On 22 April 1848, after three years in the Arctic, and 19 months spent ice-bound in northern Victoria Strait, the 105 surviving officers and crew of the Franklin Northwest Passage expedition deserted HMS Erebus and HMS Terror as the first step of their escape plan. They assembled at a camp south of Victory Point on the northwest coast of King William Island and made the final preparations for the next step, a 400 km trek along the frozen seashores of King William Island and Adelaide Peninsula to the Back River. All of the men died before reaching their destination, and their remains have been found at 35 locations along the route of the retreat. These discoveries have played a central role in reenactments of events thought to have occurred during the failed attempt to reach the Back River and to the disastrous outcome of the expedition. This paper presents a summary of these findings and examines the criteria used to attribute them to the Franklin expedition. It is suggested that approximately one-third of the identifications have been based on information that is inadequate to confidently assign the human remains as those of Franklin expedition personnel.

On the basis of existing data on the dimensions, shape, surficial geology, and glaciological structure of ice island ARLIS-II, used in combination with aerial photographs of northernmost Ellesmere Island taken in 1950 and 1959, the source of the ice island is positively identified as the Alfred Ernest Ice Shelf. The duration of the recent drift of ‘Hobson's Choice’ ice island from the vicinity of the Alfred Ernest Ice Shelf to northern Ellef Ringnes Island, used as a model for the duration of the drift of ARLIS-II between the same points, suggests ARLIS-II broke off the ice shelf in approximately 1955.

Many northern regions of North America have come to rely heavily on extraction of non-renewable resources for their income, at the expense of traditional land-based economies. Such extraction leads to boom and bust income, destructive to long-term planning for sustainable development. Natural resource trust funds, as exemplified in Alberta, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico, would help to provide the stability that is currently lacking in Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Maintained by setting aside part of the current income from non-renewable resources, they yield capital and income that can be used to encourage the mixed, self-sustaining local communities appropriate for the North.

Between 1940 and 1945 the German navy undertook a series of expeditions to the arctic regions in order to obtain regular synoptic weather reports, the international exchange of which had practically ceased upon the outbreak of war in 1939. During these years the German naval meteorological service [Wetterdienst des Oberkommandos der Kriegsmarine] organized and dispatched some thirteen parties, whose task it was to provide the information required to meet the exigencies of modern naval warfare and to enable forecasts of the influence of the “polar front” on European weather to be made. Owing to the strategic situation these activities were confined to Svalbard, East Greenland and Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa (Franz Josef Land). The German air force sent one expedition to Spitsbergen and two to Hopen (Hope Island) but on the whole the Luftwaffe preferred to employ aircraft flying from bases in northern Norway to obtain operational data, making special flights as and when required.

The need to address the human health implications of northern development is well founded, and the role of health determinants in environmental impact assessment is increasingly recognised; however, there is limited understanding of the nature of health determinants and current practices in northern project assessment and decision making. This paper reports on a study of the nature and use of health determinants in Canadian northern environmental impact assessment, and discusses the key challenges to, and opportunities for, improved practice. Four themes emerged from this study. First, the consideration of health is limited to physical environments and the physical determinants of health, with limited attention to broader social and cultural health determinants. Second, when health is considered in northern project impact assessments such considerations rarely carry forward to post-project approval monitoring of health determinants and evaluation of health impact management programmes. Third, while there is general consensus that health determinants should be an integral part of northern impact assessment, there exist different expectations of the role of health determinants in project evaluation and decision making due in large part to different understandings and interpretations of health. Finally, a broader conceptualisation of health and health determinants in northern environmental impact assessment is required; one that takes into consideration northern cultures and knowledge systems, and is adaptive to local context, geography and life cycles.

In 2002 and 2003, studies were made of the breeding phenology, nesting success, nesting density, and rates of nest predation of ruddy turnstones (Arenaria interpres) at East Bay, Southampton Island, Nunavut, Canada. Previous data from East Bay were used to compare nesting chronology and nest success across years. Bird banding data were used to examine migration routes and rates of return. In all years, ruddy turnstones initiated nests within 7 days of arrival at the study area. The median date of incubation onset was the same in 2002 and 2003, despite different spring snow conditions. Snow remained later in the season in 2003 and the overall range of incubation onset was greater than in 2002. Ruddy turnstones at East Bay nested at high densities and in semi-colonial groups with a significantly aggregated distribution. In both years, nest success was low, predation was high, and lemmings were scarce. These data (and data from earlier East Bay studies) support the ‘alternative prey hypothesis’. Resighting rates of breeding adults between 2002 and 2003 were also low. Individuals banded at East Bay were resighted at Delaware Bay on the Atlantic coast of the United States, the Caribbean Islands, and in southern Brazil. This study increases our knowledge of this understudied species about which there is conservation concern.

