The study of the insects of northern Canada has in the past depended mainly on a very small number of collections obtained by the early explorers, by a few individuals concerned with mapping and other scientific investigations, and by missionaries. The work of Kirby (1837), the reports of the Canadian Arctic Expedition (Hewitt, 1922) and the Fifth Thule Expedition (Henriksen, 1937), and a few short papers represent the main contributions of many years.

Organized entomological research in northern Canada began in 1947 as a joint project of the Defence Research Board of the Canada Department of National Defence, and the Divisions of Entomology, Botany and Plant Pathology of the Canada Department of Agriculture. The research programme was divided into three major phases:

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%).

Although Jane Franklin has acquired a well-deserved reputation for stoicism and perseverance in the search for her missing husband (a central theme of nineteenth-century polar exploration), there remains evidence that she was prepared to resort to the surprising measure of the use of spirit mediums. The suggestion that she, or any Arctic explorers on the spot, had heeded such methods, led to a bitter public debate in the 1890s, involving survivors of the search for Franklin. Not only is it a particularly strange and absorbing story, but there also emerges evidence that Lady Franklin's papers may have been deliberately censored in order to preserve her credibility.

Increased complexity in organisms narrows the range of body temperature within which effective function is found. The organism responds to this problem by developing both internal and external mechanisms for keeping a steady body temperature independent of the environment. However, there comes a point at which these protective devices break down; the study of the response to arctic conditions involves the study of these three aspects, namely, external protection, internal changes, and the nature of the failure to resist the cold. Bodily functions fail, as does the protective mechanism, from the outside inwards, the vital functions naturally being the last to fail. Recent advances in engineering, particularly developments in aviation, have tended to draw attention to the fact that the limits to arctic activities are usually set by the extent to which man can adapt himself rather than his machines. The adjustments made by people living in very cold regions include a whole number of changes in behaviour which can be grouped under the general heading of the techniques of arctic living. Such changes in behaviour are obviously of the first importance for success and survival, especially when directed to the provision of a satisfactory private climate by the use of special clothing and shelter. Adjustments of a rather different kind from these can also be found in human beings attempting to adapt to arctic surroundings, and it is these other changes in human beings that are being considered here—the physiological and psychological changes that help men to meet the challenge of a cold environment.

The hunt for Bowhead Whales Balaena mysticetus has for centuries been a tradition in the culture of coastal Alaskan Eskimos. Commercial hunting began in 1848, when the first American whaling vessel, under Captain Thomas Roys, worked northward through the Bering Strait and started pelagic whaling in the Arctic Ocean. This fishery ended about 1914, because of severe depletion of the stock. However, Eskimos continued to hunt the remaining whales, using traditional boats and skills augmented by methods and equipment acquired from Yankee whalers. They still carry on the hunt today, using essentially the same methods; the right of native Alaskans to hunt in this way is permitted by US domestic legislation relating to marine mammals and endangered species (Mitchell and Reeves 1980).

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.

Antarctic Airways, an independent commercial airline, operated one DC-4 and two Twin Otter aircraft during the 1987–88 summer season. The DC-4 made twelve direct flights between Punta Arenas, Chile, and the Ellsworth Mountains. The Twin Otters were used for onward flights to destinations including the South Pole. The significance of this development is that scientists from countries that do not have ships or bases in the Antarctic can now work on the continent without either.

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.

Historical sites in Antarctica and Svalbard contain the material remains of past activities of exploration and exploitation of these regions. These sites have been subject to transformation by cultural and non-cultural (natural) processes since their abandonment to the present. For research and management purposes it is important to monitor and explain these changes. This article focuses on the transformation of historic features in Antarctica and Svalbard as assessed through repeat photography. Seven historical features were selected representing a range of site types and past and present site functions. Data collection was based on the opportunistic reproduction of photographs of historic features taken up to 20+ years previously. Data analysis was performed using the concepts of site formation processes developed by M.B. Schiffer (1983, 1987). Time-serial changes were observed in the seven photo-couples examined in the present instance. No feature degraded significantly during the monitoring period; rather, several features were restored in different ways. Changes were interpreted to result from a range of cultural processes (including conservation, research, and tourism) and natural processes (mainly wind action). Local changes take place in the context of broader regional developments in Antarctica and Svalbard. Despite the ‘time capsule’ narratives about some sites, historical sites in the polar regions are dynamic entities that not only reflect the past as it once was but are also a window onto the present.

Sledges have been used for millennia in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Until the advent of British Arctic land exploration in the nineteenth century, explorers in these regions had relied on indigenous sledges. The British, and individuals from other nations engaging in polar exploration, often faced different conditions and challenges from those that had faced indigenous peoples, and so a period of adaptation and invention began, to develop sledges that better suited the needs of European survey parties. This paper looks at the range of indigenous sledges and the development of various polar sledge types based on indigenous ski-runner, edge-runner, and toboggan styles of sledges. The development of the Nansen sledge, which became the norm in the Antarctic, is discussed, and the issues and debates involving man-hauling versus dog-hauling and the relative effectiveness of sledges and motive power as shown by recorded sledging performances are outlined.

For some years members of the Underwater Demolition Teams of the United States Navy have been carrying out experiments in skin-diving in Arctic and Antarctic waters, with the object of determining the limits of man's endurance in these conditions. The main military purposes of swimming in polar waters are to assist the escape of ships beset in ice by blasting channels out to open water, and to reconnoitre landing beaches which are protected by ice. Secondary operations include inspection and repair of under-water damage to ships and the recovery of submerged equipment.

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.

Garrow Lake (area 418 ha, greatest depth 47 m), Little Cornwallis Island, NWT, Canada, is the northernmost recorded hypersaline meromictic lake, Covered 11 months annually with ice up to 2.4 m thick and internally stratified, its waters at 20 m reach temperatures of 9.1°C from solar heating throughout the year. Salinity varies from less than 0.01% at the surface to over 75% at the bottom. Isostatic uplift isolated the lake from the sea about 3000 BP. Isotope dating indicates that the bottom water has been unmixed for nearly 2500 years. An advancing permafrost wedge appears to have forced brine from pores in rock strata below the watershed into a talik (chimney) in the lake centre. From November 1981 the lake has received approximately 100 tonnes/hr of mine tailings rich in lead and zinc. