Christopher Burn
Chris Burn came to Canadian 1981as a Commonwealth Scholar and completed his Ph/D at Carleton University. He moved to the University of British Columbia to study with J. Ross Mackay, the world authority in environmental studies. In 1989, Chris was awarded an NSERC University Research fellowship and he went back to Carlton in 1992. Chris held an NSERC Senior Northern Research Chair at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University from 2002 to 2012, the length of the program.1)
Chris divided his research efforts between sites near Mayo, where he started work in 1982, and the Mackenzie Delta (since 1987), which he visited all year round. Chris made every effort to involve the Mayo community in the research program and hired local students every year between 1983 and at least 2003. An Inuvialuk [Douglas Esagok?] traveled with him while in the delta area. Near Whitehorse, school students were monitoring ground temperatures and the terrain response to forest fire. Each summer undergraduate students were hired to assist both the principal field research program and with graduate student projects. Chris' research centres on the impact of climate change on permafrost terrain. Long-term observations at Mayo have provided some of the few data from Canada on how permafrost is responding to present climate variation. The work at Mayo is also concerned with landform evolution as permafrost thaws and is actively examining the origin of the “drunken” forest, the characteristically tilted trees of boreal regions. In the Mackenzie delta area, the effort follows more directly in the footsteps of Dr. Mackay, with investigations on ground deformation near ice wedges, and ground movement during permafrost development in drained lakes, including the growth of pingos.2)
Chris Burn has dedicated his professional career to understanding permafrost environments through research in the western Canadian arctic, particularly in northern Yukon and the outer Mackenzie Delta area. Burn has been instrumental in solving and managing developmental, environmental, and social issues through his work in northern communities and agencies, and his work on advisory boards. By 2018, he had published 145 peer-reviewed articles on permafrost, landforms, and climate change in Yukon and western Canada. In 2018, Burns was awarded the Governor General of Canada’s Canadian Polar medal for his extraordinary services in Canada’s north. Burn credits the help of Douglas Esagok of Inuvik, and his connection to the Yukon community of Mayo. He has worked with many graduate students, seventeen of whom now live and work north of the 60th parallel.3)