It's being called the largest Arctic adventure ever undertaken, a massive study into climate change in Canada's Far North.
Starting in two weeks, teams of scientists will begin setting off on expeditions aboard the Amundsen, a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that has been turned into a floating laboratory.
Their research over the next 15 months comes with a hefty price tag -- it will cost an estimated $40,000 a day just to operate the Amundsen. At Wednesday's official launch, Treasury Board president Vic Toews announced the federal government will kick in $25.5 million.
The work is useful for science as well as sovereignty, Toews said.
"It's not good enough anymore simply to rely on the Arctic Rangers to do all that work and establish a Canadian presence," he said.
"I think it's very important that we establish not only a military presence, but other presence, like this scientific one."
David Barber of the University of Manitoba is leading a 10-month study of flaw leads -- huge cracks in Arctic ice that create open bodies of water. The Arctic, he said, is a bellwether for how climate change will affect the rest of the planet.
And the complexities of climate change mean studies can't be properly conducted by a trio of graduate students on a shoestring budget.
"By investing this amount of money, we're doing a very large infusion into an area in the Arctic, creating a clearer crystal ball. It's still not perfectly clear, but it'll be better than what we had five years ago," Barber said.
"It's going to give us a context for how concerned we should be about climate change."
Steven Ferguson, a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, hopes the study will shed new light on global warming's effect on Arctic mammals such as polar bears, seals and whales.
"The sea ice is disappearing and we're worried about what's going to happen to them," Ferguson said.
"We don't know what will happen. This is all changing so fast."
Much of the research being conducted by Barber's team will take place around the flaw leads near Banks Island. This expedition will mark the first time a team will "overwinter" to look at flaw leads.
"We're going to spend a winter inside that feature," Barber said.
The complex project is part of the fourth International Polar Year, a worldwide research project on the Arctic and the Antarctic.
Though technology has advanced significantly since the first set of International Polar Year studies in 1882 -- when expeditions consisted of a handful of men heading north on dogsleds, some never to return -- this voyage still has its challenges.
The Amundsen's commanding officer, Capt. Stephane Julien, points out that the last group of International Polar Year explorers in 1957-58 did not have satellite images of the icy Arctic waters or a helicopter on board to use in emergencies.
"We have means they didn't have, but it's still dangerous," Julien said.
The Amundsen is scheduled to leave Quebec City on July 26 for the 7,000-kilometre journey to the western Arctic. Barber's study on flaw leads is expected to get underway in mid-October.
