Eureka, Nunavut

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For other places named Eureka, see Eureka.

Eureka seen from its airfield

Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change observatory, Eureka, Nunavut, Canada

Eureka is a small research base on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is the second-northernmost permanent research community in the world. The only one further north is Alert, which is also on Ellesmere Island. In 2005, it reported a permanent population of 0 but has at least 8 staff on a continuous rotational basis. The base consists of three areas, the Eureka Airport which includes "Fort Eureka" (the quarters for military personnel maintaining the island's communications equipment), the Environment Canada Weather Station, and the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), formerly the Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Observatory (AStrO). PEARL is operated by a consortium of Canadian university researchers and government agencies known as the CAnadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC). Eureka's postal code is X0A 0G0 (indicating a Nunavut/Northwest Territories address), however its area code is 204 (indicating Manitoba).

Eureka was founded on April 11, 1947, as part of a requirement to set up a network of arctic weather stations. On this date, 110 short tons (100 metric tons) of supplies were airlifted to a promising spot on Ellesmere Island and five prefabricated Jamesway huts were constructed. The station expanded over the years. At its peak, in the 1970s, there were at least fifteen staff on site. There have been several generations of buildings. The latest operations center, with work areas and staff quarters in one large structure, was completed in 2005.

The complex is powered by diesel generators. The station is supplied on a bi-weekly basis with fresh food and mail by air, and annually in the late summer, a supply ship from Montreal brings heavy supplies. The settlement sees the midnight sun between April 10 and August 29, with no sunlight at all between mid-October and late February. Eureka has the lowest average annual temperature and least precipitation of any weather station in Canada. Winters are frigid, but summers are slightly warmer than at other places in the Canadian Arctic. Even so, the temperature has never exceeded 20 °C (68 °F). Although a polar desert, evaporation is also very low, which allows the limited moisture to be made available for plants and wildlife.

Eureka has been described as "The Garden Spot of the Arctic" due to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Fauna include musk oxen, Arctic wolves, Arctic foxes, Arctic hares, and lemmings. In addition, summer nesting geese, ducks, owls, loons, ravens, gulls and many other smaller birds nest, raise their young, and return south in August.

At this latitude, a geosynchronous communications satellite, if due south, would require an antenna to be pointed nearly horizontally; satellites farther east or west along that orbit would be below the horizon. CANDAC has installed what is likely the world's most northernly geosynchronous satellite ground-station to provide Internet based communications to PEARL.

Other settlements on Ellesmere Island include Alert and Grise Fiord.