The predominantly Inuit Arctic region of Nunavik in the Province of Québec, Canada, currently needs to address major challenges and opportunities. The region needs to develop more employment and wealth creation opportunities without sacrificing the vital land-based subsistence sector that provides food security, sustains cultural identity and provides social and economic stability. A decision about a new direction needs to be taken soon as major mining projects are developing at a rapid pace. In this paper we first assess existing socioeconomic and living conditions data to evaluate the state of social well-being in the region. In addition we report and analyse information from an economic forum in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik in April 2010. The purpose of the forum was to provide an opportunity for regional and local stakeholders to obtain information on specific economic opportunities for Nunavik and to discuss their merit for the communities. Based on our data evaluation and the outcomes at the forum we identify a possible sustainable development feedback envisioning process and discuss possible sustainable development directions for Nunavik.

Two of the outstanding problems in Antarctic earth sciences are the early history of the East Antarctic ice sheet, and the history of the Transantarctic Mountains. These two problems may well be linked, for if the initial uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains was sufficient to promote a permanent ice cap, this may have triggered formation of the East Antarctic ice sheet in the manner oudined by Drewry (1975, p 266). Glomar Challenger in 1973 made the first major breakthrough concerning early history of the ice sheet by recovering cores from the centre of the Ross Sea; they show that ice rafting began there 25 Ma BP and has been going on ever since (Hayes and others, 1975). However, the core data give little indication of the extent of ice cover, or of the climatic changes that led to expanded ice cover which produced the ice-rafted debris.

This paper considers the degree to which the concept of ‘internal colonialism’ accurately describes the political economy of Nunavut’s commercial fisheries. Offshore fisheries adjacent to Nunavut were initially dominated by institutions based in southern Canada, and most economic benefits were captured by southern jurisdictions. Decades of political struggle have resulted in Nunavut establishing a role for itself in both the management of offshore resources and the operation of the offshore fishing industry. However, key decisions about fishery management are made by the federal government, and many benefits from Nunavut’s offshore fisheries continue to accrue to southern jurisdictions. The concept of internal colonialism is therefore a useful concept for understanding the historical development and contemporary conflicts over offshore fisheries. By contrast, Nunavut’s inshore fisheries were established as community development initiatives intended to promote economic well-being and stability. While inshore fisheries primarily benefit Inuit community economies, the growth of inshore fisheries has been hampered by small profit margins, inadequate marine infrastructure, and a dearth of baseline data. The federal government’s failure to support the expansion of inshore fisheries is a manifestation of internal colonialism, insofar as it reflects an unequal distribution of public infrastructure and research.

Distributions of gymnosomatous pteropods, Spongiobranchaea australis and Clione antarctica, were determined at six sites along a latitudinal gradient in western Antarctica Peninsula shelf waters using vertically stratified trawls. Hydrographic data were collected at the same sites with conductivity-temperature-depth casts, and correlations of explanatory variables to gymnosome distributions were determined using statistical analyses performed in Matlab, a high level programming software to conduct numerical computation and visualisation. Explanatory variables included sampling site, latitude, longitude and depth, seawater temperature, salinity and density, Southern Ocean Antarctic Surface Water, Winter Water, Upper Circumpolar Deep Water and warm transitional waters, as well as oceanographic remote sensing data for coloured dissolved organic matter, chlorophyll a concentration, normalised fluorescence line height, nighttime sea surface temperature, photosynthetically active radiation, particulate inorganic carbon, particulate organic carbon, daytime sea surface temperature and daily sea ice concentration. Hydrographic data revealed that warmer water masses were prevalent along the western Antarctic Peninsula, and the distributions of both gymnosome species were primarily influenced by water masses, temperature, sampling site and latitude. As a consequence, distributional shifts of gymnosomes are predicted in response to the current warming trends.

Climate change has become significantly pronounced in the Arctic over recent decades. In addition to these climate effects, the environment has experienced severe anthropogenic pressure connected to increased human activities, including the exploitation of natural resources and tourism. The opportunity to exploit some of the natural riches of Svalbard was promptly grasped by the Soviet Union well before the 1940s. In this paper, we present the story of Pyramiden, a mining settlement in central Svalbard. The Soviet town experienced its golden age in the 1970–1980s but fell into decline in the late 1990s which corresponds well with the overall economic and geopolitical situation of the Soviet Union. The impacts of past mining activities and related urban infrastructure development are illustrated with the use of historic aerial photographs. The most pronounced changes in the terrain configuration were connected to adjustments of the river network, construction of roads, water reservoirs, and obviously mining-related activities. The natural processes overwhelmed the city infrastructure rather quickly after the abandonment of the town in 1998, though some traces of human activities may persist for decades or centuries. Nowadays, Russia has been attempting to recover the settlement especially through support of tourism and research activities.

