Lake Nipissing Research Articles

Beading relations: Reimagining, remapping, and remembering through The Lake Nipissing Beading Project

ABSTRACT As members of the Lake Nipissing Beading Project Collective, we reflect on a community-beaded map project that evolved from a partnership between Nipissing University, Nipissing First Nation, and Dokis First Nation, rooted in the traditional lands of the Nbisiing Nishnaabeg on Robinson Huron Treaty (1850) territory. The Lake Nipissing Beading Project (LNBP) emerged in 2020 as a gesture of community care in response to the socio-spatial challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The traveling beaded map installation reimagines, remaps, and remembers Lake Nipissing and surrounding watersheds through a collaborative process rooted in relationality and reciprocity. Critically situating and subsequently “taking back” provincial geospatial imagery, the project presents one attempt to decolonize geographical tools through creative intervention that combines storytelling practices of beading and countermapping. We reflect on the multi-layered histories enlivened through project activities, including those of our community-academic partnerships. We discuss what it means to recognize the beaded map as a living relation and carrier of living stories, re-orienting spatial knowledges toward an intentional ethics of care and community-led stewardship. In doing so the project re-centers Nbisiing Nishnaabeg relationships to, with, and through the lake.

Sediment records from Lake Nipissing (ON, Canada) register a lake-wide multi-trophic response to climate change and reveal its possible role for increased cyanobacterial blooms

Recurring cyanobacterial blooms have been reported in Lake Nipissing (Ontario, Canada) since at least 2000. However, monitoring data indicate that surface water nutrient concentrations have not increased over the past ∼45 years in this large, shallow, mesotrophic lake. Applying paleolimnological methods, we establish baseline environmental conditions and extend the Lake Nipissing water quality data to pre-industrial times. Lake-wide assessment of changes in nutrient status, algal production, and effects of climate warming are provided by examining: 1) modern and pre-industrial sedimentary diatom assemblages from nine locations; 2) temporal trends in sedimentary photosynthetic pigments over ∼200 years from five locations; and 3) detailed sedimentary profiles of diatom and chironomid assemblage composition from Callander Bay, spanning the past ∼200 years. A pronounced shift in diatom assemblage composition was registered at all sites with pre-industrial sediments dominated by Aulacoseira spp. and modern samples dominated by Discostella stelligera. The detailed diatom analysis for Callander Bay indicated that this shift occurred ca. 1990. Since ca. 1975, cyanobacterial production (spectrally inferred from sediments) exceeded the ∼200-year mean and matches the observed increase in bloom reports. Twentieth century shifts in chironomid assemblages in Callander Bay from Procladius to Chironomus spp. dominance indicate lower hypolimnetic oxygen in recent decades. Collectively, these changes suggest that previously polymictic Lake Nipissing is now experiencing periods of thermal stratification and development of transient anoxia in bottom waters. These conditions are more prevalent and widespread in modern Lake Nipissing, consistent with a response to recent warming, decreased wind speed, and a longer ice-free period.

The continuing power of Nd isotope mapping in Precambrian orogenic belts: A demonstration from the Ontario Grenville Province

With the increasing availability of U-Pb-Hf isotope analysis of zircon suites, does whole-rock Nd isotope analysis still have a role to play in mapping Precambrian gneiss terranes? I answer this question by examining the Ontario Gneiss Belt of the Grenville Province, and show that Nd isotope mapping still has a vital role to play in studies of Precambrian crustal evolution. Although U-Pb-Hf isotope analysis of detrital zircons can provide large suites of crystallization ages and epsilon Hf values, the poor spatial control of these data means that precise geographical control of crustal structure from Nd isotope mapping is still important. I demonstrate this for several regions of the Ontario Gneiss Belt, including northern Algonquin Park, western Lake Nipissing and Georgian Bay. In all these regions, mapping complex geographical patterns of crustal formation ages allows detailed documentation of large-scale crustal structure. Only with such an accurate understanding of crustal structure can accurate models of tectonic evolution be constructed in a complex, deeply exhumed orogenic belt such as the Grenville Province.

