This article examines the evolution of Canadian Arctic policy during Sir Wilfrid Laurier's years as prime minister (1896–1911). Explorer Joseph Elzéar Bernier, who commanded three government expeditions in this period, vigorously promoted the idea that he himself had roused the sluggish government to action. He also alleged that Laurier had promised to sponsor a Canadian voyage to the North Pole, a promise that was later broken. However, archival documents show that neither of these claims is true. Instead, Laurier and other members of his government first showed their determination to assert Canada's northern sovereignty in 1897, a year before Bernier came on the scene. Although Bernier hoped that his first northern voyage might be turned towards the pole, there was no promise from Laurier. Subsequent policy developments were often haphazard due to interdepartmental conflicts and personality clashes, but by the end of the Laurier years a reasonably effective Arctic programme had been created. Though Bernier played an important part in carrying out the government's agenda, many of his actions (most notably his famous July 1909 sector claim) were aimed more at enhancing his own fame than at securing Canada's title to the Arctic. The article places Bernier's Arctic career in its proper context, and at the same time highlights the contributions of other men who lacked his flair for publicity. It thus provides a more accurate factual basis for future work on the period.

This paper addresses the transformation that has occurred in livelihoods in the Nordic Arctic, showing how it affects gender equality among the region's older people. The region's population includes the Sámi, an indigenous people, who have traditionally relied for their livelihood on activities such as reindeer herding, making handicrafts, farming, fishing, hunting, trapping and gathering. In recent years these have faced enormous challenges because of the rapid transformation of the region in the wake of climate change and globalisation. Overall, these and other processes have precipitated socio-economic, cultural, environmental and infrastructural changes that are transforming the local economies and severely impacting older people in particular. The main research question examined in this article is whether gender inequality has arisen among older people because of the ongoing transformation of livelihoods. To this end, the paper provides an empirical analysis based on experiences gathered from field studies conducted by the author in Finnish and Swedish Lapland. The research also presents the experiences of older persons in light of the standard set by General Recommendation 27 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which oversees the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The Recommendation sets out the right of older women to equality and non-discrimination. The findings of the present research contribute to filling a gap in the literature on the topic.

This article concludes an account of the Prince AIbert expedition of 1850, which began in Polar Record 29 (169): 127–142 (1993); see Part 1 formaps. In 1850 Lady Franklin sent out the first other private expeditions in search of her husband and the crews of HMS Erebus and Terror, lost in the islands of the Canadian Arctic. The expedition sailed in Prince Albert, a vessel Lady Franklin acquired for the purpose. Its aim was to winter in Prince Regent Inlet and explore the area to the west, using two separate boat parties. These parties were to be under Commander Charles Codrington Forsyth, RN, the captain of the ship, and William Parker Snow. After passage to Prince Regent Inlet, Forsyth turned back because he was prevented from penetrating the inlet further than Fury Beach by what was regarded as unbreachable ice. Prince Albert then passed near Cape Riley, where Snow obtained information concerning relics that had been found by another expedition and that indicated that Franklin had wintered in that vicinity. News of this and further relics were brought back to Britain by Forsyth. The return caused much disappointment to Lady Franklin. She determined to send Prince Albert out again with a different commander. Snow wished to have that post, but it was allocated to William Kennedy.

This study is an analysis of the events surrounding the expedition, with reference to the light they throw on the personalities involved. It is suggested that the main reason for the failure was that the preparation was mismanaged. No efforts were made to secure the appointment of people who had sufficient similarity of interests or background to be an effective team. Forsyth found the situation on board such that he decided to conclude the voyage as soon as a reasonable excuse for returning presented itself.

Lloyd's Register of Shipping has published losses of all ocean-going merchant ships over 100 tonnes since 1890, including those resulting from encounters with ice. The list presented here gives details of where and how a loss due to ice occurred and provides the nationality of the ship and, where known, its route and cargo. Some place-names have changed since the ship loss, and where these have been found the present-day names follow in square brackets; place-names which have not been located are given in quotes. Changes have also occurred with respect to countries and flags, but in order to avoid confusion the entries in the flag column have been left as recorded at the time of the loss.

