Over the last week in March, Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) installed a new community ocean observatory at Kitamaat Village, on the northern coast of British Columbia. Similar installations were installed at Digby Island, near Prince Rupert, and at Campbell River.
Crew from the M/V Crown Royal lay cable that links the underwater observatory to the shore station at Kitamaat Village.
The village is located at the head of Douglas Channel on the north coast of British Columbia. Today, the Haisla people and the Haisla Nation are centered around Kitamaat Village, which is located approximately 10 kilometres south of Kitimat, British Columbia.
Coastal communities are facing a wide range of rapid environmental changes that are impacting their local ocean. On 30 March, ONC hosted an interactive community launch event and information session in Kitamaat Village to celebrate the deployment of this new observatory and explain how the community can access these data.
The new Kitimaat Village – Haisla Territory Community Observatory includes an underwater cabled seafloor platform equipped with a live-streaming video camera, instruments that record local water quality, and a hydrophone that records the underwater sounds of whales and the noise caused by ships.
On land, a weather station with a co-located automatic identification system tracks ships and above-ground video camera monitors environmental conditions 24/7. All the observatory data are streamed in real time to a shore station in the village and from there, to Oceans 2.0, ONC’s advanced data management system.
Data are freely available for viewing on the observatory web page.