Receipts and Receipts NB

This paper reports on two iterations of our ongoing Receipts project. The project serves as a means to experiment with and propose processes that use social practice and machine learning technologies to prepare testimonies and listeners to more clearly and impactfully speak, hear, and feel what it is like to respond to mimetic trauma and be part of an equity-deserving group in public space. The work is guided by the following question: How can the process of facilitating the preparation and presention of anonymized testimonies of discriminatory aggression in public spaces with the witnesses and victims of said agressions create structures of accountability, solidarity, healing, and community? The first project, Receipts (2020), was presented as part of The Bentway’s Safe in Public Space program in Toronto, and addressed anti-Asian aggression in public spaces. The second project, Receipts NB, in collaboration with ArtFix, an organization that works with artists with substance abuse and mental health lived experience in North Bay, will address the stigmatization and isolation of this community during the pandemic. It will be presented as part of IceFollies 2023, a week-long public art festival on frozen Lake Nipissing. These explorations emerge from and reflect upon a theoretical framework that connects visual culture, data creation, visual perception, cognition, machine learning processes, human-computer interaction, social practice and a practice-based framework for research-creation. The work is also informed by an approach to technoscience that uses a critical race, feminist, and decolonial lens. A necessary component of this framework is to prioritize equity through an emphasis on critical pedagogy, co-creation, and participatory art and design practice. The critical media art practices and processes of Receipts do not aim to replace identifying video as an important means of holding people accountable. Instead, we hope that the project can shape technical, social, cultural practices of testimony and listening and make collectivized community resistance resonate more deeply. We also reflect on how computer vision and artificial intelligence tools increasingly deployed as part of “smart city” infrastructures have been proposed as a means to address these issues in real time by predicting, identifying, and aggregating transgressions. Yet, in practice, these tools lack nuance, approximate and automate-out the importance of relationship building with communities, and have generally been used to identify patterns and build predictive surveillance that disproportionately disadvantages already discriminated-against groups. We hope that Receipts can serve as an example of how to engage the potentials of urban technology while also highlighting some of its pitfalls.

Size spectrum model reveals importance of considering species interactions in a freshwater fisheries management context

AbstractInland fisheries have a significant cultural and economic value around the globe, providing dietary protein, income, and recreation. Consequently, methods for monitoring and managing these important fisheries are continually being refined. In marine systems, multispecies size spectrum models have been increasingly used to explore management scenarios of important fish stocks within an ecosystem‐based fisheries management framework; however, these models have not been applied as extensively in freshwater systems. In this study, we developed a multispecies size spectrum model for the fish community of Lake Nipissing, a large, productive lake in Ontario, Canada. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully calibrated multispecies size spectrum model for an inland fishery. Using this model, we explored the impacts of potential fishing regimes and management scenarios on fish community dynamics while taking species interactions into account. Specifically, we examined how changes in fishing mortality affect (1) species biomass, (2) community size structure, and (3) stock recovery times. We found that community dynamics following changes in fishing mortality were driven by complex interactions among species, including competition and predation. The greatest changes in biomass and community size structure were observed following changes in fishing mortality of top predators, with community size structure most strongly influenced by changes in the mortality of the largest species. Counter to predictions based on generation time, the smallest species in our model exhibited the longest time to recovery due to strong competition and predation. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering species interactions in the management of inland fisheries and highlight the potential of size spectrum model use in freshwater systems.

Chloride and total phosphorus budgets for Lake Nipissing, headwater of Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada

Anthropogenic sources of total phosphorus (TP) and chloride (Cl−) to lakes and rivers have been issues of concern for many decades in the Great Lakes Basin with northern Boreal Shield headwater tributaries less well studied. In the Sturgeon River – Lake Nipissing – French River basin, a headwater basin of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, water quality monitoring of major inflows to Lake Nipissing, the third largest inland lake located entirely within Ontario, is only available from the mid-1960s to the 1990s. During the period of 2015–2018, we conducted monthly water quality surveys of major and minor inflows for two water years and have generated the first chloride (Cl−) and total phosphorus (TP) elemental budgets for the lake. Review of available long-term concentration data indicate decreasing TP concentrations by decade in major inflows, but select inflows continue to exhibit concentrations above provincial objectives, including inflows from agricultural areas that are no longer part of provincial monitoring programs. Some inflows also show high average Cl− concentrations with potential influences (e.g., road salt, agricultural activities) to stream water quality throughout the year. Water and elemental budgets indicate that while specific runoff (l/s/km2) is quite similar across contributing catchments, yields of Cl− and TP (kg/ha/yr) are disproportionately higher in catchments with urban and agricultural activities. While uncertainties in the water balance and elemental yields remain, this first effort to quantify annual elemental budgets of Lake Nipissing highlights the need to develop community-based, spatially distributed water quality surveying for long-term ecosystem monitoring and future planning.

Receipts

Videos from mobile phones and security cameras are one form of proof of the aggressions experienced by victims and witnesses of various forms of discrimination against equity-seeking individuals and groups in public spaces. At the same time, people do not always feel that they can safely record an incident or easily gain access to archived data. They may also need time and space to process what they have experienced. Furthermore, official channels to lodge complaints are often exclusionary, byzantine, isolating, individuating, demoralizing cul-de-sacs. The result is that the experiences and voices of victims and witnesses of hate and discrimination in public spaces are often diluted or silenced. Computer vision and artificial intelligence tools increasingly deployed as part of “smart city” infrastructures have been proposed as a means to address these issues in real time by predicting, identifying, and aggregating transgressions. Yet, in practice, these tools lack nuance, approximate and automate-out the importance of relationship building with communities, and have generally been used to identify patterns and build predictive surveillance that disproportionately disadvantages already discriminated-against groups. This paper will report on two iterations of our ongoing Receipts project. The project serves as a means to experiment with and propose processes that use social practice and machine learning technologies to prepare testimonies and listeners to more clearly and impactfully speak, hear, and feel what it is like to respond to mimetic trauma and be part of an equity-deserving group in public space. The work is guided by the following question: How can the process of facilitating the preparation and presention of anonymized testimonies of discriminatory aggression in public spaces with the witnesses and victims of said agressions create structures of accountability, solidarity, healing, and community? The first project, Receipts (2020) — https://receipts.publicvisualizationstudio.co/ — was presented as part of The Bentway’s Safe in Public Space program in Toronto, and addressed anti-Asian aggression in public spaces. The second project, Receipts NB, in collaboration with ArtFix, an organization that works with artists with substance abuse and mental health lived experience in North Bay, will address the stigmatization and isolation of this community during the pandemic. It will be presented as part of IceFollies 2023, a week-long public art festival on frozen Lake Nipissing. These explorations emerge from, and reflect upon a theoretical framework that connects visual culture, data creation, visual perception, cognition, machine learning processes, human-computer interaction, social practice and a practice-based framework for research-creation. The work is also informed by an approach to technoscience that uses a critical race, feminist , and decolonial lens. A necessary component of this framework is to prioritize equity through an emphasis on critical pedagogy, co-creation , and participatory art and design practice. The critical media art practices and processes of Receipts do not aim to replace identifying video as an important means of holding people accountable. Instead, we hope that the project can shape technical, social, cultural practices of testimony and listening and make collectivized community resistance resonate more deeply.

Maternal Effects on Embryonic Development and Survival in Walleyes of Lake Nipissing, Ontario

AbstractLife history theory predicts that females may increase reproductive allocation with advancing age as the probability for future reproduction diminishes. In iteroparous fishes, increasing age is usually accompanied by increasing fecundity, but evidence of increasing offspring quality is less consistent. We examined the developmental rate and survival of Walleye Sander vitreus embryos with respect to female age, size, condition, and various ova traits in an exploited stock dominated by young spawners. Embryo batches from individual females were collected in the field on multiple dates and reared to hatch under controlled conditions in both flow‐through and static incubation systems. Survival and thermal inputs to hatch (TU50) were analyzed with respect to spawn date, incubation method, and both maternal and ova traits. Spawning date had a relatively strong effect on embryo survival but only a minor effect on TU50, whereas incubation method had a small effect on survival but a stronger effect on TU50. Embryos reared in static incubators required greater thermal inputs to reach hatch. Using a model selection approach to assess the effects of maternal and ova traits, we found that neither maternal age nor size were strong predictors of survival or TU50. Instead, survival was more strongly related to egg size and fatty acid composition, and TU50 was not strongly related to any maternal or ova trait. Our results suggest that the nature and magnitude of maternal effects on early development and survival may vary among Walleye stocks, modified by physical conditions during incubation.

