Three field experiments in widely separated parts of the Arctic were carried out during 1979 to complete a study of the interaction between ocean waves and sea ice in the marginal ice zone. The aim of the project is to determine the distribution of floe sizes that is generated by a given incident wave field, and this requires measurements of wave decay, of the bending and body responses of floes, and of the strain necessary to cause fracture. The first series of experiments was carried out in 1978 (Wadhams, 1979) off Labrador and east Greenland. The 1979 series consisted of participation in a University of Washington cruise aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Surveyor to the Bering Sea; participation in the ground truth component of the Sursat remote sensing experiment off west Greenland; and finally a main summer experiment at Mesters Vig, east Greenland, in the same location as the 1978 main experiment. The Office of Naval Research (ONR), Washington DC, funded the study, and the two Greenland experiments were carried out in cooperation with the Electromagnetics Institute, Technical University of Denmark (TUD), Lyngby, with Danish government finance.

The question of Antarctica was discussed at the United Nations General Assembly in 1985 for the third successive year. While the content of the debates differed little from that of previous years, the discussions resulted in the adoption, by large majorities, of three resolutions in favour of an expanded and up-dated UN Study on Antarctica, the provision of information for the UN on the Antarctic minerals regime negotiations, and the exclusion of South Africa from the Antarctic Treaty System. The Antarctic Treaty powers, favouring no real UN role in Antarctica, stressed the need to maintain the present arrangements and did not participate in the UN votes on the three resolutions. The apparent breakdown of the consensus approach that was characteristic of 1983 and 1984 raises a question for the future; will 1986 witness bridge-building or continuing divisions on the most appropriate way to manage Antarctica in the future?

In Article 3 of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties committed themselves to ‘the protection of the Antarctic environment…and the intrinsic value of Antarctica, including its wilderness and aesthetic values.’ The phraseology of the Protocol requires clarification. ‘Wilderness and aesthetic values’ links two disparate concepts, best handled by separation. Annex V, Article 3, of the Protocol covers many topics, and their assessment must be by a composite of frameworks specifically designed for the different purposes set out in the Annex.

A working definition of wilderness in the Antarctic is suggested: ‘Any part of the Antarctic in which neither permanent habitation nor any other permanent evidence of present or past human presence is visible.’ Using this, a very high proportion of the continent will be recognised as having wilderness status. The phrase ‘aesthetic values’ should be seen as part of a wider process—Landscape Character Assessment—that is at present unknown to most in the Antarctic community. It is based on the principle of objective description and classification of landscape character. This basic characterisation can then be put to different uses, one of which may be to make more subjective judgements or evaluations that lead to area designations.

This article analyses the phenomenon of the post-Soviet Russian summer cottage, dacha, in the Arctic. We take an ethnographic comparative perspective for contributing to the refinement of our understanding of human-environment relations and urban anthropology of incomer-northerners, those with roots somewhere outside the north. Evidence from fieldwork in Murmansk Oblast, West Siberia and Sakha-Yakutia shows how for a socialist and post-socialist northern urban livelihood, the dacha has become an indispensable counterpart of life in the urban concrete housing blocks for most Russian northern inhabitants. We explore in this article the importance of dacha for northern identity of urban dwellers, by analysing spheres of individual and collective agency, freedom, attachment to place and land. We conclude that the dacha movement has filled a gap that had been left open by Soviet Arctic urbanisation: a dacha has come to stand for a human-environment relationship that gradually re-introduces rurality to urban life in the Russian Arctic so permanently that dacha places start losing their seasonal character.

The utilization of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in wildlife management has been a prominent topic for several decades. Since its establishment, Arctic Council (AC) has emphasized the importance of TEK and its utilization in its work. Yet, the process of knowledge coproduction in the AC has never been assessed. To what extent has TEK been meaningfully incorporated into the AC? The research uses qualitative content analysis to analyze the AC working groups’ meeting minutes, reports, scientific reports and assessments as well as reports released by Permanent Participants in order to investigate how the TEK has been incorporated into the AC. The study investigates that the process of knowledge coproduction in the AC turned into lip service, and suggests the set of recommendations that could potentially guide the TEK projects in the process of knowledge co-production. These recommendations, including the use of participatory methodology, the use of Indigenous methods, a recognition that TEK is local, application to policy, and better cross-cultural communication, could result in the more meaningful integration of TEK into scientific projects as well as wildlife management policies.

The drift of Hobson's Choice Ice Island from the Arctic Ocean into the channels of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Northwest Territories, Canadian Arctic, between February 1988 and August 1992, was monitored by a Système Argos satellite-positioning buoy. During the period August 1991 to May 1992, the ice island was imaged by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) aboard the ERS-1 satellite. The buoy data show that Hobson's Choice entered Peary Channel (between Axel Heiberg Island and Ellef Ringnes Island) in October 1988. Subsequently, between mid-August 1991 and November 1991, it drifted rapidly south to Queens Channel (60 km north of Cornwallis Island). The SAR data corroborate the buoy data and also reveal that at least six other ice islands entered the Queen Elizabeth Islands' channels with Hobson's Choice. The SAR imagery also recorded the fragmentation of Hobson's Choice between mid-October and mid-November 1991. The buoy and SAR data are conclusive evidence that ice islands do leave the Arctic Ocean via the northwestern channels of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The observed drift occurred when there was extensive break-up of fast ice in the inter-island channels caused by above average summer temperatures, in combination with favourable atmospheric circulation and surface winds that drove the ice islands into and through the channels.

The formation of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) in 1977 was the first time that Native Alaskans had organized themselves to protect a specific hunting interest. The AEWC's success and prominence has led to the formation of other user-based management regimes for marine mammals in northern Alaska. This paper begins with a description of the creation and development of the AEWC as it fought the ban by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on bowhead whaling and gained management authority for the Eskimo harvest. Then, three other regimes are examined, each of which focuses on a marine mammal species in northern Alaska. These are the Eskimo Walrus Commission, the Alaska and Inuvialuit Beluga Whale Committee, and the Agreement on Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea between the Inuvialuit Game Council and the North Slope Borough Fish and Game Management Committee. These regimes face the challenge of avoiding a management crisis rather than overcoming one. Without the incentive of a threat to end hunting, these regimes have not had the sense of direction that has enabled the AEWC to achieve its success. However, they have contributed to the management of certain species of wildlife, and are capable of contributing a great deal more.

Sightings of killer whales (Orcinus orca) are increasing in the eastern Canadian Arctic, but trends in the western Arctic have not been thoroughly examined. We summarise killer whale observations from the Canadian Beaufort Sea, primarily from traditional ecological knowledge interviews and group workshops conducted in 1993 and 2006–2007. After correcting for duplicative reports, we documented 31 observations occurring from the 1940s to 2000s (18 of the 31 observations could be attributed to a particular decade whereas others could not). Killer whales are rare in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, with only 1–5 reported sightings per decade since the 1940s (median = 3). In 1993 only 15% of Inuvialuit hunters in three communities had observed them, including some sightings in Alaska. Recent mapping workshops (2006–2007) collected only eight sightings from 128 participants in all six regional communities. Local observations indicate no apparent increase in killer whale presence in the western Canadian Arctic. Sightings were widely distributed across the region, although concentrated in the Mackenzie Delta area with few to the east. Killer whales are annually observed as far north as Barrow, Alaska, but do not appear to make regular eastward movements and are rare in Canadian waters.

Northeast Greenland supports a large indigenous population of musk-oxen (Ovibosmoschatus). Radiocarbon dating of remains of this mammal collected on the terrain surface and from archaeological sites has yielded mid- and Late Holocene ages. The species probably arrived shortly before this part of Greenland became inhabited by the first hunter cultures. Only Late Holocene dates are available from the southern part of northeast Greenland, but the authors suggest that musk-ox spread south to this region at an early date, because there are no physical barriers. The lack of older dates may reflect the lack of palaeo-Eskimo sites with bones.

