Year: 2026 - Page 3 - Aurora College

The South Slave Research Centre (SSRC), located at the Thebacha Campus of Aurora College in Fort Smith, was established in 1991 to support research and community engagement in the South Slave region. SSRC has a small but passionate team that believes that the NWT’s collective capacity can be increased through collaborative research.

SSRC works with local Indigenous governments and other community organizations to create opportunities that will support their priorities, which can include, for example, sustainable food security or climate change initiatives. Part of the role of SSRC also includes working with fellow researchers from southern Canada who share our commitment to making a difference.

Over the last several years, we have been working to raise the importance of food security and food sovereignty in a changing climate. People in Fort Smith express concern about how food from the land is changing. Some of those concerns include berries becoming scarcer, forest habitats being impacted by fire, and low water levels affecting fish. They also worry about the rising cost of food and low quality of produce, and our over-dependence on one road to supply trucked-in food.

In recent years, SSRC has been involved with working among 11 regional groups worked to build a collaborative framework through a project called the Boreal Berry Patch Collective. Funded by Indigenous Services Canada’s Climate Change Health Adaptation Program, collective aims to meet the long-term goal of improving food security. The project has involved planting lots of berries in the community and more than 250 berry shrubs and fruit trees. Additionally, the collective has carried out over numerous workshops and events aimed at promoting food self-sufficiency.

This recent work has many positive returns that have generated additional spin-off projects and partnerships. For example, over the last two years, the Fort Smith Community Garden has become a site for workshops, research, and a place to build community involvement around improving local food. In 2025, a Food Bank Plot was started to give back to the community. That project led to attracting citizen volunteers who help maintain the plot.

Strawberries and other crop growth

Other collaborative research projects have also borne fruit in the region! In 2024, SSRC developed a project with Sambaa K’e First Nation First Nation (Trout Lake) and Northern Roots Consulting (Yellowknife) to gather data around best practices for growing strawberries in the NWT. Trials continued at the community garden in 2025, and it is hoped that this type of research will lead to the study of other ‘novel crops’ that may be able to thrive in a changing climate.

To that end, SSRC is working on a proposal to expand research that will build knowledge on best practices for growing food in cold climate greenhouses and perennial crop production.

Looking ahead, SSRC is excited to be working with the Future Harvest Partnership, a multi-year project that was developed to carry out research to build climate-resilient local food systems in the Northwest Territories. A collaboration between Wilfrid Laurier University, the Territorial Agrifood Association and the Government of the NWT Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment that is funded through Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Future Harvest Partnership is supporting important food security research, including food systems planning with Indigenous governments and community organizations.

**Chris Paci, Vice President, Research**

As Vice President Research, my role includes working with the College research community, northern researchers, funding agencies, and partners across a host of disciplines.

A key part of my role is facilitating and advancing good partnerships that build northern applied research capacity. The Aurora Research Institute (ARI), which is the research division of Aurora College, promotes research and innovation in the Northwest Territories.

Our work is most successful when we develop partnerships naturally through outreach by College staff and by being receptive to requests and concerns from outside organizations, including with government, industry, and northern communities.

Research also attracts more research, and a cadre of researchers are often needed to tackle large persistent issues like climate change. Aurora College is made up of three research centres – South Slave Research Centre (SSRC), North Slave Research Centre, and the Western Arctic Research Centre. They are staffed by talented, smart northerners who are constantly engaging with the external research community, including with governments and partners across the North. The work we do with Indigenous governments is a top priority for us.

While a good deal of the College services and staff are funded by the Government of the Northwest Territories, research is largely supported by external funding. By listening to northern concerns and translating those issues into project proposals, we are able to attract academic funding. By bringing in research dollars from sources like the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, CanNor, or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), Aurora College adds to the overall Territorial economy – money which would otherwise be spent in southern Canada.

In research areas where Aurora College does not have academic training programs, or internal researchers dedicated to those subjects, we look for opportunities to build these. ARI’s core mission is to support Indigenous community research capacity. Aurora College addresses any gaps we may have outside partnerships by engaging with a particular focus involving graduate students and northern students studying in the south. Our hope is that by attracting these students to work in the North that they will stay long-term and make it home.

Innovative Practices

Aurora College is constantly seeking out innovative practices and new technologies that can be applied in the North to in the North, to understand research problems. We look for resources that can be used to study and produce outcomes for policymakers and governments that will improve the quality of life. It is one of the biggest rewards of the job. As Vice President, Research, my typical week is varied and it can include internal and external funding reviews. My schedule often includes having meetings with Indigenous community members or external research partners with southern universities, or meeting with larger networks such as ArcticNet (we sit on the Board and are part of the Territorial Advisory Committee).

A big part of my role involves communicating the work we do. This can include writing articles (such as for our college newsletter), creating presentations for research-related workshops, (like the annual Northern Nursing Health Research Day) or preparing opening remarks for important events like the recent Northern Lakes in a Changing Climate Workshop.

Building good relationships to promote research takes considerable time and care. We measure the success of applied research projects with key indicators including social and cultural benefits to the north, economic returns and investments, solutions to problems, and mutually beneficial outcomes and opportunities. Research tends to lead to more research, and it can also lead to training and skills development.

Aurora College is part of a larger northern postsecondary ecosystem, alongside Yukon University and Nunavut Arctic College. It is also a key member of the broader Canadian postsecondary education community, with membership in Colleges and Institutes Canada and the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, among others.

Aurora College collaborates with international partners as well, with a membership with the University of the Arctic and many others. Our international work is important to advance monitoring and research on a number of fronts, contributing to a better understanding of long-range contaminants under the Stockholm Convention, work with the Northern Contaminants Program (we sit on the Territorial Contaminants Committee), as well as the Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program of the Arctic Council and so much more.

Land Acknowledgement

We respectfully acknowledge that Aurora College is situated on the traditional territories and homeland of the Dene, Inuvialuit, Métis and Cree peoples of the Northwest Territories. We are grateful to the many Indigenous peoples of the NWT for allowing us the opportunity to learn, work and live on their lands. We are also deeply grateful for the generous sharing of Indigenous Knowledge, wisdom and ways of knowing, being, doing and believing with our students and employees.

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Land Acknowledgement