Regeneration of black ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) in hardwood swamps of the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Forest Region

An inductive, ordination-based approach was used to explore patterns in the microenvironment and natural regeneration of black ash across a range of representative stands in the central Ontario portion of the Great Lakes -St. Lawrence Forest Region (GLSL) near Lake Nipissing, Ontario, Canada. The objective of this study was to describe patterns of regeneration of black ash and determine the associations between multiple indicators of black ash regeneration success and biotic and abiotic factors. Using a randomized sampling design with specific selection criteria, 12 black ash stands were sampled, each with three 400 m2 circular sample plots that contained three 4 m2 sub-plots. A suite of environmental variables such as elevation, topographic wetness index, slope, and soil characteristics (percent moisture, pH, total nitrogen, exchangeable phosphorus, potassium, magnesium) were determined for each stand. Variables capturing regeneration potential, including density, diameter, and height of all germinants, seedlings, saplings and sprouts were also collected. A sample of 15 dominant or co-dominant trees in each stand, as well as numerous black ash seedlings, saplings and sprouts were examined using dendrochronological methods to estimate ages. Principal component analysis ordinations were performed exploring the variation in environment and black ash regeneration variables among the stands. High soil moisture and the presence of canopy gaps, (as indicated by high standard deviation of canopy closure), were key variables associated with greater abundance of regeneration. Black ash was the dominant species in all stands, which were also generally characterized by a common reverse-J diameter distribution. It was observed that black ash in the sapling layer reached substantial ages (up to 60 years), indicating they are capable of withstanding long periods of suppression below the canopy. Collectively, these findings suggest that black ash-dominated stands in the study area are regenerating in multiple cohorts. Based on these patterns, it appears that regeneration in these stands is occurring through gap-phase mechanisms, suggesting single tree selection as the best management option for black ash in the GLSL.

Upper Ordovician (Sandbian–Katian) carbonate outliers in the northern Ottawa–Bonnechere graben (central Canada): records of transgressions and sedimentation patterns in the Laurentian platform interior

Small Ordovician sedimentary outliers, including Brent Crater, within the northern Ottawa–Bonnechere graben are remnants of a once expansive Upper Ordovician sedimentary cover extending across the southern Canadian Shield. Facies successions along with updated macrofossil and conodont biostratigraphy, and isotope (C, O, Sr) chemostratigraphy provide additional insights into the terrestrial-to-marine transformation, carbonate-platform development, and oceanographic communication across the southern Laurentian platform. Four of the outliers document Sandbian shoreline-to-nearshore deposition: near Deux Rivières, Manitou Islands, the upper part of the Brent Crater sedimentary fill, and at nearby Cedar Lake. Marine transgression initially reworked local fine-grained to boulder-rich regolith within high-energy shoreface siliciclastic environments that gave way to low- to high-energy inner carbonate-ramp setting. Continued transgression resulted in more offshore rhythmic and diverse lithofacies successions defining mixed heterozoan, photozoan, and microbial productivity and marine isotope (C, Sr) signatures, but δ13C excursions suggest periods of greater mixing of terrestrial and marine carbon reservoirs. Lower Katian strata are preserved near Lake Nipissing and characterize deepening from high-energy ooid-heterozoan skeletal shoals to deeper water mid-ramp siliciclastics and skeletal carbonates, host to a Cruziana ichnofacies. An upsection decline in δ13C values through this succession may identify deposition during the post-peak decline of the global Guttenberg δ13C excursion. This lithic succession fits well with contemporary expansion of heterozoan skeletal lithofacies across the Laurentian platform, yet the presence of ooids identifies prevailing warm waters within the platform interior during early stages of transgression.

