Svalbard reindeer were examined for their dependency on seasonal changes from January to May and their choice of certain vegetation types. Snow characteristics and accumulation appear to be the main factors for the changing use of vegetation types from open plains and wetland in January and February to slopes and areas with ridge and heath vegetation in April and May. The results confirm other studies of the grazing behaviour of reindeer and caribou on the Norwegian mainland and in North America.

The present study was conducted to measure the elemental concentration and bacterial deposition in the firn-cores at the Midre Lovénbreen glacier, Svalbard. Firn-cores up to 1m deep were collected and divided into three subsections. These were subjected to elemental analysis using inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICPMS). In all 20 elements were analysed. The crustal enrichment factors calculated for these elements on the basis of Fe values, demonstrate that the elements have derived from both crustal and anthropogenic sources. For certain elements there also exists a possibility of input from sea salt spray. Total bacterial counts in these firn samples ranged from 1.03 × 105 to 3.67 × 105 per ml of meltwater. Culturability of these bacterial cells, in comparison to the total count was very low. At 4°C the maximum culturability was <1.4% of the total count while at 15°C it was still lower (~1%).

Using methods developed by family history researchers, it is possible to discover a remarkable amount about the individual lives of many men involved in Sir John Franklin's last fatal attempt to discover a Northwest Passage. This work constitutes what might be called ‘the social history’ of Franklin studies, relevant to that voyage in particular, and the early Victorian navy in general. Light is shed upon the lives of the Royal Marines aboard both HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, men who sailed and died with Franklin.

This paper describes observations made on visits to Beechey Island in 1999, 2002, and 2005. These visits were made in order to examine the memorials on this very important site for Arctic exploration and to make an extensive photographic record of them. Their history and present condition are described. There are some inconsistencies and confusion in the scattered literature concerning their history and this paper seeks to resolve these matters. It is hoped that further investigations to resolve the few remaining problems, will be conducted and that a systematic nomenclature, which is suggested in the paper, will be adopted for the memorials. Restoration, repair, and regular maintenance of the memorials are becoming necessary and appropriate funding for this is required before it is too late. Close regulation of the erection of more modern memorials and burials, some of which, in the author's view, detract from the significance, solemnity, and appearance of the island is desirable. With the growing number of airborne and ship borne travellers and tourists visiting Beechey Island, a degree of supervision may become necessary in order to ensure that the memorials remain intact. Beechey Island is one of the most important heritage locations in Canada and in the history of Arctic exploration by the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century.

A new source of digital elevation data, the advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (ASTER) global digital elevation model (GDEM), has been freely available since 2009. It provides enormously greater coverage of the Arctic than previous satellite derived ‘global’ digital elevation models, extending to a latitude of 83 °N in contrast to 60 °N. The GDEM is described as a preliminary, research grade product. This paper investigates its accuracy in a number of specifically Arctic landscapes, including ice and snow, boreal forest, tundra and unvegetated terrain, using test sites in Svalbard, Iceland, Norway and Russia. Semivariogram analysis is used to characterise the magnitude and spatial correlation of errors in the GDEM products from the test sites. The analysis suggests that the horizontal resolution of the GDEM data is around 130 m, somewhat coarser than the sampling interval of 1 second of latitude and longitude. The vertical accuracy is variable, and the factors influencing it have not been systematically explored. However, it appears that the likely accuracy can be estimated from ‘stacking number’ data supplied with the elevation data. The stacking number is the number of independent digital elevation models averaged to generate the supplied product. Provided that this number is greater than around 6 the data have an rms accuracy of typically 5–10 m.

In Qeqertarsuaq (Disco Island), northwest Greenland, local disputes about the allocation of annual whaling quotas for beluga and narwhals feature as a source of conflict between state-imposed categories of occupational and non-occupational hunters. The national authorities’ co-management regime for the regulation of whale quotas has triggered the creation of new socio-economic groupings and compartmentalised respective groups of hunters in the process. Although the rigid legal categories have impacted upon the social unity and conduct of whaling in Qeqertarsuaq, and remain difficult to navigate, local whalers and their families nevertheless improvise and mould their interests around the legal frameworks in everyday interpretations of national and municipal quota allocations. The article argues that, in the process of receiving and interpreting annual quota allocations, hunters and their families draw on locally varying environmental and ecological circumstances and that their negotiation of current regulations, in turn, suggests a further consideration of the social aspects as these inform local knowledge about whales and wider socio-economic circumstances governing whaling in Qeqertarsuaq. In reviewing local receptions of annual quota allocations, the article assesses how whaling regulations are not just about the management of whale stocks but also about the management of whalers and their families and how this then calls for increased recognition of the fact that issues of social sustainability are intricately tied to contemporary concerns for environmental sustainability in Arctic whaling.

The battle of Petropavlovsk in August/September 1854 was a significant though little known victory for the Russians during the Crimean War. Petropavlovsk, i n Kamchatka, was attacked by a Franco-British naval force intending to destroy Russian ships within the harbour and to render the port unusable as a naval base. Allied plans were disrupted by the death ofthe commander in chief, the British Admiral Price, just before the action was joined. A bombardment on 31 August badly damaged the harbour defences and, if followed up, would probably have resulted in success. After a gap of three days, the allies mounted a landing in the rear of the town which was, after severefighting, repelled by the Russians. After this defeat, the squadron dispersed t o ports on the other side of the Pacific.

