As research leaders, we create and share knowledge that helps us understand the world around us.

Through partnership and increased student research opportunities, we are building a stronger, more resilient north - where we all thrive, together.

research activity map

Research activity map

Academic and research faculty, including those at the YukonU Research Centre, have research projects throughout the Yukon and across Canada's North. Explore their work through the blue location pins and click on the title links to learn more. 

Explore now

YukonU Research Stories

Six Flags's Yukon Territory theme park

The Yukon’s identity, who decides?

What is the identity of the Yukon when its image has been very much shaped from the outside.

If a Yukoner had a toonie for every time they’ve heard, the Yukon - that’s Alaska isn’t it?! we’d be able to buy ourselves endless double doubles, to cry into.

It could be said that the territory struggles with its identity, internally no - this identity crisis comes from outside, and it can refract and disorient identity within.

Jill Johnstone

Rethinking fuel breaks: How YukonU’s Jill Johnstone is helping northern communities proactively plan for fire

After more than three decades studying wildfire in the boreal forest, Jill Johnstone is clear about one thing: the environment she began researching 30 years ago, no longer exists.

“When I first started working … it wasn’t a particularly large field of interest,” she says, “fire was seen as a natural part of the boreal forest, something ecosystems had adapted to over centuries.”

The face of Lowell Glacier

Explore The St. Elias Icefields, helicopter not required

Have you ever wanted to explore one of Canada’s most dramatic glaciated landscapes without mountaineering skills, extreme weather gear, or a chartered flight? Thanks to a new suite of Virtual Geology Tours developed by Yukon University’s Earth Sciences program, the vast and ice-covered St. Elias Icefields are now open to everyone.

Stephen Biggin-Pound sits on a stump in front of piles of split and stacked firewood

To split or not to split: a faster way to cure firewood?

It was early October with the chill of oncoming winter in the air. We bundled up against the cold to meet Stephen Biggin-Pound to settle a distinctly northern debate – what’s the best way to stack and prepare firewood?

Get inspired. Get involved! Read more of our YukonU Research Stories

The Northern Review

The Northern Review is a peer-reviewed open access journal publishing research and book reviews that explore human experience in, and thought about, the North, including the territorial and provincial Norths of Canada and the Circumpolar North.

Cover of The Northern Review issue 59. A collection of moose hides with beaded artwork.

Current issue

Number 59 | 2026

Special Issue
Cover Art: Copper Caribou | Nàagàii Ddhah (Bead Mountain) https://coppercaribou.com/
April 7, 2026