Activity patterns of native people in the Northwest Territories include a complex mixture of employment in the modern economy, full-time or part-time engagement in traditional pursuits, and leisure. This study identifies characteristics of participants in each activity which assist in interpreting the allocation of time among employment in the modern economy, the pursuit of traditional activities, and leisure. Three hypotheses—traditionalist, modernist and culturalist — were identified from current literature and tested statistically, using data collected in interviews held with 11,164 NWT residents in 1984. The hypotheses were: (1) engagement in the traditional sector is preferred to holding a job in the modem economy; thus, wage employment primarily facilitates pursuit of traditional activities; (2) engagement in the modern economy is preferred; those unable to work in it turn to traditional activities, which are easier to enter; (3) the traditional sector is an arena in which a cultural heritage can be maintained, a preferred sustenance obtained, or where one can demonstrate his prowess apart from any material gain that might be realized. The data do not unequivocally support any of the hypotheses, but this study suggests an alternative approach to the interpretation of activity patterns, based upon an analysis of individual preference functions.

There is a toast which, in the writer's opinion, ought to be drunk whenever the great deeds of an expedition and its leader are being honoured, and that is “To the Second in Command”. After a few such toasts someone might be moved to write a book on the famous Seconds-in-Command who grace the pages of polar narrative, and an impressive list it is. To mention but a few there are Crozier for Ross in the early part of last century, Sverdrup for Nansen in the latter part, Frank Wild for Shackleton, and the subject of this note, Armitage, for Scott on his Discovery Expedition, 1901–04.

The development, background and nature of the Greenland model of home rule are discussed. Over a ten-year period this model has proved pragmatic and worked well, creating a high degree of autonomy and allowing considerable economic development. Contemporary problems and advantages are outlined and a draft strategy for the future is presented.

The conditions of surface and weather in which sledge journeys are carried out, together with distances travelled and altitudes attained, are of great interest to anyone attempting to analyse and compare performances by various travellers.

To obtain the necessary data the investigator must usually turn to the narrative of the journey concerned and extract the data himself, setting them out in some suitable form. Gordon Hayes adopts this procedure with many journeys in his Antarctica (London, 1928), and John Rymill gives an appendix, analysing the main journeys of the British Graham Land Expedition, 1934–37, in Southern Lights (London, 1938). Many other writers have made similar tables, but essential data always appear to be lacking, and there is no standard form to which such analyses can be reduced.

Polish expeditions to Vestspitsbergen between 1956 and 1960 were organized in connexion with the Third IGY and its continuation. The main area chosen for scientific investigations was Hornsund, Vestspitsbergen, in which, at Isbjørnhamna, the main station was built (lat. 77° N., long. 15° 30′ E.). The areas covered by investigations were mainly southern and central parts of Wedel Jarlsberg Land and Torell Land, to the north of Hornsund, and the northern part of Sørkapp Land, to the south of Hornsund. Brief investigations were also carried out to the south of Van Keulenfjorden, in north-west Torell Land, and along the western, southern and eastern coasts of Sørkapp Land.

We read and hear so often of the harm done to primitive peoples by contact with European culture, that it is refreshing to find an exception to this rule. The Polar Eskimos of North-West Greenland were introduced to European culture through the visits of expeditions to that region, and there was no control of these until thirty years ago. Yet these Eskimos do not seem to have suffered any harm or to have lost their original independence. A journey to West Greenland is apt to be disappointing, because the original Eskimo race and culture has been greatly modified, but to visit Thule is to see the Eskimos of the story books, dressed in furs and eating literally almost nothing but meat and blubber, most of it raw.

Windward, a three-masted barque, was built in Peterhead in 1860 for the whaling trade, and fitted with steam engines in 1866. Almost every year for 33 years she visited the Arctic in pursuit of whales and seals, latterly belonging to the Grays, an outstanding Peterhead whaling family. Sold in 1894 to Captain Joseph Wiggins, she was bought later in the same year by Alfred Harmsworth for the use of Frederick G. Jackson in his exploration of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa (Franz Josef Land). Windward was Jackson's ship for three years, including one winter beset in the ice; journeying from her, Jackson substantially recharted Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, and the ship brought home Fridtjof Nansen after his epic drift with the polar ice. In 1897 Harmsworth offered the vessel to Robert Peary, who was planning an assault on the North Pole from the northern tip of Greenland or from Ellesmere Island. After four years with Peary, including two winters trapped in the ice, Windward returned to her roots in whaling from Scotland. She was lost in Davis Strait in 1907.