This article seeks to explain the doctrine concerning sovereignty in Antarctica articulated by Charles E. Hughes, a former US Secretary of State, and to account for its persistence in underpinning US Antarctic policy. The doctrine was part of the New Imperialism — the surge of colonial expansion and spheres of influence that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. US imperialism sought to establish an ‘open door’ international order to exploit America's growing economic power; the Hughes doctrine extended this policy into Antarctica, preserving US access to all of the region by denying recognition of claims by other countries.

The Antarctic Treaty has been the principal governing force in Antarctica since 1961. The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) requires that all past and present work and waste-disposal sites are cleaned up unless doing so would cause greater environmental damage or the site is considered to be a monument of significant historical importance. Despite this requirement, legacy waste issues remain unresolved in parts of Antarctica. Clean-up operations in Antarctica are complicated by a combination of restricted access, extreme weather, financial limitations and logistical constraints. Further complications arise at sites such as Wilkes Station, where the requirement for clean-up coexists with the desire to preserve potentially valuable heritage items.

Several buildings and artefacts with potential heritage value remain at Wilkes Station. However, Wilkes Station is not officially designated as a historic site or monument under the Antarctic Treaty, nor is it a national or world heritage place under Australian domestic legislation. Consequently the buildings and relics at Wilkes Station are afforded little protection under the existing relevant domestic and international legislative frameworks.

This paper uses Wilkes Station as a case study of the complexities associated with conducting clean-up operations at contaminated sites with informal heritage value in Antarctica. The legislative and environmental considerations surrounding clean-up operations at Wilkes Station are also investigated. Furthermore, we argue the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to operations which facilitate the clean-up of legacy waste and preservation of the potential heritage values at Wilkes. Finally, we recognise that the complexities discussed in this paper have wider applicability and we investigate the relevance of these issues to other Antarctic contaminated sites with formal or informal heritage value.

This note updates the author's paper with the title ‘Whither the Arctic? Conflict or cooperation in the circumpolar north’. published in the last issue of this journal (Young 2009). Particular attention is paid to the policy issues arising from the ongoing and rapid changes unfolding in the Arctic.

Greenland and Iceland are described with unusual scientific accuracy in the King's Mirror. However this thirteenth-century manuscript contains a few ‘wonders’ that appear more mythological than rational. They include the hafstramb and the margygr, commonly translated respectively as merman and mermaid. The mermaid has a long history in western civilisation. The commonly accepted theory that it evolved from the classical Greek siren is critically examined here. The margygr is shown to be a distinct creature based on independent observation in northern Europe. The characteristics of these observations actually modified the siren of the Physiologus, a bird-woman, into the fish-woman known today. Observations of hafstramb and margygr are explained as superior mirages. These are caused by atmospheric refraction, which distorts and magnifies distant objects. Computer simulations and photographs show that mirages of an orca, a walrus, or even a boulder match almost point for point the descriptions in the King's Mirror. Thus the apparently mythical components in the Greenland account are in fact careful scientific observations.

On 24 May 1847, Sir John Franklin’s third expedition reported “All well”, but less than a year later, on 22 April 1848, the 129 sailors who had set out from Britain on Erebus and Terror had been reduced to 105 survivors departing their frozen ships in a desperate attempt to escape the Arctic. At least 24 were so unhealthy that they would perish after having travelled little more than 100 km from the ships. By contrast, the small mortality rates on other contemporary Arctic expeditions, some of which stayed in the Arctic considerably longer, were consistent with the mortality rates in the Royal Navy worldwide. This paper explores the question of what difference caused so many of Franklin’s crew to die during their final months on-board the ships and in the initial stages of the escape attempt. From the perspective of cultural ecology, the most significant difference, and the ultimate cause of the catastrophe as it unfolded, was wintering in the ice pack. This distinguished the Franklin expedition from all of the other comparable overwintering expeditions, and precluded the Erebus and Terror crews from hunting or fishing. That in turn led to nutritional deficiencies due to much greater reliance on stored provisions than other expeditions.

The EU ban on the import and commercialising of seals and seal products in the EU market, has attracted intense attention in recent years. As seal products mostly originate from outside the EU, it is argued that the EU action has been discriminatory and hence contrary to the WTO regulations. Canada and Norway have been critical of the EU regulation and have initiated dispute settlement procedures within the WTO since most of the products that enter into the internal market are mainly from these countries. The ban also provoked anger within the Inuit and other indigenous communities, mainly from Canada and Greenland. Although the EU regulation provides an exception for Inuit and indigenous hunts and the subsequent commercialisation of resulting products into the internal market, the exception suffers from clarity and lacks proper implementation procedures. The regulation is predicted to lead to the ultimate disappearance of the seal market in the EU, which directly affects the Inuit and other indigenous peoples engaged in sealing activities. They may lose their means of subsistence. While analysing the critical issues concerning the EU and the WTO regulations and its exceptions, the article focuses on the human rights perspective of the Arctic indigenous peoples affected by the EU ban.

The governance of the Arctic as a frontier for international environmental and climate cooperation, resource politics and security governance holds the promise to provide important insights into some of the 21st century’s most enduring and pressing global challenges. This article reviews the state of the art of Arctic governance research (AGR) to assess the potential and limitations of a regional studies community for making sense of Northern politics and contributing to the broader discipline of international relations (IR) research. A bibliometric analysis of 398 articles published in 10 outlets between 2008 and 2019 reveals that AGR faces at least four limitations that undermine understanding and explaining the processes and outcomes of regional politics and inhibit generalisable observations applicable to questions of global governance: academic immaturity, methodological monoculturalism, state-centrism and analytical parochialism. The lack particularly of theoretically driven and comparative research is indicative of a deeper crisis in AGR which, if unaddressed, could further solidify the community’s unjustified reputation as quixotic in orientation and negligible in its contributions to IR research.

It is with a feeling of diffidence that I start to write on this subject which has been covered in the past by many experts, but as I have been asked to do so by the Editor of The Polar Record, I propose to go into the treatment and care of huskies fairly thoroughly, giving details which I have found useful, and which I hope may prove equally so to those in charge of the dogs of future expeditions.

Since the description of the activities of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey for 1946–47 by Surgeon-Commander E. W. Bingham no general account of the Survey's activities has appeared in the Polar Record. The writer's connection with these activities dates from 1948, but in order to bring the story up to date, it is necessary to begin in 1947.

Using research methods well-known to family history investigators, it is possible to discover a remarkable amount of biographical information not merely on the officers, but also about the ratings who sailed — and died — with Sir John Franklin and Captain Francis Crozier on the 1845 Northwest Passage expedition. The findings from this research, mostly carried out at local and national archives in and around London, greatly enhances the understanding of that disaster, filling in gaps and answering questions raised by recent archaeological and forensic discoveries. This is the hitherto ignored social background to the last voyage of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

The Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) is considered a successful example of international governance as it has managed tensions over sovereignty claims, avoided militarisation and dealt with marine resources and environmental protection. Recently, China’s influence and assertiveness in many international institutions have significantly grown. What effect this shift in the international politics will have upon Antarctic governance remains to be seen. However, to further thinking on this issue we explore two current case studies that reveal pressure points within the ATS. First, in the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, Australia has proposed marine protected areas off East Antarctica, to which China and several other states have objected. Second, in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, China has proposed special management arrangements for the area around the “Kunlun” station, to which Australia and several other states have objected. Negotiation theory suggests “logrolling” (i.e. trade of mutual decision-making support across issue areas) can be an effective strategy to avoid diplomatic deadlocks. We therefore consider the merits of a logrolling strategy for the above issues. We find that while a logrolling strategy in the ATS might facilitate short-term diplomatic success, it would carry significant risks, including the weakening of existing norms.

Recent media coverage of the threatened collapse of the vast Wilkins ice shelf highlights the manner in which the established focus on global warming and the ozone hole has led Antarctica to be well and truly accepted as playing an integral role in global environmental systems. By contrast, histories of the 1950 and 1960s continue still to treat Antarctica largely as, to quote Philip Quigg (1983), ‘a Pole Apart’, that is a marginal region struggling for inclusion on most world maps. Despite the occasional newsworthy item, like the 1952 Anglo-Argentine clash at Hope Bay (Beck 1987: 18–21) or the 1955–1958 British Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary 1958), Antarctic affairs have not been regarded, except perhaps in Argentina, Australia, Chile and New Zealand, as sufficiently mainstream during the 1950s and 1960s to warrant inclusion in national or global histories covering that period. As a result, it remains easy still to gloss over the 1959 Antarctic Treaty as possessing rather limited contemporary significance, and hence to dismiss it as a limited purpose agreement confined to a relatively marginal area. Indeed, for some commentators, the treaty was even interpreted as a lost opportunity in terms of failing either to internationalise the region or to resolve the longstanding Antarctic sovereignty problem.

Concentration levels of various organochlorine pesticides and their derivatives — namely, hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCH) and the DDT compounds pp'-DDT, op'-DDT, pp'-DDE, op'-DDE, pp'-DDD, and op'-DDD — were determined in the sediments from eight different lakes of the Schirmacher Oasis, near Dakshin Gangotri, the Indian station (70° 45'S, 11° 44'E) during the Sixth Indian scientific expedition to Antarctica (December 1986 to February 1987). Concentration levels of HCHs (α, β, γ)and t-DDT (pp'-DDT + op'-DDT + pp'-DDE + op'-DDE + pp'-DDD + op'-DDD) in sediments of these lakes were found to be in the ranges of 37.7–155 pg/gand 512.9–1131 pg/g, respectively. Among the isomers of HCH, gamma-HCH was most prominent, followed by alpha-HCH, whereas in the case of metabolites of DDT and its isomers, pp'-DDT was found to be dominant over others. However, all the other compounds of the DDT family were present in considerable amounts in all the lakes. There was no significant change in the monthly variation of the concentration levels of HCHs and DDTs in the lakes.