Converted shipping containers being used as high-tech mobile science labs in Arctic

The research facilities will be powered by wind turbines and solar panels.

The forces of nature that so often dictate how life unfolds in the Arctic may also help give Canadian scientists new opportunities to work in the North, particularly in remote coastal areas.

Small mobile labs capable of harnessing wind and solar power are arriving in the Nunavut communities of Cambridge Bay and Gjoa Haven for testing, with hopes they can be more fully used in the Kitikmeot region next year.

In setting up these facilities, there is also hope of forging stronger links with people who live in the local communities.

Shipping containers are being converted into the high-tech, movable outposts for science. They are being created through a multimillion-dollar project spearheaded by the Arctic Research Foundation, one of the non-government partners in the ongoing efforts to find and explore the 19th-century shipwrecks of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition.