When Sir John Franklin’s expedition ships, lost since 1845, were found in the Arctic in 2014 and 2016, respectively, they were referred to several times in the media as ghost ships. However, such a comparison is not new. In 1862, an article linking the disappearance of the Franklin expedition to that of a ghost ship in Antarctic waters appeared in a newly founded German geographic journal aimed at a general audience. The story of the ghost ship Jenny in the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica would probably have been long forgotten had it not appeared again in this journal in English translation a century later. Since then, the story has appeared again and again in publications about mysterious phenomena, without succeeding in answering the question of whether such a ship ever existed at all. Instead of continuing to look for evidence of the actual existence of the ship, the following article not only presents the sources of the 1862 journal article but also examines how the story itself might have originated. In addition to a well-known legend about a ghost ship in the Arctic waters of Greenland, which will also be analysed in greater detail, oral tales and tradition about two almost forgotten voyages into Antarctic waters and a well-known one have probably also been incorporated into the tale of the ghost ship Jenny. All translations from German are by the author.

As indications of ‘overtourism’ appear in the Arctic, tourism presents both management challenges and ethical dilemmas, applicable to broader discussions about sustainability within Polar tourism. I argue that mapping value relations can contribute to ongoing discussions for positive ways forwards and that the concept of degrowth holds promise in redirecting tourism to better serve the local community. Tourism has become the largest employer and most rapidly growing sector in Svalbard, taking over from coal mining. Longyearbyen is a small urban centre but nevertheless is the central hub where almost all tourism passes through. Indeed, tourism is how the majority of human relations with its lands, seas, human and non-human inhabitants will be enabled. This paper is centred on charting the transition of Longyearbyen to a ‘tourist town’. Drawing on local voices from 2013 to 2016 and 2019, I use a value-based analysis to assess the changes experienced in the context of wider systems of value at work in Svalbard.

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 paper investigates how guides on Svalbard make sense of their relations to the environment whilst working with mass tourism. The Arctic is heating up more rapidly than any other part of the world, and over the last 30 years the effect of climate change has had a large impact on the environment in the Arctic. The guides as such find themselves living a paradox where their work destroys the nature that they care about and depend on. This paper analyses empirical data collected during four months of fieldwork amongst guides in Svalbard. Throughout the paper, two dimensions are explored: the guides’ relation to and understanding of the environment as well as their ways of caring for it. Building on illustrations of the guides’ preconceptions of the environment, it is shown how the guides in their everyday life are engaged in pro-environmental practices. These practices are embedded in the guides’ reciprocal relationship with the environment, where they negotiate between different trade-offs. The guides thus find a way to navigate the complexity of caring for the environment and working in tourism through their intimate relation to the environment.

Geopolitical interventions since the end of the 1980s—such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, a decline in the activities of state-owned coal companies, and governmental initiatives to increase tourism activities—have affected the community viability of two main settlements on Svalbard: Barentsburg and Longyearbyen. This paper explores how the residents of these settlements (with different cultural backgrounds) perceive the effects of socioeconomic transitions on community viability. The analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of Barentsburg (n = 62) and Longyearbyen (n = 36) reveals the residents’ perceptions of the pace of the transition and the changing community composition. New types of commercial activities, such as tourism, contribute to local value creation and socioeconomic development but come with concerns grounded in community fluctuation, environmental protection, economic prioritisation, and power relationships. Compared to Longyearbyen, Barentsburg has undergone relatively minor demographic and social changes and remains stable in terms of culture, language, and management practices. We conclude that the viability of Longyearbyen and Barentsburg during the transition was affected by community dynamics and fluctuations, social relationships within and between communities, and local institutional practices.

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.

Indigenous peoples throughout the circumpolar north have made significant progress in terms of securing self-determination through greater political autonomy. Although such change is important, it must be accompanied by greater economic control aimed at reducing state dependencies. Using an analytical framework developed by Norwegian political scientist, Stein Rokkan, this article explores the interplay between economy, territory, and identity among the Inuit in Canada and the Sámi in Norway. It reveals that the economic destinies of both groups have been profoundly influenced by both domestic and international factors that determine the focus and type of economic development they undertake. While the Inuit have pursued a balance of modern and traditional forms of economic development that is grounded in a regionally based model of self-rule, the Sámi have opted for an economic development model that emphasises traditional economic activities and is supported by Norway’s international commitments to the rights of Indigenous peoples.

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.

The article discusses how promising outlooks and favourable memories of past and distant mining ventures are employed in the view of a mine in spe. The study utilises interview quotes and written narratives pertaining to a case of mine development in Swedish Pajala and neighbouring Finnish Kolari (the Northland project 2004–2014), located above the Arctic Circle, for explicating this. Its theoretical framework includes the concept of minescape and the ideas of past presences and anticipated futures, which support capturing (the temporality of) the sociocultural and discursive dimensions of mining alongside with its physicality. Previous and distant experiences with mines appeared readily abstracted and brought into the current debate, forgetting about contexts, that is, about any historical or geographical contingencies. This kind of temporal and spatial referencing is seen to represent an imaginative practice which, as it is argued, gains an enhanced role in tandem with the increasing market dependency and volatility of the extractive business. By attending to the meaning-making based on remembering, and forgetting, in the context of experiences made with mining in the past or elsewhere, the article contributes to our understanding of the present-day role of mining heritage.

Supporting Antarctic scientific investigation is the job of the national Antarctic programmes, the government entities charged with delivering their countries’ Antarctic research strategies. This requires sustained investment in people, innovative technologies, Antarctic infrastructures, and vessels with icebreaking capabilities. The recent endorsement of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Polar Code (2015) means that countries must address challenges related to an ageing icebreaking vessel fleet. Many countries have recently invested in and begun, or completed, builds on new icebreaking Polar research vessels. These vessels incorporate innovative technologies to increase fuel efficiency, to reduce noise output, and to address ways to protect the Antarctic environment in their design. This paper is a result of a Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) project on new vessel builds which began in 2018. It considers the recent vessel builds of Australia’s RSV Nuyina, China’s MV Xue Long 2, France’s L’Astrolabe, Norway’s RV Kronprins Haakon, Peru’s BAP Carrasco, and the United Kingdom’s RRS Sir David Attenborough. The paper provides examples of purposeful consideration of science support requirements and environmental sustainability in vessel designs and operations.

This commentary introduces a methodology and theoretical framework for studying how the tourism industry might balance the competing demands of economic growth and environmental governance. We focus on the “balancing act” Svalbard tourism industry must play among sometimes competing demands of climate change mitigation and emissions from tourism, and of strict Norwegian environmental management policy and demands for increased tourism. While these are specific to Svalbard, the balancing act of competing needs is the core challenge of the UN Sustainability Goals giving this research global and pan-Arctic relevance. Through collaboration between two tourism organisations, the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) and Visit Svalbard and an interdisciplinary team of scientists, we will co-produce knowledge about how to innovate new opportunities while protecting the wilderness, the very backbone of tourism. This collaboration considers how policy, climate change, and local attitudes together may affect the tourism industry and helps to define and develop sustainable tourism operations and products. For instance, tourists may participate in environmental and community-related activities or “micro safaris” rather than a sole focus on charismatic megafauna. Policy discussions about tourism growth need to consider how local and national governments anticipate and navigate rapid social, political, and environmental changes.

Accurate citation practices are important to ensure a robust knowledge base and overall trustworthy academic enterprise. The prevalence of poor citation practices has been assessed in multiple fields, resulting in estimates of inaccurate citations ranging typically between 15% and 25%. Here, we assessed the accuracy of citations in research articles extracted from 11 journals with a polar sciences focus. Thirty percent of citations from recent articles (published between 2018 and 2019) and 26 % of citations between 1980 and 2019 were found to be inaccurate. We found no evidence for differences in citation accuracy between the journals assessed, or effects on citation accuracy associated with the number of authors, number of references, position of references or if a citation was a self-citation or not. Importantly, we present evidence for a decline in citation accuracy between 1980 and 2019 in polar sciences. Citation practices are unlikely to improve unless journals provide incentives for scholars to be more meticulous, and we recommend active monitoring of citation accuracy and citation appropriateness by reviewers and editorial staff.

Antarctica’s Pole of Inaccessibility (Southern Pole of Inaccessibility (SPI)) is the point on the Antarctic continent farthest from its edge. Existing literature exhibits disagreement over its location. Using two revisions of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research’s Antarctic Digital Database, we calculate modern-day positions for the SPI around 10 years apart, based on the position of the “outer” Antarctic coastline, i.e. its boundary with the ocean. These show that the position of the SPI in the year 2010 was around 83° 54’ S, 64° 53’ E, shifting on the order of 1 km per year as a result of changes of a similar magnitude in the Amery, Ronne-Filchner and Ross Ice Shelves. Excepting a position of the SPI calculated by British Antarctic Survey in 2005, to which it is very close, our newly calculated position differs by 150–900 km from others reported in the literature. We also consider the “inner” SPI, defined by the coastline with floating ice removed. The position of this SPI in 2010 is estimated as 83°37’ S, 53° 43’ E, differing significantly from other reported positions. Earlier cartographic data are probably not sufficiently accurate to allow its rate of change to be calculated meaningfully.

