We collected air, water, sediment samples in the summer of 2019 from on board the CCGS Amundsen in the central and eastern Canadian Archipelago. We also collected air and water (grab and passive) from the CCGS Laurier in the Beaufort Sea and the R/V William Kennedy in the western Hudson Bay and Chesterfield Inlet. Air samples were continuously collected form the very front of the bow of the ship to reduce contamination from the smoke stack. The air sampler consisted of a filter to collect the particulate followed by a cartridge containing a sandwich of polyurethane foam and XAD resin to sorb the gas phase. Several types of water samples were collected: target compounds were concentrated from grab surface samples (200-L) by filtering through a column of XAD resin. Grab samples for flame retardants were collected in glass bottles and shipped back to the lab for processing. Grab samples for per-fluorinated compounds were collected at the surface and at two-three depths in plastic bottles and shipped back to the lab for processing. Sediment samples were collected from the box corer, the top 0-5cam was collected. Samples were frozen and shipped back to the lab for processing.

In November 2006 3 shorts sediment cores from 3 fjord ecosystems located along Labrador's East coast, have been sampled from CCGS Amundsen. In August 2008 4 lakes in Saglek fjord area have been sampled. Data about the properties of the water column and short sediment cores have been taken. In November 2009, a ~8m long piston-core and a ~80cm long gravity-core have been taken in the Nachvak fjord from the CCGS Amundsen. In addition, surface sediment samples were taken through box-cores in the Nachvak, Saglek, Okak and Anaktalak fjords.The cores have been analyzed for various physical and chemical properties, such as sediment density, magnetic susceptibility and contaminant levels. The biostratigraphic analyses involved sediment sub-sampling at 1-2 cm intervals to determine changes in the composition and concentration of fossil diatoms and dinocysts throughout the marine cores, only diatoms for the lacustrine cores. The chronology of each core has been established based on AMS-14C dates on marine shells preserved within the sediments and on the radioactive decay of the 210Pb in the sediments. The surface sediment sampled in the fjord will be used to document the modern dinocyst assemblages in the area to allow more precise past climatic reconstructions.