U–Pb geochronology of apatite and zircon from the Brent impact structure, Canada: a Late Ordovician Sandbian–Katian boundary event associated with L-Chondrite parent body disruption

In situ LA-ICP-MS U–Pb geochronology has been performed on apatite and zircon within thermally recrystallized clast-laden and clast-poor impact melt rocks from the Brent impact structure. A total of 377 laser analyses on 120 impact melt-grown (n = 9) and impact-recrystallized zircon grains (n = 111) were obtained, from which a concordia age of 452.8 ± 2.7 Ma (MSWD 0.57, n = 11), and a weighted average mean 206Pb/238U age of 453.2 ± 2.9 Ma (MSWD 0.60) (n = 11) are calculated. A total of 300 laser analyses from 100 relict apatite grains were obtained, with an unanchored regression through all data yielding a lower intercept age of 453.2 ± 6.0 Ma (MSWD 5.8, n = 300), that overlaps within error of zircon. 207Pb/206Pb ratios obtained from feldspar clasts within clast-laden impact melt retain the same initial Pb composition as the target rocks from which they are derived, while feldspars that crystallized from impact melt have 207Pb/206Pb ratios indicative of isotopic re-equilibration between basement lithologies of two different ages. A similar variability in 207Pb/206Pb is recorded by apatite. This provides evidence for the involvement of Neoproterozoic Lake Nipissing alkaline suite, as well as Mesoproterozoic Grenville gneisses in the production of impact melt at Brent. Recrystallized apatite grains exhibit enrichments in light rare earth elements (LREEs) along neoblast grain boundaries, indicative of trace element substitution and phase precipitation during impact-induced recrystallization. An age of 452.8 ± 2.7 Ma from zircon and 453.2 ± 6.0 Ma from apatite places the impact event in the Late Ordovician, at or near the Sandbian–Katian boundary, confirming Brent’s involvement in the Middle to Late Ordovician crater cluster event—a period of enhanced impactor flux to Earth related to the L-Chondrite parent body disruption.

Preliminary Analysis of Middle Holocene Lake-Level Change of Ancestral Lake Michigan, Wentworth Woods, Cook County, Illinois

Study of past lake-level change and isostasy in the upper Great Lakes has demonstrated the need to reconstruct relative lake-level history at each outlet during the Nipissing phase of ancestral Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Although elevation and age data exist for the Port Huron/Sarnia and Sault outlets of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, respectively, no paleohydrograph has been created for southern Lake Michigan near the Chicago outlet. The Wentworth Woods area of the Cook County Forest Preserve, Illinois, contains more than 30 beach ridges that formed during the rise and fall from the peak elevation of the Nipissing phase. These relict shorelines were vibracored to recover basal foreshore sediments that can be used as a proxy for lake-level elevation at the time of individual shoreline formation. In addition, sand samples from soil pits and vibracores were collected for optically stimulated luminescence age determinations. This report addresses the sedimentological data used to determine the elevation of the conjoined upper Great Lakes (Lake Nipissing) when each beach ridge formed. The age data will be presented in future reports.

Distribution of organically bound tritium (OBT) activity concentrations in aquatic biota from eastern Canada

