The late Steven Solomon honoured at Aurora College

Steve Solomon, a valued colleague at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) who died in 2011, was recently honoured by Aurora College in the Northwest Territories with a plaque at the Western Arctic Research Centre in Inuvik.

Plaque honouring Steve Solomon

Plaque honouring Steve Solomon

The plaque recognizes Steve’s 20-year leadership of Beaufort coastal geoscience in what his colleague Don Forbes describes as a “very open and collaborative fashion where he inspired tremendous respect in the scientific and Inuvialuit communities.”

Steve joined the GSC in 1991 as an Arctic coastal specialist, based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. His work focused on the hazards to development in the Mackenzie Delta region, where he openly embraced the Arctic and was highly innovative in addressing its many scientific challenges.

Steve shared his research on Arctic coastal processes with federal and territorial governments, industry, academic colleagues, the international polar science community, students and the media, as well as with residents of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, where he was a well-known figure. He also conducted projects in Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Samoa, Cook Islands and Fiji. His remote-area logistics experience from the Arctic gave him an advantage when working in the South Pacific.

“Steve was a frequent presence in the Mackenzie-Beaufort region at all seasons of the year and very well known at the Inuvik research centre,” says Don. “When funds were made available to design new facilities circa 2010, Steve made huge contributions of time, energy and ideas to the conceptual and physical design of the building.”

Steve’s colleagues had created another memorial for him — a giant ice saw he used in his work at the Mackenzie Delta. At the suggestion of Pippa Seccombe-Hett, Vice-President of Research at Aurora College, the plaque now stands beside this earlier tribute.

Creative, thoughtful and generous, Steve was highly respected by his colleagues, peers and others who knew him. His important research and his passion for the Arctic will always live on in his work and be reflected in the memorials to him.