Prior to 1999, the Kuujjuarusiq was inaccessible to migrating Arctic charr due to a set of impassable falls upstream of the mouth of the river. Given the importance of Arctic charr to Inuit subsistence diet and harvesting activities and the rapid growth of the local population, the Nayumivik Landholding Corporation (NLC; Kuujjuaq, Quebec) constructed a fishway at the mouth of the river in the fall of 1999 to allow anadromous Arctic charr to migrate past this location. Annual monitoring of the fishway has taken place since during upstream migration by staff from Makivvik’s Nunavik Research Centre with assistance also provided from other organizations.
Along with the introduction of Arctic charr into the watershed, the construction of the fishway provided a unique opportunity to establish a long-term dataset evaluating Arctic charr migration over time as well as identify significant drivers of this important life history event. Yearly monitoring of Arctic charr migration through the fishway permits the NRC to estimate not only information such as population numbers and population size structures, but also how both may change over time. Inclusion of a PIT tagging in later years of the project would contribute greater insight into Arctic charr growth and the factors that may affect it, by providing certain fish with a unique identification code that could be tracked over time and be evaluated in combination with its recorded size data. This tagging program would also allow the NRC to track migration patterns of these fish; for example, does the same fish return upriver at the same time each year, or does its timing change year to year? Finally, this long-term data set provides the opportunity to better understand the potential impacts of climate change on Arctic charr, as well as further pinpoint community and scientific needs that should be investigated in the future by knowing how certain things have changed from the past.
This is where the Kuujjuarusiq Arctic charr monitoring project becomes so important in the context of climate change. Because by better understanding what has been important to Arctic charr migration in the past, we will be better situated to understand how Arctic charr migration might change in the future with climate change. This is how the NRC hopes to orient this project for the upcoming summers with all NRC staff working together to perform a much larger study on these fish. The first part of this larger study will use scientific models to examine historic Arctic charr migration through the Nepihjee River fishway with all the data collected previously to understand what the most important drivers of Arctic charr migration have been in the past. This model will then be validated with interviews with knowledge holders to ensure Inuit knowledge is incorporated into this project. We will also continue to collect data over the next three years.
This future collected data will include a complete examination of fish health during the annual migration through wildlife disease and parasite analyses, contaminant analyses, genetic analyses, and analyses of indicators of swim performance, habitat use, feeding, and temperature preferences to better understand the health status of Arctic charr during this important life event at the present. Then after all this data is collected, it will be combined to forecast the impact of climate change on the migration of anadromous Arctic charr through Kuujjuarusiq again via scientific modelling.
Over the years, the Kuujjuarusiq Arctic charr monitoring project has given significant insight into not only this population of Arctic charr, but also into species migration as a whole. Long term monitoring projects, such as this one, are rare and will serve as an incredible resource as we move into the future and face a changing climate. Because, understanding how things were; are changing; and will continue to change, will help us understand what the future may hold for this incredibly significant species and how best to manage this important resource in the years to come.