A survey of eastern Canadian biota was conducted to determine the distribution of activity concentrations of organically bound tritium (OBT). Fish samples were collected from Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River in areas continuously receiving inputs of tritiated water (HTO) from operating nuclear power plants, and from Lake Nipissing, a background area. Components of their aquatic environments were sampled. The data collected also provides some insight on how tritium activity concentrations in ambient water influence tissue free water tritium (TFWT) and OBT activity concentrations in biological tissues.Using an ALOKA liquid scintillation system, fish TFWT and OBT were quantified. Fish TFWT averaged 1.6 ± 0.1 Bq/L in Lake Nipissing and 3.1 ± 0.3 Bq/L in Lake Ontario. In contrast, TFWT ranged from 11.1 to 80.8 Bq/L in the St. Lawrence River near the Gentilly-2 Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) site. Fish tissue OBT levels were 4.0 ± 0.4 Bq/L and 5.3 ± 0.2 Bq/L for Lake Nipissing and Lake Ontario, respectively, and between 18.1 and 134.2 Bq/L for CANDU sites.The activity concentrations of TFWT and OBT were reviewed for algae, freshwater mussel and various fish samples collected near Gentilly-2, Pickering and Darlington Nuclear Power Generating Stations. TFWT in aquatic biota was found to correlate with the tritium activity concentrations measured in waters at the time of sampling (TFWT/HTO of ambient water was 0.3–4.3). The OBT concentration factors (OBT/HTO of ambient water) were found to be higher in freshwater mussels (between 17 and 47) compared to algae and fish (0.3–10). These results point to a heterogeneous distribution of biota OBT content in these aquatic ecosystems. It was also noted that all fish and algae samples were found to be within the range of tritium activity concentrations that has been historically measured in the same waters. Values in freshwater mussels were above this range.

Explaining the Non-significant Changes in Ice-off Date over Six Decades at Lake of Bays and Lake Nipissing, South-Central Ontario

The phenomenon of non-significant trends in ice-off date under a warming climate was quantitatively explained by three efforts: exploring possible driving factors where possible and defining new factors to represent snow conditions, identifying the contributing factors through correlation and trend tests, and evaluating relative contributions through partial Mann-Kendall method. Why the ice-off became only slightly earlier over 62 years at Lake of Bays has been satisfactorily assessed: the increased winter temperature, increased total rain and decreased days of snow on ground acted as three promoting drivers to earlier ice-off date, but their promoting functions were effectively offset by adverse changes in four other factors (snowfall slope, precipitation slope, snowpack slope, and last day of snow). The ice-off date at Lake Nipissing did not have a significant trend over 58 years, although there were five factors contributing to the ice-off decline without sufficient offsetting, suggesting that the ice-off of this lake may not be sensitive, or basically elastic, to the climatic variation stressor. Relative contributions of drivers as calculated helped explain how much they contributed to ice-off trends or how much they offset the influences.

Consequences of winter air exposure on walleye (Sander vitreus) physiology and impairment following a simulated ice-angling event

Length-based harvest restriction is common in fisheries management and can result in a substantial number of fish being released after capture. Science on live release confirms that the practice allows individuals to return to the population and reproduce; however, little is known about how handling practices influence mortality or the sub-lethal physiological alterations in fish that are released during the winter. In this study, walleye (Sander vitreus; Mitchill 1818) were angled through the ice in Lake Nipissing, Ontario to evaluate the contribution of air exposure to the reflex impairment, post-release mortality, and the stress response of fish in the winter. Following 24 h holding, fish were exposed to a simulated angling event and exposed to air or snow across a range of exposure durations. Fish were non-lethally blood sampled and were assessed for reflex impairment and mortality 24 h after capture. No mortalities were recorded during the study and reflex impairment was not linked to exposure type or duration. Blood [lactate] at 1 h post-capture was comparable across treatment groups but was significantly higher than respective baselines. Plasma [cortisol], blood [glucose], and aspartate aminotransferase activities were comparable to baseline levels. Walleye appeared to be resilient to catch-and-release angling in the winter given that no mortalities occurred and fish suffered minimal reflex impairment and physiological disturbance following capture. Findings from this study suggest that mandatory catch-and-release regulations for sub-adult walleye are a useful tool for the management of winter walleye ice fisheries.

The Brent Crater: An Alkaline Igneous Complex

The Brent Crater was discovered in 1951 from aerial imagery. The Crater was thoroughly investigated in the 1950s to early 1970s. The consensus throughout this period of exploration was that the crater was the result of a chondrite impact. This theory was disputed in 1971 in a paper by K.L. Currie who proposed that the crater was the result of alkaline volcanic activity within the Nipissing Alkaline Petrographic Province which resulted in geochemically and morphologically similar formations in the area of Lake Nipissing. Little research has been conducted to further verify or dispute this theory since. A 1977 national Uranium reconnaissance program followed up by a 1983 and 1984 field exploration and airborne geophysics program located a verified alkaline volcanic structure 15 km east of the crater known as the Allan Lake Carbonatite. The geophysical and geochemical data acquired from this work was processed to create aweighted probability raster of indicator elements of alkaline igneous materials. The Allan Lake anomaly demonstrates a more significant anomaly than the anomaly present at the Brent Crater. This anomaly is proposed to be the result of higher erosional rates in the crater. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing lake sediment concentrations of indicator elements in the nearby lakes. Given the world-renowned status of the Brent Crater as an example of a chondrite impact crater, it is important to either confirm Currie’s theory as a fact or disprove the theory to allow the structure to continue to act as an analogue without uncertainty.

8. Does Oxidative Stress Function as a Biomarker of Environmental Mercury Contamination in Double-Crested Cormorant?

Mercury is a widespread contaminant that has been shown to induce a wide range of adverse health effects in several animal species including changes in gene expression. This study was undertaken to explore the relationship between environmental mercury exposure and oxidative stress induction in the blood of double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus). Blood was sampled at five sites across Central and Southern Ontario ranging from low to high risk of mercury contamination and was analyzed for total mercury concentration. To assess cellular oxidative stress, the expression of glutathione peroxidases 1 and 3, glutathione S-transferase µ3, superoxide dismutase 1 and heat-shock protein 70 kd-8 were measured in whole blood samples. Preliminary results indicate that erythrocyte mercury concentrations ranged from 5.0 to 27.3 µg/g dry weight. Mean (± standard error) site-specific erythrocyte mercury concentrations ranged from 9.0 ± 3.6 µg/g dry weight in Lake Erie to 17.5 ± 4.2 µg/g dry weight in Lake Nipissing. Approximately 27% of the birds exceeded the threshold concentration for adverse effects in another piscivorous bird, the common loon (Gavia immer). Results of gene expression analysis will be discussed in relation to mercury concentration. Our study will help to develop an understanding of the interactions of environmental mercury exposure and oxidative stress-related gene expression and will contribute to the development of sub lethal biomarkers for mercury toxicity in wild aquatic piscivorous birds.

The Postrelease Survival of Walleyes Following Ice‐Angling on Lake Nipissing, Ontario

AbstractNatural resource agencies have developed catch‐and‐release regulations for Walleyes Sander vitreus of prohibited size and number to reduce mortality in many recreational fisheries. The efficacy of such regulations is contingent upon the released fish surviving, but survival data on Walleyes captured by ice‐angling are lacking. We estimated the survival of Lake Nipissing (Ontario, Canada) Walleyes that were captured by both active and passive ice‐angling methods using a variety of hook types and lures baited with Emerald Shiners Notropis atherinoides. We also assessed the role of de‐hooking methods on the survival of deeply hooked Walleyes. After the angling event, Walleyes (n = 260) were held for 24 h in a submerged holding pen to estimate postrelease survival. Average mortality after the 24‐h holding period was 6.9%. Fewer Walleyes captured by active angling were deeply hooked (9.3%) than passively caught fish (50.4%), and deeply hooked Walleyes were observed to have more frequent postrelease mortality (14.8%) than shallow‐hooked Walleyes (3.0%). There was no significant difference in mortality rates of Walleyes caught by passive angling (9.8%) or active angling (2.8%); mortality rates of fish caught on circle hooks (6.1%), J‐hooks (8.2%), and treble hooks (5.6%) also did not differ. Neither air temperature nor the presence of barotrauma had a significant effect on mortality of captured Walleyes. Survival did not significantly differ between deeply hooked fish that had the line cut (11.1%) and those that had the hook removed (22.6%). Results from this study suggest a relatively high incidence of Walleye survival after catch‐and‐release angling through the ice.

