Jolie Nguyen entered into a pact with the other six researchers who’d spent their summer on an uninhabited island in northern Hudson Bay. 

Anyone who was up late at the Coats Island field station and caught sight of the Northern Lights would wake everyone else. It was a tall order – after a long, hard day of field work, they were always fast asleep and dead to the world. “I had the best sleeps of my life on Coats,” says Nguyen. 

The odds of seeing the celestial symphony are slim during Arctic summers, and time was running out with the field station winding down for another year. The station was established by the Canadian Wildlife Service in 1984 to monitor the thick-billed murre. Every summer since, grad students, postdocs, biologists and techs have flown in to track survival rates, count the size of murre colonies and monitor the health of adult murres and their chicks. 

“Murres are like football-shaped penguins that can fly,” says Nguyen. “They’re adorable birds.” They’re also an indicator of ecosystem changes, which is why teams of Canadian and international researchers spend July and August on the island. 

Birds of a feather

The 2 a.m. wake-up call they were waiting for finally happened, just two days before everyone was scheduled to return home.

Nguyen, who was born and raised in Toronto, had never seen the Northern Lights. As an added bonus, the aurora borealis was happening at the same time the sun was setting. 

In two summers full of unforgettable moments, that was the far and away the most memorable for Nguyen. 

And she would’ve missed it all if she hadn’t taken a gap year between her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. 

While Nguyen took a year off, assistant professor Emily Choy was launching her research group in McMaster’s Department of Biology. 

They share a love of birds and concerns about climate change. Nguyen, who had graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Toronto, reached out and asked Choy if she was taking on grad students.

Choy had two opportunities coming up: One to study tree swallows in Southern Ontario, and another to research the impact of climate change on colonies of thick-billed murres on Coats Island. Only one grad student would get to go to the island.

Choy did her best to manage expectations: The days would be long. Nguyen would be constantly racing against the clock to collect all the data she possibly could during her seven weeks on the island. It would be work, eat, sleep, repeat; day after day, week after week.

Learning the ropes

Island living isn’t easy. There are no hot showers or running water, and the nearest neighbouring island is 60 kilometres away – the nearest community is double that distance. 

There was no privacy on the island and zero chance of slipping away for some alone time. Everyone on the island sleeps in the same cabin. Solo hikes are prohibited thanks to the celebration of polar bears on the island. You always walk in groups with your head on a swivel while carrying radios, bear clangers and a shotgun to scare away bears – Nguyen had to pass the Canadian firearms safety course before she could step foot on the island. As added protection, there would be a pair of Inuit guards keeping the field station free of curious and hungry bears. 

Along with racing against the clock, Nguyen would be battling the elements. The weather on Coats Island is unpredictable and unforgiving, with epic storms and impenetrable fog. The mosquitos are merciless. And while the Arctic is experience climate warming faster than anywhere else,  nights and even days can still be freezing.

Also, the 60,000 murres on the island squawk 24/7, and the overwhelming smell of murre poop seeps into clothing, gear and sleeping bags. 

Nguyen couldn’t go if she had a fear of heights – the birds nest on the side of 120-metre cliffs which is where she’d spend entire days strapped into a harness and tethered to ropes. The good news? The field station comes with a professional climber who literally shows researchers the ropes. The even better news? Pods of Beluga whales would swim beneath Nguyen’s feet while she was working with the birds. 

Nguyen was sold and would spend back-to-back summers on the island researching the effects of climate change on Arctic seabirds. It’s where she celebrated her 23rd and 24th birthdays, complete with birthday cake and candles that her fellow researchers had smuggled over.  

Flying north

Nguyen doesn’t remember her first day on the island. “It was all a blur.” She boarded a train from Toronto to Ottawa with all of her belongings and gear and caught a plane to Iqaluit. She met up with a Canadian Wildlife Service biologist and hit the grocery store with an extra-long shopping list. They then crammed all their equipment, personal belongings, $5,000 worth of groceries and themselves into a Twin Otter plane for the 250-kilometre flight to Coats Island. 

Coats Island is the largest uninhabited island in the northern hemisphere fully south of the Arctic Circle. But along with murres and polar bears, the island is home to Arctic foxes, caribou and walruses. Nguyen saw, and photographed, it all. While there were limits on what they could pack, everyone brought cameras with telephoto lenses. 

‘An unbelievable two years’

Now back at McMaster, Nguyen is working through two years’ worth of data. She hopes to go back to Coats Island and plans to get a murre tattoo, to go with the tattoos she has of every fish, bird and mammal that she’s studied at U of T and Mac. 

She says Choy has been everything she’d hoped for in a graduate supervisor. “Dr. Choy gives you the independence to work on your research projects while always being available to help and sending grant applications your way.” Nguyen already has a long and growing list of honours and awards, including the Weston Family Award in Northern Research, the Arctic Institute of North America Grant, an Ontario Graduate Fellowship, Northern Scientific Training Program Funding from Polar Knowledge Canada in 2024 and 2025 and a Graduate Entrance Scholarship. 

“Dr. Choy’s the reason why I came to Mac and why I’ve spent my summers doing research in the Arctic. It’s been an unbelievable two years.”