metres to 150 sq. m. he…….

Using non-invasive ground-penetrating radar, the American crew prospected log locations and eventually dug up 37 logs, each of which was sticking out of the ground on one end and the crews dug back to the permafrost. The logs were measured, samples were taken and then the logs were returned and mapped according to a global-positioning satellite, Johnson said.

"We really didn’t have a major impact on the site."

Since their last visit, however, they feel they have come under attack by Basinger and the Canadian press. This is a strange and awkward position for both Johnson and LePage. A couple of decades ago Johnson was the darling of the Canadian media because of his groundbreaking work on acid rain which helped lead to changes in American environmental law to save Eastern lakes.

LePage is also stung by the apparent Canadian nationalism turned against him. Although he is a partner in this research project and works at the U of Penn, he was born and raised in Saskatoon, graduated from the U of S and was one of Basinger’s graduate students.

……. Asked Basinger to collaborate on the project and help up the likelihood that Basinger could qualify for a significant U.S. grant if he hitched his wagon to their efforts.

"In the U.S., all ecological projects are collaborative," Johnson said. "I have done projects with about 20 different scientists and we always carry those things out in an open and collaborative fashion.

"That’s how it’s done in the United States."

The American researchers aren’t sure whether they are the victims of an effort by Canadian media and scientists to squeeze out more money for Arctic research from tight-fisted federal granting agencies, are caught in a web of scientific nationalism or whether Basinger is overly protective of a rare and wonderful resource.

"(Basinger) is certainly trying to keep us off the site," Johnson said. "We don’t know why but he has even tried to keep one of his former graduate students (LePage) off the site."

The whole thing made Johnson feel as if he had inadvertently walked onto the junction of two trains, one having to do with Canadian underfunding and one having to do with excessive conservation.

"We didn’t see either train coming."

Basinger admits he is protective of a site that has taken up much of his professional work but delicate nature and magic of the forest justify that protection, he says.

Over a period of 10 to 15 years, U of S teams have accumulated a significant library of specimens from the modern site but there is no way to transport the magic of the location to Saskatoon.

It takes field research on this isolated northern island to impart the wonder of a world that could produce such a diverse biosystem at such a latitude. The site is so amazing and remote it has become a favorite stop on eco-tours and for people from the relatively close military base at Eureka to drop by and, sometimes, trample or pick up 45-million-year-old souvenirs.

But Parks Canada feels the location is too far from any of its parks to give it any heritage designation. While UNESCO considered it for a United Nations World Heritage site, it needs to be protected by the federal government first, Basinger said.

While he is intransigent about the need to protect the site, Basinger denies he’s opposed to others conducting science there – and has, in fact, collaborated with scientists from other countries on the site. It’s the way this was done that shakes him, he said.

He first got wind of the American expedition about three years ago when, by serendipity, he was at the site with a group of students when LePage and Johnson showed up to do a little reconnaissance of the area. Both were taken by surprise to see the other, Basinger said.

After spending so many years as the world’s top expert on the site, he had anticipated the courtesy of being notified if someone else wanted to do work on the site.

He heard nothing more until LePage showed up in his office with an offer of the likelihood of a substantial grant if he were to collaborate with a project Basinger found absolutely unacceptable, partly because it included the excavation of 3,000 sq. m of the site – enough to totally wipe out almost all the outcrops of ancient forest, he said.

He became so concerned he contacted the major groups concerned with the conservation of the area and an effort was launched to make sure no one would grant permission for such a project.

He never heard back from the Polar Continental Shelf Project, the chief organization that logs and approves research projects in the Arctic. The Polar Shelf web site still only lists Basinger’s project.

This led him to believe the American university had abandoned the project.

He first realized he was wrong when he was in Resolute waiting for a flight to the site and heard the U of Penn people had already been up there for a week, Basinger said.

While Basinger is confident the American scientists will conduct good research, the nature of the project and the way the U.S. researchers get funding is a concern, he said.

For example, he feels the Pennsylvania scientists could have used samples already removed from the Arctic and in laboratories at the U of S for most or all of the work they plan to conduct. He says they may have required the high impact of an expedition for the type needed to secure future funding.

The high-intensity U.S. research project puts all future work by Canadians in jeopardy, he said.

In order to get government grants or for graduate students to write theses, researchers have to come up with something unique. If a graduate student spends years researching a particular aspect of the forest only to be scooped by a research paper written based on the American project, that student must start over again, Basinger said.

"If I was a young faculty member I wouldn’t get involved in the Arctic. The risks are just too great and the money (for grants) isn’t there."

LePage feels he has the right to use the site, however. He spent about a decade working the site, while at the U of S and there is a lot of work he wants to see get done there, he said.

"We were moderately shocked to see press reports when they came out (because of the anti-American tone)," he said. "For example, my name never came out in the reports."

Up until this year he felt he maintained a good relationship with the U of S researcher, he said. He feels Basinger is becoming determined to keep the site only to himself.

"A lot of scientists become very possessive about their sites. I have a different philosophical approach."

That approach is to open the site up to all scientists, he said.

Scientists at both universities agree, however, on the need for more solid funding for Arctic research.

"I don’t have any bad feelings (toward Basinger)," Johnson said. "I know we have done a responsible job of protecting the site and we tried to be collaborative and I would support them in every way (when it comes to getting better funding)."

Basinger insists he also has nothing against collaborating – and has done so with Japanese scientists.

But collaboration means getting the chief scientist on board early and al he was offered was a completed proposal and a chunk of money.

While the money would have been appreciated and the project could have brought him much wider acclaim, it wasn’t enough to balance against the risk he sees in the U of Penn project.

"I can’t be bought," Basinger said.