Visual analytics of high-frequency lake monitoring data

In recognizing the cumulative effects of multiple stressors on altering aquatic ecosystem function, scientists have become increasingly interested in capturing high-frequency response variables using a variety of sensors. This practice has led to a demand for novel ways to visualize and analyze the wealth of data in order to meet policy and management goals. Time series data collected as part of these monitoring activities are not easily analyzed with traditional methods. In this paper, a visual analytics system is described that leverages humans’ innate capability for pattern recognition and feature detection. High-frequency monitoring of weather and water conditions in Lake Nipissing, a large, shallow, inland lake in northeastern Ontario, Canada, is used as a case study. These visualizations are presented as Web-based tools to facilitate community-based participatory research among scientists, government agencies, and community stakeholders. These analytics techniques contribute to collaborative research endeavors and to the understanding of the response of lake conditions to environmental change.

Revenge Against the Idol: Competing Magical Systems on the Detroit River, 1670

The Michigan Historical Review 43:2 (Fall 2017): 55-63©2017 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved Revenge Against the Idol: Competing Magical Systems on the Detroit River, 1670 By Martin W. Walsh Thirty years before the 1701 founding of Detroit, and nearly a decade before La Salle sailed his Griffin through the strait in 1679, the Detroit River was the scene of a major clash of cultures and a conspicuous act of iconoclasm. The first explorers to record passage through le Détroit were two Sulpician Fathers, and their adversary on this occasion was a stone idol situated on the river somewhere in the vicinity of Belle Isle. Until the end of the seventeenth century, the French route to the Great Lakes was by way of the Ottawa River to Lake Nipissing, then to Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. Lakes Ontario and Erie remained relatively unknown due to the hostile presence of the Iroquois Confederacy, particularly the Seneca Nation. When the French forged a treaty with the Confederacy in 1667, initiating a peace that lasted nearly twenty years, it opened a route to explore, map, and evangelize the Lower Great Lakes for the first time. Governor General Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle dispatched a combined missionary/exploratory expedition to the area headed by two Breton Sulpician priests, François Dollier de Casson, an ex-soldier, and René de Brehant de Galinée, together with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. The Sulpician Fathers (Compagnie des Prétres de Saint-Sulpice), founded only two decades before in 1647, were missionary rivals to the better-known Jesuits. The total expedition consisted of twenty-one men in seven canoes, along with two additional canoes of Seneca guides. They set off from Montreal on 6 July 1669. Galinée, a latecomer to the mission, was tasked with chronicling the voyage in a written report (procès-verbal) and mapping the newly explored areas, as he had some training as a surveyor. In the ensuing months, the joint expedition explored the southern shore of Lake Ontario and crossed the Niagara Peninsula at lake’s end, following the Grand River into Lake Erie. The first impression of the lake was under October gale winds, prompting Galinée to exaggerate that “there is perhaps no lake in the whole country in which the waves rise so 56 The Michigan Historical Review high because of its great depth and its great extent.”1 Erie’s weather would indeed prove their nemesis. Before forced into winter quarters near present-day Port Dover, Ontario, La Salle split from the Sulpicians, pursuing his own quest for the fabled river “Ohio.” The missionary party, now reduced to nine men in three canoes, spent a relatively comfortable winter on the north shore in what Galinée called le Paradis terrestre du Canada.2 It is not clear whether they had any Native guides at this point; an Amikwa (Nez Percé) captive obtained from the Seneca is the last mentioned by Galinée. After celebrating Easter on 6 April 1670, and with the lake still full of ice, they continued their traverse of Lake Erie. In the second week of April, after a long day’s paddling of some twenty leagues (40 miles), they reached the eastern shore of Point Pelee, a “beautiful sand beach” which today presents much the same look as it did then.3 The party was thoroughly exhausted from the day’s exertions, which caused them to leave their heavy packs on the beach and drag their canoes up to the tree line. During the night, a fierce northeaster racked the lake and a storm surge hit the beach, sweeping away much of the expedition’s equipment. Guns, ammunition, and provisions were sucked under the waves but most disastrously, their complete altar service was also lost. This altar service most likely consisted of a specially-constructed wooden case that would have opened out to present a consecrated altar stone with imbedded relics. The required Mass vessels—chalice and paten, with their vestments: the veil, pall, corporal, and purificator— would have been included, along with a crucifix, candles, and a missal, with possibly...