Lecture Series

The Beringia Centre with its 200 seat theatre and wide variety of AV equipment is currently being used on a regular basis by the Yukon Science Institute for their public lecture series. Please visit the Yukon Science Institute website for more info.

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Upcoming Events

 

Thursday August 26, 7:30 p.m.

Moving on the Peel

As important final decisions are mounting for the Peel Watershed, CPAWS-YT and YCS invite you to join us for an evening of beauty and interest with Yukon photographers' visual and personal explorations of the Peel Watershed, First Nations viewpoints and a Peel update. This event features Marten Berkman, Robert Postma, Peter Mather, Rob McClure, Shawn Taylor and Tr'ondek Hwech'in Chief Eddie Taylor.

 

Thursday August 26, 2010
7:00 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse

 

Admission is free

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Monday August 30, 7:30 p.m.

Panama: A Natural History Tour from the Chiriqui Highlands to the Darien Gap

Panama forms the link between North and South America and consequently has an exceptionally high diversity of plants, animals and ecosystems.  James Kamstra will share his observations while visiting three ends of the country.  The Canal Zone in the centre contains the world famous Barro Colorado Research Centre where much research on tropical forests has taken place.  Forests have been protected in most of the watershed of the canal forming easily accessible rainforest.  The Chiriqui Highlands in the west, are the highest mountains in the country covered with cloud forest that is home to many endemic species.  The Remote Darien Gap in the east is home to many species more typical of Colombia.  James will discuss the ecosystems of these areas with examples of birds, insects and amphibians which occur there.  James is a biologist and ecotour leader who has trips to South and Central America.

James Kamstra
Senior Ecologist, AECOM

Monday August 30, 2010
7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse

 

Admission is free

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Wednesday September 8, 7:30 p.m.

Nepal and Tibet: Saving Sight in the Himalayas and on the Roof of the World

Seva Canada invites you to celebrate 27 years of restoring sight and preventing blindness
with a special presentation by Seva Canada board member Susan Erdmann. Susan will share her experience of travelling to Seva’s eye camps in remote areas of Nepal and Tibet through pictures and stories. She witnessed the remarkable transformation of patients whose eye sight was restored by a cataract surgery that takes less than 15 minutes.

Money raised will go toward the Kham Eye Center in Eastern Tibet. For information, visit the Seva website.

According to the WHO, restoring sight is the most cost-effective health intervention to reduce poverty.

Event organizer: Shelagh Smith at 667-2389

Free event. Donations welcome. Door prizes.

Paperblank journals and Seva 2011 calendars will be for sale.

Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Presentation starts at 7:30 p.m.

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ARCHIVED EVENTS

Sunday May 2, 7:30 p.m.

Between Protein and Plants

What do singing roosters in Java, street dogs in Kathmandu, parasites and pandemics have in common? In 1991, Dr. Waltner-Toews went to Kathmandu to help a community solve a problem involving a tapeworm that travels from dogs’ intestines through their feces into the mouths of other animals, like moose, sheep, water buffalo and people, where it forms tumour-like cysts in lungs, muscles, liver, and sometimes the brain. Dogs get re-infected by eating cysts when these other animals die or are killed. For three years his team studied dogs, parasites, animal butchering, garbage in the streets, and the people who lived there. They ran public education programs. But nothing changed. “Kathmandu is an environmental write-off,” one of his colleagues said.

 

But what he learned next changed everything he thought he knew about science, about pandemics and parasites, about the kinds of questions that scientists should be asking, and why poetry, stories, music and friends matter for science as much as technical competence. And he learned that communities can change profoundly, and learn together with scientists what it means to do, not just technically expert science, but good science. Join David Waltner-Toews, author of Chickens Fight Back, as he revisits the lessons learned in Nepal.

David Waltner-Toews
Veterinarian & Professor, Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph

Sunday, May 2, 2010
7:30 pm Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Whitehorse

Monday, May 3, 2010
7:30 pm Northern Lights Centre, Watson Lake

Admission is free

Wednesday April 21, 7:00 p.m.

International Year of Biodiversity: Night at the Poles

South Pole: Antarctica is an amazing and incredibly unique continent. It is both an austere and inhospitable land and home to some of the most extraordinary biodiversity on the planet. It is a desert with vaulting mountains, immense glaciers, active volcanoes and awe-inspiring vistas
Remy Rodden and Chelsea Duncan were fortunate enough to participate in the Students on Ice trip to Antarctica. They will be sharing stories and images from this unique educational opportunity.

North Pole: Local Canadian adventurers Devon McDiarmid and Derek Crowe attempted a unique traverse of the full length of Greenland, from the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast to the Arctic Ocean on the north coast between May and July 2009. Using the power of the wind to kite ski and haul 150kg sleds for 2 months over a 3500km route, were they able to complete this never-before-attempted trip? Join us to find out!

Admission is free

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Saturday April 17

Dr. Wade Davis: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

Dr. Wade Davis is this year’s guest speaker at Environment After Hours. He is an award-winning anthropologist, filmmaker and photographer and a crusader for protecting what he calls the “ethnosphere,” the totality of thoughts, beliefs, myths and institutions brought into being by the human imagination.

Through books and films, Dr. Davis has fuelled the growing movement to celebrate traditional cultures around the world. CBC listeners will know him from the 2009 Massey Lectures, which were broadcast on Ideas.

Montreal-born, BC-based Davis has worked as a park ranger and forestry engineer and conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several aboriginal societies in Canada’s north.

The presentation “The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World” looks at crisis of disappearing human languages, and the loss of knowledge, stories, songs and ways of seeing that are encoded in them. Climate change is linked to many cultures in peril because of changing environment and the global biodiversity crisis.

Given that 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, we felt that a talk that celebrated and reminded us of the importance of diversity in language, culture, and all forms of life. We are fortunate that someone of Dr. Davis’ academic stature is able to join us – albeit briefly – for Environment After Hours.    

Please contact Yukon Department of Environment for more information.

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Wednesday April 7

Biodiversity: Past, Present and Future

2010 was declared the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations. The Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre is a member of the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada. The Alliance consists of 16 museums across Canada that was created to establish a network of exchange of information on issues dealing with collections, research and education. Together we are celebrating the International Year of Biodiversity. The Alliance's primary objective is to enhance visibility, recognition and benefit of natural history musuems under the shared goal of connecting people with nature.

 

Join us for a presentation and panel discussion on Biodiversity. Tom Jung, Senior Biodiversity Biologist and Grant Zazula, Palaeontologist will give a presentation entitled: Changes in Biodiversity: From the Ice Age to the Present and into the Future.

Following the presentation will be a panel discussion. Panel participants include:

• Lacia Kinnear, Northern Climate Exchange Coordinator
• Meghan Larivee, Northern Climate Exchange Communications Coordinator
• Grant Zazula, Palaeontologist, Yukon Government
• Tom Jung, Senior Biodiversity Biologist, Yukon Government
• Mary Decker, Tetlit Gwich'in elder
• Margret Njootli, Vuntut Gwich'in elder

The presentation starts at 7:00pm. Admission is free.

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