Students from Carlton Comprehensive High School made a presentation last week on their findings regarding soil samples around the former Prince Albert Pulp Mill site.
Students presented their findings to the Canadian Light Source (CLS) located at the University of Saskatchewan.
The Carlton Beam Team is composed of teachers Trent Armitage and Kristyn Nemish along with students from Carlton. Their research project focuses on collecting and measuring soil samples to better understand the impact of the local pulp mill on the soil and on the traditional medicines available in the area.
Grade 12 student Vraj Patel said the project began around March of 2025.
“We started off with a couple of different ideas,” Patel said. “We didn’t know in which direction to go. Eventually we landed on this because the soil samples and the pulp mill idea had been one of our ideas way long ago and we kind of came back to it thinking it would be an interesting point.”
Patel said they met with Saskatchewan Rivers Elders Council Member Elder Bente Hunley from Muskoday and began talking about the pulp mill.
“The stories that she told us, her experiences and her knowledge about the area, it kind of sparked an interest and kind of locked it in as a topic,” Patel said.
In October of 2025 the students collected the samples a few different days and then ran them when they went to the Synchrotron from March 6-8.
Patel said that they collected the soil samples both around the Pulp Mill and a little further away in the buffer zone to see if the soil was affected in those areas.
“We collected soils from all those different locations,” Patel said. “We collected samples of different berries, different tree cores, we got samples from by the river and then we brought this back (and) prepped all those samples.”
Patel said that the four days at the synchrotron was a whirlwind.
“It was a little bit of an intensive experience. We were there for four days. We left Friday, came back Monday,” Patel said.
The CSL is Canada’s only synchrotron. It produces high-powered light, which allows scientists to examine chemical compositions in detail. The CSL also runs a program called Students on the Beamline, which allows high school students to work with scientists at the PHD level on actual research.
He said that the group got to the Synchrotron and took a tour, which Patel and other students described as having a massive scale.
“It’s a huge facility. You can get lost in there very easily. But it’s very impressive. We looked at everything. We took a few tours…. Working there (and) getting familiarized with the area, it took a while.”
The students spent the first day learning about their surroundings, and then got down to work.
“I love it,” Patel said. “It was awesome.”
On the Saturday, the Beam Team ran their 70 samples through the beamline.
Along with the Synchrotron, they also processed the tree cores with Colin Laroque the department head for Soil Science in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources.
“They did some dendrochronology. They ran those in the synchrotron as well. There were multiple parts that were undertaken in this experiment and then they had to put together a giant presentation … of their data, which they presented to scientists Monday morning,” Nemish said.
Patel said that the second day was a lot of work
“Everyone was just straight, heads down, hard work. It’s very extreme, but the whole experience, it was very rewarding. Working with it at first, I was a little nervous.”
Other students in the Beam Team were nervous too, but eventually they were able to use the software to analyse the data.
“It was a lot of information coming at us at once,” Patel said. “It took us a while, but we eventually got there.”
Nemish said they submitted the proposal and were accepted. The last time the Beam Team proposal was accepted was in 2022 when it was done virtually. In 2022 Students analysed soil samples from Namekus, Kingsmere, and Crean Lake and presented their findings. Nemish said that they have made proposals that were not accepted in the period between the two projects. People all over the world apply to the CLS.
She said that the CLS was shut down for replacement of parts and that led to a backlog of proposals.
“It was a little bit of a different experience because that one was more of a virtual experience where we did everything here and then we remotely took over the synchrotron at the CLS and did everything remotely and through Zoom, basically,” Nemish said.
This was the first time that the students had the opportunity to go to the synchrotron and have a hands-on experience. Students were writing the proposal, put together the data and have the full experience.
“The experience of going there I think is huge,” Nemish said. “Watching them being there and watching the questions that they were asking and seeing (them realize) ‘this is a job that I could do,’ that’s exactly what you want.
“That and also I feel like the idea of what science actually is is very different from what you teach in high school.”
Patel explained that they found that the Pulp Mill did not have much effect on the environment or the traditional medicine growing in the area. They weren’t sure what the results would show when they started.
“There wasn’t much of an effect on the environment,” he said. “We didn’t find any sort of metals or any other contamination within the environment from the pulp mill.
“From some of the preliminary research that we did (and) from the talk that we had with Bente, we thought that there would be some sort of effect or some sort of results showing. But we did know that there would be a possibility that it could just be.”
Patel said that they were a little suprised by the results.
“But we were also kind of relieved because it’s actually a good thing that there wasn’t much of out of the environment. That’s a positive that you came out of that,” Patel said.
Raelyn Floer a Grade 10 member of the Beam Team, said it was interesting that they did not find anything.
“We could have found possible traces of rubidium, which could have been taken into the plants, into the berries of the rose hips, specifically. In place of potassium, because they’re very similar to each other chemically, but they’re valence electrons,” Floer said.
Potassium in one of the basic elements needed for almost every living organism and rubidium is the second part under potassium within that family. She said that plants have trouble differentiating between the two chemicals.
Leahcim Adona, a Grade 10 student, said they chose the topic because tobacco can be an accumulator.
“Considering there was a possibility that First Nations groups around the area could be planting their own tobacco and could possibly absorbing that heavy metal, we were concerned,” Cimadona said. “That was also part of our talk with Elder Bente We asked her permission on her opinion of whether or not should we do the tobacco samples. We got her approval because she said it was made with good intentions.”
Tobacco is sacred and this was also influential in selecting it.
Patel said that they all had a lack of sleep for the weekend of the project.
“None of us slept. Barely any sleep. A lot of coffee drinking,” Patel said.
Nemish was impressed by the members of the Beam Team.
“You guys were amazing,” Nemish said
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