Climate warming is occurring most rapidly in the Arctic, which is both a sentinel and a driver of further global change. Ecosystems and human societies are already affected by warming. Permafrost thaws and species are on the move, bringing pathogens and vectors to virgin areas. During a five-year project, the CLINF – a Nordic Center of Excellence, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, has worked with the One Health concept, integrating environmental data with human and animal disease data in predictive models and creating maps of dynamic processes affecting the spread of infectious diseases. It is shown that tularemia outbreaks can be predicted even at a regional level with a manageable level of uncertainty. To decrease uncertainty, rapid development of new and harmonised technologies and databases is needed from currently highly heterogeneous data sources. A major source of uncertainty for the future of contaminants and infectious diseases in the Arctic, however, is associated with which paths the majority of the globe chooses to follow in the future. Diplomacy is one of the most powerful tools Arctic nations have to influence these choices of other nations, supported by Arctic science and One Health approaches that recognise the interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment at the local, regional, national and global levels as essential for achieving a sustainable development for both the Arctic and the globe.

At the Arctic Council’s Ministerial Meeting in Reykjavik on 20 May 2021, Russia assumed the chairmanship of the council for the second time since its establishment in 1996. Though some Russian analysts and practitioners were skeptical about the usefulness of such a mechanism during the 1980s and 1990s, Russia has become an active contributor to the progress of the Arctic Council (AC). Russia’s first term as chair during 2004–2006 led to the creation of the Arctic Contaminants Action Program as an Arctic Council Working Group. Since then, Russia has served as co-lead of the Task Forces developing the terms of the 2011 agreement on search and rescue, the 2013 agreement on marine oil spill preparedness and response, and the 2017 agreement on enhancing international scientific cooperation. Russia also has participated actively in the creation of related bodies including the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and the Arctic Economic Council whose chairmanships rotate together with the chairmanship of the AC. Now, far-reaching changes in the broader setting are posing growing challenges to the effectiveness of these institutional arrangements. The impacts of climate change in the high latitudes have increased dramatically; the pace of the extraction and shipment of Arctic natural resources has accelerated sharply; great-power politics have returned to the Arctic foregrounding concerns regarding military security. Together, these developments make it clear that a policy of business as usual will not suffice to ensure that the AC remains an important high-level forum for addressing Arctic issues in a global context. The programme Russia has developed for its 2021–2023 chairmanship of the council is ambitious; it proposes a sizeable suite of constructive activities. In this article, however, we go a step further to explore opportunities to adapt the Arctic governance system to the conditions prevailing in the 2020s. We focus on options relating to (i) the AC’s constitutive arrangements, (ii) links between the council and related governance mechanisms, (iii) the role of science diplomacy, and (iv) the treatment of issues involving military security. We conclude with a discussion of the prospect of organising a heads of state/government meeting during the Russian chairmanship as a means of setting the Arctic governance system on a constructive path for the 2020s.

Beginning in the seventeenth century, numerous attempts were made to reach a very high latitude or even the North Pole. One of the more successful of these was the Italian Arctic expedition of 1899–1900, led by Luigi Amedeo di Savoia (Duke of the Abruzzi). Using two successively returning support parties, di Savoia’s second-in-command, Captain Umberto Cagni’s party eventually reached 86°34’N north of their base in the Franz Josef Land archipelago before retreating due to lack of supplies. The second support party also returned safely to the base from 83°16’N. However, the first support party, led by Lieutenant Francesco Querini, disappeared without a trace after returning southwards from 82°32’N. Although previous studies have cited starvation from lack of food supplies or accidents as the potential causes of their disappearance, the extant literature does not provide any deeper analyses to explain these events. This study explores the hypothesis that the first support party in fact turned back from a much more westerly position than they thought. This, in combination with an untimely blizzard that prevented travelling for several days, most likely made it impossible for Querini and his two men to return to base before their limited supplies ran out.

This paper traces France’s role in the Antarctic from 1840, when explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville discovered the slice of the white continent he named Terre Adélie, to the present day. Since World War II, Terre Adélie has been the site of a host of performances of sovereignty: the French have built bases, drawn maps, conducted scientific investigations and erected plaques. But France’s commitment to Terre Adélie has been tested and has fallen into crisis several times. The history of France in Antarctica is a tale of ambition, ambivalence, trade-offs and political strategy. This paper aims to elucidate this story, focusing on the concept of sovereignty and the nexus of scientific and political interests. I argue that France’s relationship with the Antarctic has been characterised by continual tension, by peaks and troughs and by brinkmanship on the part of actors with their own stakes. While there is broad agreement that Terre Adélie serves a fundamental national interest, I show that France’s ambitions on the white continent are far from decided. With its focus on France, which has largely been left out of the growing body of literature on the Antarctic, this paper contributes to building a robust historical understanding of Antarctic claims.

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.

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.