This paper attempts to describe Consultative Parties’ (CPs) patterns of participation at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM) during the 1998–2011 period. The results of this work show that a subset of the original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty exert the greatest political influence on ATCMs, and can therefore be seen as the main ‘propellers’ of the ATCM system. Although the performance of some of the non-original signatories is becoming increasingly consistent, the system still offers the appearance of being rather asymmetric and endogamic. In addition, a number of factors that might explain the patterns of participation observed are presented and discussed, as a contribution that may allow for achieving a more comprehensive picture of how the work of the ATCMs unfolds through time. The article concludes by presenting likely directions towards which future research on behavioural aspects of Antarctic policy making can be orientated.

British-Russian rivalry along the North Pacific littoral after 1815 was at once an extension of 18th century ambitions, commercial and geopolitical, and an enlargement of the interests of both nations in the existence of a Northwest Passage. John Barrow in Britain and Adam John von Krusenstern in Russia exhibited the opposing yet complementary interests of the two powers. British Admiralty activities resulted partly from a fear of Russian pre-emption, partly from ambitions for territorial and commercial aggrandizement. The Russian government supported the Russian American Company, and consolidated its overseas empire in Alaska. This paper describes die maritime activities and plans of both nations concerning the North Pacific and Northwest Passage, explaining political and territorial ambitions of the two powers that underlay the exploration, and their expansion of territorial empire and commerce in this area.

Many indigenous minorities throughout the Arctic are presently enduring severe social and economic adversity. Although residents of the Arctic are fewer in number than most other minority ethnic groups, their difficulties are not. This article is a review of one aspect of those difficulties, in one sector of the north: education among the native residents of rural Alaska.

The British Arctic Expedition sailed from Portsmouth on 29 May 1875. It left amid considerable public enthusiasm and with a telegram from the Queen. A contemporary journal had this to say: As we hope, so we believe that they will end their northward advance only at the northernmost meeting of the meridians; that they will return in safety to receive well-won applause and reward for their achievements; and that they will have very much to tell of the circum-polar region, as well as of their hoisting the Union Jack upon the Pole, (The Navy, 1875). The tone of the same journal was very different when reporting the return of the expedition in 1876, one year earlier than expected. One of the milder statements in a highly derogatory article read: Verily the expedition of 18756 has but little of which to boast. It went out like a rocket, and has come back like the stick. The validity of such a judgement needs careful examination against the aims and logistics of the expedition, the attitudes of the officers and men, and, most importantly, the actual achievementsand shortcomingsof the voyage.

Svalbard’s geographical positioning, environmental characteristics and multinational population make it conducive for considering informality and multinational cooperation in disaster risk reduction and response. Most research examining disaster risks and disasters for Svalbard has focused on Norwegian efforts in and for the main settlement of Longyearbyen, with none covering Svalbard’s second-largest settlement of Barentsburg. This paper addresses this gap by analysing how 21 Barentsburg residents deal with disasters. We conducted semi-structured interviews, visually aided by the revised PRISM (Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure) tool, to examine interviewees’ disaster perceptions, sources for disaster-related information and learning, and formal and informal sources for dealing with disaster risks and disasters. Our findings suggest that, despite being risk-aware, Barentsburg interviewees consider the settlement, and Svalbard as a whole, to be safe. The explanation is their faith in the existing disaster-related mechanisms, made up of both local Russian entities and the Norwegian rescue services, especially Svalbard’s governor (Sysselmesteren). Interviewees rely significantly on Russian and Norwegian informal actors and relationships for disaster-related information. These findings suggest that alongside formal approaches, informality may play a significant role in dealing with disasters in Barentsburg, which itself might serve as a platform for international cooperation.

Drawing on an ethnographic survey in Svalbard before and during the coronavirus outbreak, this commentary reflects on the multiple dimensions of fieldwork highlighted by the pandemic. Firstly, the cancellation of many field campaigns has revealed the decisive role of personnel inhabiting scientific bases in the maintenance of scientific activities in Svalbard. Automatic and remote-controlled instruments are autonomous only in appearance as the crucial phases of data acquisition often call for human presence. Secondly, airborne remote sensing can be perceived as a response to fill data gaps. Although embedded in a long history, the use of remote sensed data has taken on a new meaning in the context of the pandemic. Finally, the fact that several researchers endeavour to go to the field whatever the travel conditions underlines a certain need of being in Svalbard as well as limitations of science performed remotely.

Reliable access to Arctic research infrastructure is critical to the future of polar science. In cultivating proposals, it is essential that researchers have a deep understanding of existing platforms when selecting the appropriate research site and experimental design for projects. However, Arctic infrastructure platforms are often funded as national assets, and choices for what would be the best platform for the project are sometimes at odds with a researcher’s ability to gain access. Researchers from Arctic and non-Arctic nations are poised to benefit from reducing barriers and increasing cooperation around transnational access to Arctic infrastructure, allowing scientists to successfully execute the research that is most needed rather than what is just logistically feasible. This commentary provides a summary of findings from a workshop held at the 2021 Arctic Science Summit Week to discuss navigating “transnational” or “cross-border” access to national research infrastructure. This workshop brought together users and operators of Arctic infrastructure platforms with the three goals of identifying challenges, best practices, and possible next steps for improved collaboration.

This article argues that the concept of diligence provides a useful role in clarifying (and perhaps narrowing) the discretionary powers of the State with respect to the development of natural resources. The claim has two branches. First, the concept of due diligence plays an important role in bridging the normative gap between the harms caused by private actors and the international law of State responsibility. It is the vehicle by which States can be made to assume responsibility for private developments within their jurisdiction and control that cause harm to other States. Second, the concept of due diligence plays an important role (a “generative role”) in teasing out the detailed logical implications of more abstract primary norms such as the duty of prevention. These derivative duties include the duties to make a preliminary assessment of whether the proposed activity may cause a risk of significant transboundary harm: to conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) if there is a risk of significant harm and, if the EIA confirms that risk, to notify and consult with respect to possible measures to prevent or mitigate that risk. The article demonstrates both of these claims through an examination of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and arbitral awards. Finally, the article applies these claims in the context of possible resource developments in Alaska, British Columbia and Yukon that may have transboundary implications.

As a collaborative production, the exhibition New Arctic aspired to explore postcolonial versions of the Arctic. For this purpose, the exhibition included, among others, an installation called a map machine, seeking to display the Arctic as a site of ongoing ontological politics. To our audiences, the map machine visualised how an inhabited Arctic continues to become a periphery, open to new resource exploitation, a Dreamland “out of space and time.” In this text, I mimic the work of this map machine by describing a series of outside interventions on the Varanger Peninsula, in the Sámi core areas of Norway. The case that initiates the set of actions described in this text is a proposed expansion of a quartzite mine in the small village of Austertana. I illustrate how maps and bureaucratic processes as working political technologies introduce new cartographic visions of this land–water interface, counteracting other existing versions of the same landscape. The case illustrates how exactly such new visions impose urgently meaningful single-action landscapes, or how the Tanafjord was literally reworked from a landscape of endangered species to a landscape defined by an issue of maritime security.

Karl Ernst von Baer coined the word ‘Eiskeller’ (ice-cellar) to describe the Kara Sea in 1837, but he did not define precisely what he meant. The word was seized upon by subsequent geographers, notably Friedrich B. Lütke and August Petermann, as implying that the sea was unnavigable. However, when numerous successful voyages — by Norwegian fishermen, Joseph Wiggins, and Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld — showed that this was not the case, it was Baer, and not Lütke or Petermann, who was criticised for the claim. Baer only defended himself against these allegations in 1876, the year of his death, 39 years after he had first used the term.

On 21 July 1904, just over 80 years ago, the barque-rigged, Norwegian-built auxiliary steamship Scotia sailed home up the Clyde with members of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE), concluding one of the most successful expeditions of the heroic period of Antarctic exploration. Contemporaneous with the more spectacular British Antarctic Expedition (1901–03) commanded by Robert Falcon Scott, the Scotia party under William Spiers Bruce had overwintered on Laurie Island (60° 44ʹ S, 44° 50ʹ W) in the South Orkney Islands, explored for the first time the oceanography of the Weddell Sea, assembled an important collection of scientific material, and discovered Coats Land, an icebound stretch of the East Antarctica coast.

While Scott's Discovery expedition had emphasized geographical exploration inland from the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica, Bruce in the Scotia had concentrated more on scientific discovery in the Weddell Sea sector. On 12 November 1904 in Edinburgh, members of the Scotia and Discovery expeditions were guests at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Bruce and Scott together responding to a presidential toast that honoured the success of both.