James Gordon Bennett Jr (1841–1918), recognized as one of the most important individuals in the development of popular journalism in the United States, was proprietor of the New York Herald, perhaps the most influential American newspaper of his time. The man who sent Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to find David Livingstone, he was also significant in American Arctic exploration during the second half of the 19th century. He played a role in the organization or funding of five Arctic expeditions, including the Jeannette expedition under George W. De Long. Although his interest in exploration was primarily a means to increase the circulation of his newspaper, by his sponsorship Bennett helped contribute to knowledge of the Arctic. More importantly, through extensive coverage in the Herald, he helped create national interest in the Arctic and in polar exploration in general.

It is much easier to doubt than it is to believe in the existence of prehistoric hunters on Svalbard. Few researchers categorically deny the possibility of early settlers in this region, yet fewer still advocate the possibility. Since Christiansson and Simonsen (1970) presented artifacts discovered on Svalbard that may date from the Stone Age, no one has undertaken further serious survey work for prehistoric settlements on Svalbard.

In this article the research history of prehistoric archaeology on the archiepelago is reviewed, the artifacts from the Christiansson and Simonsen study are re-examined, and the results of field surveys conducted in Bellsund during the summer of 1997 are presented. The investigation produced a negative result. The test area was one of the richest and most stable contemporary hunting areas on Svalbard, and it is proposed, therefore, that this survey provides a qualified basis for concluding that circumpolar hunting groups did not settle in Svalbard.

Potential Adélie penguin Pygoscelis adeliae breeding habitat in the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT: 45°E–136°E, 142°E–160°E) was mapped using a geographic information system (GIS), and the literature reviewed for evidence of the mapped habitat being searched for presence or absence of breeding Adélie penguins. It is concluded that incomplete search effort is a possible source of substantial negative bias of Adélie penguin breeding abundance derived from published count data in some regions of the AAT. The extent of search effort in other regions of Antarctica could be determined using the same approach applied here, because GIS data required for mapping potential habitat are available for the entire continent. We would expect that regions with more scientific and tourist activity, such as the Antarctic Peninsula, are likely to have greater search effort than the AAT.

This article focuses on one potential motivation for a state's behaviour in international affairs, namely status-seeking, in order to shed light on Norway's Arctic politics and to discuss the role of hierarchies in Arctic politics more generally. The idea that a state's political elite seek national security and economic gain is well established in international relations (IR) literature. However, another key motivation of human behaviour – seeking status and respect – is frequently overlooked as a potential factor shaping states’ behaviour. The argument begins with a brief review of post-cold war Arctic politics followed by a discussion of the status-related literature in IR. Norway's position in the Arctic Council (AC) and in bilateral relations with Russia is then examined, with particular attention paid to the extent to which other Arctic states acknowledge and confirm Norway's status claims. Norway's status as an information provider, a convener and a bridge to Russia gives the country a degree of influence in Arctic multilateral settings. Given the Arctic region's relatively peaceful nature and the emphasis on circumpolar cooperation, space has been made for creative approaches to status. Size and military or economic greatness are not always decisive factors for taking a lead in today's Arctic politics.

The Khibiny Educational and Scientific Station (KESS) of the Faculty of Geography, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), was founded in 1948. It is one of the oldest stations of the MSU Faculty of Geography and the only one located north of the Arctic Circle. It is also one of the oldest continuously operating arctic field stations in the world. For more than 70 years, the research station has fostered scientific and international collaboration. Science and education carried out at the station have always gone hand in hand and the research results have been both theoretical and practical. Many generations of Russian geographers owe their successful careers to the research activities at the Khibiny station. Nowadays, it is one of the two major student training bases for the Faculty of Geography as well as a focal point of many national and international research projects, including the International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT) network.

The vast expanses of tundra and taiga stretching from Kol'skiy Poluostrov to Chukotka have long been utilized by small ethnic groups with a chiefly northern economy—reindeer husbandry, hunting, fishing, sea mammal hunting. At present, judging by the data of the all-Union census of 1970, their total number is a little over 150 000. The peoples of the north include the Nentsy, formerly Samoyed (28 705), Evenki, formerly Tungus (25 149), Khanty, formerly Ostyak (21 138), Chukchi (13 597), Eveny, formerly Lamut (12 029), Nanaytsy, formerly Gol'd (10 005), Mansi, formerly Vogul (7 710), Koryaki (7 487), Dolgany (4 877), Nivkhi, formerly Gilyak (4 420), Sel'kupy, formerly Ostyak Samoyed (4 282), Ul'chi or Ol'chi (2 448), Saamy or Lapps (1 884), Udegeytsy (1 469), Eskimosy (1 308), Itel'meny (1 301), Kety, formerly Yeniseians (1 182), Orochi (1 089), Nganasany (953), Yukagiry (615), Negidal'tsy (537), Aleuty (Itogi,1973, p 21–22) (441); and also some not accounted for in the census— Entsy (300), Oroki (400) and Chuvantsy (700) (Novaya zhizn', 1967, p 7–9)