NUNAVUT

• OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 15, 2024 /CNW/ - Canadian Geographic, one of Canada's oldest and best-loved magazines, has announced the winners of its 2023 Canadian Photos of the Year competition, celebrating the best images captured by Canadian photographers last year.
• "Every year, our team is blown away by the talent and passion of our photography community," said Canadian Geographic Editor-in-Chief Alexandra Pope.
• "Although they all portray different locations and subjects, these images have one thing in common: they made us stop and say 'Wow.'"
• With the support of official photography partner Nikon, Canadian Geographic actively seeks out and nurtures Canadian photographic talent through its Photo Club , a free-to-join, 15,000-member-strong community of amateur and professional photographers.

• Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) take advantage of the winter to build up their fat reserves.
• Intensive hunting of seals, a resource rich in fat, allows bears to store up enough energy to get through the summer.
• The adaptations that bears will have to make to meet the challenges brought about by climate change are numerous and unpredictable.

An unusual sighting – a polar bear in fresh water

• Some 80 km from the Inuit community of Mittimatalik, the Bylot Island field station was bustling with activity.
• Today, scientists from a variety of backgrounds scour the Quarliktuvik valley floor, which is generally flat, to study the soil, water, plants and wildlife.

• The image was foggy, but what I initially thought were two colleagues walking side by side, turned out to be the distinctive shape of a polar bear.
• Everyone in our group had the necessary protective equipment — bear spray, anti-bear cartridges and sometimes even a rifle — but I alerted them by radio and immediately returned to the field station.
• They waded in quickly enough to keep the bear, who was swimming on the surface, at a safe distance.
• 1:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.: the bear swims in the lake […], makes 4 dives to try to catch a goose.
• During the afternoon, the bear used this technique two more times, once failing and once with success.

What are the benefits of this behaviour for bears?

• Nowhere in the scientific literature is there any mention of such behaviour.
• At best, there are reports of attacks on murres in the ocean near the coasts, an environment very different from the calm, shallow ponds where we observed the bear’s attacks.
• the time the bear spent swimming and its success in hunting, allowed us to answer this question.

An energy boost, but far from sufficient

• First of all, a goose provides relatively little energy — around 200 times less than a ringed seal weighing 45 kilograms.
• Hunting geese could therefore be of benefit to certain bears from time to time, but on a population-wide scale, it will not alleviate the energy deficits caused by the melting ice pack.

David Bolduc received funding from the NSTP and the Canadian Association for Humane Trapping. Matthieu Weiss-Blais received funding from NSERC, FRQNT and NSTP.

• Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 23, 2023) - Sitka Gold Corp. (CSE: SIG) (OTCQB: SITKF) - This junior mining company, with significant assets across Arizona, Nevada, Nunavut, and the Yukon, has recently drilled over 1.34 million ounces of gold in two major deposits.
• The RC Gold Project, situated in the prolific Tombstone Gold Belt, promises a substantial yield, with initial findings showing deposits averaging 0.83 g/t gold and 0.5 g/t gold.
• This discovery, announced earlier this year, marks a significant milestone for Sitka Gold, bolstered by existing infrastructure that accelerates exploration and development.

• Under the terms of the Latitude Arrangement, Latitude shareholders (the “Latitude Shareholders”) will receive 0.2769 of a common share of ATHA (each whole share, an “ATHA Share”) for each Latitude Share held (the “Latitude Exchange Ratio”).
• The Latitude Exchange Ratio was determined giving consideration to recent average trading prices for each of Latitude and ATHA.
• John Jentz, Chief Executive Officer of Latitude Uranium, commented: “We are very excited to be part of such a transformative transaction to create an unparalleled uranium exploration company focused on Canada's three major uranium districts.
• The combined company will have increased scale and prospectivity and we believe it will be a go-to name in the uranium exploration industry."