Climate and environmental change places a variety of different pressures on remote, indigenous Arctic communities. The sea ice is the platform on which the Inugguit culture of northwest Greenland is based and thus it is inevitable that its retreat will have implications for the indigenous notion of place and for the manner in which the Inugguit articulate their sense of belonging with respect to the natural environment. With the demise of story-telling, the traditional vehicle for knowledge transmission, and the squeeze on hunting by consumer society and the Greenland Self Rule imposed quota system, it is apparent that some younger people are now engaging with more western ontologies of place. The relationship between man and nature is for some beginning to be expressed in terms of detachment and not extension. Whilst the way the Inugguit relate to their immediate natural environment might be in flux, other social practices of belonging such as naming and visiting are unchanged and still characterise these communities. In northwest Greenland, the need to ‘belong’ remains the social imperative that it has always been and the mechanisms used to reinforce this remain intact.

The development of formal discourse about education and outreach within the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM), and the influence of major international activities in this field, are described. This study reflects on the ATCM Parties’ approach to implementing the ambition of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty Article 6.1.a, to promote the educational value of Antarctica and its environment, and examines the role of workshops and expert groups within the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programmes. These early initiatives, which emerged in the 1990s, were a prelude to the development and implementation of a large number of International Polar Year (IPY) education and outreach programmes. The establishment of an Antarctic Treaty System Intersessional Contact Group, and an online forum on education and outreach during the 2015 ATCM in Bulgaria, is a legacy of IPY and is the next step in fostering collaboration to engage people around the world in the importance and relevance of Antarctica to our daily lives.

The struggle between Antarctic Treaty Parties and their UN critics regarding the management of Antarctica was resumed in November 1988 when, for the sixth successive year, the United Nations discussed the 'Question of Antarctica'. This year the UN adopted two further resolutions reaffirming demands of 1987 for wider participation in the minerals negotiations, the involvement of the UN Secretary-General in Antarctic Treaty System operations, and the exclusion of South Africa from treaty meetings. The Treaty Parties seem unlikely to heed these resolutions. Reforms within the Treaty System are the most likely means of progress for the critics, althoough Australia's critique of the Minerals Convention has introduced an element of uncertainty.

The lipid composition of blue mussels Mytilus edulis L. living under different environmental conditions (in the intertidal zone and in aquaculture) was studied to detect origin-related differences in seasonal modifications of lipids, and their fatty acid composition in gills and digestive glands. In early May, the gills and digestive glands of intertidal mussels contained higher amounts of total lipids, chiefly phospholipids and sterols, which appear to perform a protective function as maintenance of membrane integrity. Seasonal modifications in lipid composition of both intertidal and aquaculture mussels were related to environmental factors (mainly low temperature), reproductive processes and food availability. We show that seasonal changes in membrane lipid composition of both intertidal and aquaculture mussels reflect the process of membrane lipid remodelling (namely changes in phosphatidylethanolamine proportion and in the fatty acid composition of phospholipids) required for homeoviscous adaptation in low-temperature conditions. In particular, the unsaturation index and chain fluidity index of phospholipids increased in gills and digestive glands of mussels collected in early May and in November. Similar seasonal changes in the triacylglycerol levels and its fatty acid composition were observed in gills and digestive glands of both intertidal and aquaculture mussels collected in late May and August.

Between 15 and 29 March 1987 the Labrador Ice Margin Experiment(LIMEX), a major international field experiment, took place in the Grand Banks region of the Labrador Sea, off the New found land coast. First in a series of experiments to be conducted at the southern ice margin during early spring, the period of maximum ice extent, LIMEX'87 addressed questions on physical properties of the environment and the role of remotely sensed data, particularly microwave data, in providing information for monitoring and forecasting air-sea-ice properties and dynamics.

