Unconventional units of measurement have a long history in science communication, typically deployed when abstract numbers need a tangible anchor. The National Capital Commission — managers of Ottawa’s Rideau Canal — has offered a particularly Canadian entry into this tradition.
According to the report, the canal freezes each winter and becomes the world’s largest skating rink by area. Maintaining a smooth surface requires continuous snow removal, and the scale is considerable: for every 1 cm of snowfall, crews move 125,000 kg of snow off what the commission calls the Skateway. To communicate that figure, the commission chose a reference unit most Ottawa residents have never encountered firsthand — the polar bear, at an implied average weight of 277.8 kg per animal, yielding an equivalence of 450 polar bears per centimeter of snow.
The choice of unit prompted closer examination. Polar Bears International lists adult male polar bears at 350–600 kg and adult females at 150–290 kg, with at least one Canadian male estimated at 800 kg. Running the commission’s numbers against those ranges reveals that the 450-bear figure holds — but only for larger females. Denominated in adult males, the same snow load works out to approximately 357 bears, and relatively small ones at that. The communication is accurate, technically, but the bear’s sex goes unspecified, which quietly shifts the implied scale.
The problem of unspecified units
This is not an isolated issue. The report notes a parallel complaint about “shedloads” — a unit commonly cited in traffic reporting to describe spilled cargo causing motorway delays — where the dimensions of the shed in question are never defined. The polar bear problem and the shedload problem share the same flaw: an intuitive-sounding unit that dissolves under mild scrutiny because its reference object lacks a fixed, agreed specification.
The polar bear choice carries a particular irony given the location. Ottawa sits well outside polar bear territory, meaning the average resident’s direct experience with the world’s largest land predator is, at best, secondhand. A unit selected for relatability turns out to require just as much abstraction as the raw kilogram figure it was meant to replace.
Supersonic tape and a retracted ivermectin study
The same report covers two other items from the scientific literature. Researchers publishing in Physical Review E used high-speed cameras and microphones to study the physics of peeling Scotch tape from glass. They observed micro-cracks moving through the tape at supersonic speeds, eventually generating a shockwave — the source of the familiar high-pitched screech. The mechanism is now documented; a method for avoiding the noise is not.
Separately, a 2022 paper published in Pharmacology Research & Perspectives was retracted on 13 February 2026. The study had examined ivermectin — an antiparasitic drug that drew wide attention as a proposed covid-19 treatment — as a potential liver cancer therapy. The retraction notice did not, according to the report, appear to have otherwise affected the paper’s standing prior to its removal.
Photo by Jaime Dantas on Unsplash
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