YukonU Research Stories

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?

Stephen is the Chair of YukonU’s School of Academic and Skill Development, but he’s still finding time to advance forest ecology research in collaboration with the Forest Management Branch. We tracked him down in the yard behind the YukonU lab building, where various stacks and piles of firewood were set up to cure.

Dr. Katie Aitken’s latest project is investigating an overlooked part of Yukon’s forests: the tree cavities that shelter everything from woodpeckers to squirrels.

Aitken, an associate professor for YukonU's Northern Environmental and Conservation Sciences Program, studies cavity users—birds, mammals, and other species that rely on naturally occurring crevasses or holes in trees for nesting and shelter. These spaces form naturally as trees age or are carved out by “primary excavators” such as woodpeckers.

Sometimes the best academic ideas don’t come from labs or lecture halls, but from lived experience. That’s exactly what YukonU researcher Dr. Liris Smith’s recent research on hydration in long-term care demonstrates.

Master’s student Zachary Fogel is studying the impact of industrial disturbance on wolverines in the Klondike goldfields with the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, and Government of Yukon Department of Environment. 

YukonU instructor Faith Whiting is looking at ways Yukon University instructors are implementing the concepts of Indigenization and decolonization in their classrooms for her graduate-level research in education.