With the successful launch of NASA’s Orion spacecraft — the one that will supposedly take astronauts to Mars by the 2030s — it may seem like we are closer than ever to colonizing the Red Planet. Paul Sokoloff knows more about that than most; he recently spent two weeks in the Utah desert carrying out a simulated mission to Mars. But what makes Sokoloff different from most would-be Mars colonists is that he’s not a rocket scientist, an engineer or even a pilot. He’s a botanist.

By day, Sokoloff works at the Canadian Museum of Nature, where he specializes in the study of the plants that are able to survive in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the vast collection of islands north of the 60th parallel. In addition to being extremely cold, the area is also a desert, receiving only a few inches of precipitation (mostly snow) each year. In fact, the area is so harsh that it has been used as a training ground for Mars exploration. In 1998 the Mars Society — a US-based not-for-profit that advocates human exploration and settlement of Mars — selected a location on Devon Island, 165 kilometers northeast of the hamlet of Resolute, Nunavut, to be the site of its first Mars Analog Research Station. Since then, over a dozen crews have spent time at the station, from a few weeks to over a month.

Next year, the Mars Society hopes to embark on its most ambitious mission to date: Mars Arctic 365 will see a six-person crew live at the station for a full year. When Sokoloff, a self-professed space nut, saw the call for applicants about a year ago, he simply couldn’t resist. “Not only am I fascinated by space, but I love working in the Arctic; it’s what really motivates my work,” he says, adding that he’s been there four times for plant research. After submitting a research proposal and undergoing a battery of tests and screening — including a psychological evaluation — Sokoloff became one of the 21 finalists for Mars Arctic 365.