Prince George, B.C. – Ever wonder what the world will look like in 30 years?

That’s one of the questions that will be discussed at Polar Week at UNBC this week.

Dr. Laurence Smith, the Department of Geography Chair at UCLA, will speak at UNBC this week – photo submitted

“It’s designed to celebrate and to highlight the important research that’s going on in the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the world,” says UNBC’s Northern Studies Chair Dr. Gary Wilson.

“A lot of that research is being done at UNBC. We actually have a number of people who specialize in Arctic studies here at the university. So, it’s an opportunity for us to engage with those people but also to bring in speakers from the outside who are also working in these areas.”

He says one of those speakers is Dr. Arn Keeling from Memorial University who will be screening his film, The Guardians of Eternity: Confronting Giant Mine’s Toxic Legacy which will look at the environmental impacts of mining in the North West Territories.

Keeling, who hails from Prince George, will show the film in the Weldwood Theatre at 7:30 tonight.

Another guest is Dr. Laurence Smith, the Department of Geography Chair at UCLA, who will deliver a lecture stemming from his book, The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future.

“He’s well known in sort of looking at how the Arctic as a region is changing,” says Wilson. “His book really looks at how a lot of these big global changes are going be impacting the Arctic and the North in the next 30 years.”

His talk will take place Thursday night starting at 7 in the Canfor Theatre. Both the film and the lecture are free and open to the public.