The Dry Valleys of southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, lying some 75 km west of McMurdo station, form an arid, ice-free area of roughly 2 500 km2. Since the late 1950s, this region has provided a remarkable opportunity for geoscientific studies of the exposed surface rocks, within easy reach of logistic support at McMurdo and Scott bases on Ross Island (Fig 1). As a result of a study of Lake Vanda in the Wright Valley, which began during the 1963–64 summer field season, scientists from the United States, New Zealand and Japan supported the view that further advances in our knowledge of the Dry Valleys would require an examination of the unconsolidated material, and the geothermal regime at lake sites, using direct shallow drilling techniques. As drilling techniques and interestin the geological history of the McMurdo region as a whole (encompassing the Transantarctic Mountains, Ross Island, McMurdo Sound and the Dry Valleys) developed, an international, multidisciplinary project—the Dry Valley Drilling Project (DVDP)—was conceived. By 1969 the US National Science Foundation (NSF) had decided to coordinate proposals from scientists wishing to drill the first intermediate and deep cores into the sediment and rock of Antarctica; the aim, a reconstruction of Antarctic geological history that traditional surface or near-surface studies alone could never achieve. Initially, the approach was to be a sub-surface physical, chemical and biological examination of theDry Valleys, but as the project developed it encompassed studies of the Ross Island volcanic complex and McMurdo Sound sediments.

Seabird populations in Antarctica serve as indicators to assess the impacts of global environmental change. Ecological data on seabirds in Antarctica are scarce due to limited knowledge on their distribution and abundance in most parts of the continent. In this study, we investigated the status of seabird species around the Indian research stations Bharati at Larsemann Hills, Prydz bay and Maitri at Schirmacher Oasis, central Dronning Maud Land located in east Antarctica. We conducted primary surveys during austral summers under the Indian Antarctic Program and compiled published as well as unpublished information on seabird distribution from these areas. We employed intensive area search methods to locate presence of seabird nesting and moulting sites. Ten species were recorded from Larsemann Hills with confirmed breeding of snow petrel, south polar skua and Wilson’s storm-petrel. Only south polar skua and Adélie penguin were reported breeding at Schirmacher Oasis with unconfirmed breeding of Wilson’s storm-petrel. This study presents the first detailed synthesis of status of seabirds from Larsemann Hills and Schirmacher Oasis regions in Antarctica and serves as a strong baseline for future ecological work on seabirds in the sector of operation of Indian Antarctic Program.

Each year, more and more of Canada's vast northern territories are being explored in the search for untapped mineral resources. But the area is covered with snow for seven to ten months a year, which hampers most activities connected with mineral exploration. Snow cover also affects changes in albedo and temperature and hydrologic forecasting. The surface hydrology in most areas is only active for two to five months a year. Historically, snow hydrologists have been limited to the use of ground source measurements for estimating the spatial and temporal variability of snow cover. In the Yukon and Northwest Territories hydrometeorological stations are few and tend to be clustered around settlements. Moreover, the ground source data are subject to error and do not necessarily provide a complete picture of current conditions. The synoptic view provided by satellite images presents an economical way to monitor the retreat and advance of the snow-line and of mapping snow cover in remote and sparsely populated areas. The information may eventually be useful for extrapolating conventional ground source data more effectively over the entire Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Project MIZPAC (Marginal Ice Zone Pacific) was initiated in 1971 by the Arctic Submarine Laboratory, San Diego, California, to further the US Navy's understanding of problems associated with operating submarines under ice-covered oceans. Oceanographers from the Naval Postgraduate School took part in six summer cruises to the marginal sea ice zone (MIZ) of the shallow Chukchi Sea between 1971 and 1978 (Fig 1), providing the first detailed observations of the temperature-salinity structure within this dynamically active zone. Strong horizontal gradients of temperature and salinity marking boundaries between water masses (fronts), are widespread and well developed (Paquette and Bourke 1981). Where water masses intrude upon each other large-scale temperature inversions (anomalous increases in temperature with depth) often appear. Termed fine structure, these temperature anomalies include some of the largest observed anywhere in the world's oceans, sometimes exceeding 2°C over vertical distances of 5–10 m (Paquette and Bourke 1979). This article describes some of the fronts and fine structures observed in the Chukchi Sea, and shows how they develop within the general patterns of sea ice and circulation.