Welcome to the Q2 2026 issue of Tula Quarterly.
Much of what shapes Canada's western coast and inland watersheds happens out of view. Cold, oxygen-poor water moves along deep submarine troughs. Decades of river-flow records quietly track a changing climate. Genetic material survives, barely, inside a 37,000-year-old bone from a Vancouver Island cave. This issue is about the tools, and the people, making these hidden systems visible.
In this issue:
The Invisible River. Hakai's oceanography team deploys autonomous ocean gliders off Calvert Island, tracking seasonal low-oxygen water across the continental shelf in conditions too rough for research vessels.
What Canada's Rivers Are Telling Us. Free Flow Canada is linking decades of scattered hydrological records into a single picture, using open-source tools like hydrocan so scientists, decision-makers, and Indigenous Guardians can track long-term trends, including a documented decline in summer flows on the Fraser River.
Beyond the Bear. Hakai's ancient DNA team reflects on a 37,000-year-old brown bear vertebra recovered from a Vancouver Island cave, and the adaptive lab methods it took to coax genetic material out of severely degraded bone.
Whether tracking a current below the surface, unifying river data, or refining how DNA is pulled from ancient bone, this issue is about patient observation, the kind that turns data into a fuller picture of a changing coast.