During the Second World War, both Chile and Argentina advanced sovereignty claims to the Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding sub-Antarctic islands that overlapped substantially with claims that the United Kingdom had made in 1908 and 1917. This article explores the emergence of the concept of a South American Antarctica during this period. Although, at one level, the two South American countries attempted to create a united front against the British, they actually decided to press their claims to Antarctica for different and sometimes conflicting reasons. In Argentina, nationalists connected the question of sovereignty in Antarctica with their claims to the Malvinas and with a broader struggle against a supposed British economic imperialism. In Chile, patriotic officials were less concerned with British claims to the Antarctic Peninsula and more worried about Argentina's growing interest in the region. The article concludes that a better understanding of the complex and contradictory history of the emergence of the idea of South American Antarctica during the Second World War leads to an enhanced appreciation of the subsequent development of the so-called ‘Antarctic Problem’ as it developed over the next 15 years. In order to avoid the artificiality of the term ‘Falklands (Malvinas)’, the British terms ‘Falklands’ and ‘Falkland Islands’ have been used when discussing the United Kingdom's position, and the Argentine term ‘Malvinas’ when discussing that of Argentina.

The “Arctic Uchronotopias” special issue of Polar Record is an important contribution to scholarly reflection on resource extraction. The ideas, perspectives, and empirical cases that we encounter have significance for extractivism wherever it takes place, both inside and outside of the Arctic region. To see extractivism through an Arctic lens is particularly useful since it brings up many of the issues that are often at stake in extraction activities, but not always at the same time: geopolitics, transboundary relations, environmental and climate impacts, cultural and natural heritage, indigenous relations, rights issues, local and regional development, and lives and fates of communities. Above all, these papers bring out the full spectrum of issues and tensions related to ongoing major global shifts, such as the Great Acceleration and Overheating, and those transformations of which resource extraction forms a major part. The research presented in Arctic Uchronotopias demonstrates that affect and emotions have explanatory value in the geopolitics of Arctic resource extraction. It also shows that emotional and cognitive experience and wisdom carry values and properties that conventional Environmental Impact Assessments and other technologies of evaluation and decision-making can capture.

Despite the global alarm caused by accelerating climate change, hydrocarbon companies are exploring and opening up new oil and gas fields all over the world, including the Arctic. With increasing attention on the Arctic, companies address the growing global environmental pressure in their public marketing in various ways. This article examines the webpages of Norwegian Equinor and Russian Gazprom & Gazprom Neft. Building on feminist discussions, I analyse the different justification strategies these fossil fuel companies working in the Arctic utilise in order to support their ongoing operations. This article concludes that in order to justify their operations in the Arctic, the Norwegian and Russian companies emphasise values based on discourses that have historically and culturally been associated with masculine practices, such as the control of nature enabled by technology. These justifications are thus reinforcing the narrative of the Arctic as a territory to be conquered and mastered. Even though the companies operate in different sociopolitical contexts, the grounds of justification are rather similar. Their biggest differences occur in their visual presentations of gender, which I argue is part of the justification. Approaching the fossil fuel industry from a feminist perspective allows questioning the dominant conceptualisations, which the justifications of Arctic hydrocarbon companies are based on.

Portugal has developed an active Antarctic programme over the past decade. Here, we examine Portuguese Antarctic activity using a variety of bibliometric measures, showing that Portuguese scientific output has grown substantially faster than the field as a whole, with quality remaining broadly constant. Antarctic science made up a growing percentage of overall Portuguese research, up to 0.14% of all papers in 2016—a level comparable to many other nations with well-established research programmes. Alongside this, Portugal has increasingly engaged in policy discussions and produced policy papers for Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, some of which were based on Portuguese environmental science. The Antarctic Treaty reserves decision-making powers to ‘Consultative Parties’—those who have been recognised as demonstrating substantial research activity in the continent. Our data indicates that Portugal is currently the fourth most productive non-Consultative Party, and has similar or greater output than several Parties who have already attained consultative status—its publication record is similar to that of the Czech Republic, which became a Consultative Party in 2014. The rapid growth of Portugal's Antarctic research may make it well placed to consider attaining consultative status to the Antarctic Treaty in the near future.

Monthly mean passive microwave-derived sea-ice motion maps for 36 winters (October–April) are used to examine pan-Arctic sea-ice drift speeds and patterns. The mean Arctic Ocean sea-ice motion consists of three well-known primary circulation regimes: the Beaufort Gyre (BG), transpolar drift (TPD), and a motion system from the Kara Sea (KS). The 36-year mean winter sea-ice drift pattern is used to identify the average boundaries between the circulation regimes mentioned above. Regression analyses of the ice drift speed anomalies show statistically significant positive drift speed trends in BG, TPD and KS. Non-significant trends are associated with negative trends of generally weak drift speeds north of the Canadian Arctic and over the Chukchi/East Siberian Shelf. The first three modes of Empirical Orthogonal Functions were found to explain 30.2%, 13.5% and 8.7% of the spatial variance in the mean winter ice drift patterns and highlight the large variability in the ice drift patterns.