Considering that phytoplankton assemblages are good bioindicators of environmental conditions, the sensitivity of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) to climate change, and the importance of some areas of its islands as Antarctic Specially Managed Areas, this work assembles published datasets on phytoplankton biodiversity and ecology in confined coastal areas (embayments) of King George Island, WAP. Over 33 years (1980–2013), 415 species from 122 genera have been identified to species level, being mostly diatoms (371 species), with 10 new species described with local material (6 diatoms, 4 cyanobacteria). The importance of diatoms was indicated by the frequent occurrence of Corethron pennatum, Pseudogomphonema kamtshaticum, and abundant benthic genera in the plankton (e.g. Navicula, Cocconeis). The increased contribution of dinoflagellates after 2010 suggests marked changes in the water column. Early-summer blooms differ between the bays' eastern and western shores, with terrestrial melting and wind-driven upwelling inducing the dominance of benthic species at eastern shores, whereas planktonic diatoms (Thalassiosira, Pseudo-nizschia, and Chaetoceros) are most abundant along western shores and central areas. The importance of an accurate identification of organisms that are becoming key ecological components of the region is discussed, as recent changes in the microflora may affect the entire marine food web.

This article discusses the evaluation of the management of the Laponia World Heritage site (Laponia WHS) in northern Sweden. After inscription on the World Heritage list in 1996, difficulties emerged in establishing a common understanding about the involvement of various stakeholders into the site’s management model, the key point of contention being the influence of the representatives from indigenous Sami people and how that should be organised. In 2011, the management organisation led by Laponiatjuottjudus (the Sami name for the Laponia WHS management organisation) was established and implemented. This organisation gave Sami representatives a majority in the Laponia steering board and the position as chairperson in the board. This marked a remarkable shift in the Swedish national management system of land in not only handing over a state decision-making power to the local level but also to representatives of the indigenous population. The evaluation of the management model presented by Laponiatjuottjudus resulted in a number of responses from several stakeholders participating in a consultation process. These responses, from stakeholders with conflicting positions in relation to the issue described above, are the subject of this study. The analysis of these data collected reveals the existence of four major approaches or narratives to the Laponia WHS, with narratives connected to nature, the indigenous population and local governance, the economic effects of the existing system, and lastly the local community narrative. The study concludes that present management of Laponia WHS, the Laponiatjuottjudus, is a unique attempt to widen the management and planning process that partly interferes with the existing national planning model. At the same time, the analysis reveals that the Sami demands for influence over land management in the north still faces major challenges connected to its colonial legacy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A review of popular writing on the subject of preservation of historic sites in Antarctica, including buildings, graves, and artefacts, has revealed many misconceptions about the existence and cause of deterioration problems. These myths include the belief that the artefacts inside the Ross Dependency huts are in a near perfect state of preservation and that there is no corrosion in Antarctica because of the dry cold. Further examination, however, shows these views to be incorrect. These and other misconceptions are classified into three groups: (1) misunderstanding or denial of deterioration processes in Antarctic conditions; (2) simplistic assumptions about how historic buildings should be conserved in Antarctica; and (3) inappropriate comparisons between dissimilar sites.

There has been considerable debate in Australia and New Zealand about how historic Antarctic buildings should be preserved. Proposed preservation methods have covered a wide range from dismantling and repatriation to a museum, re-cladding with new timber, insertion of vapour barriers inside walls to exclude ice ingress, covering buildings with a dome, and, at the other end of the spectrum of views, minimal intervention. The preservation of artefacts has also been an issue, particularly concerning whether artefacts can be effectively preserved in Antarctica or whether it is necessary to treat and store them at museums outside Antarctica. It is important to encourage consideration of all appropriate means of preservation, but it is particularly important that the causes of deterioration are understood (that is, correct diagnosis) before prescribing treatment.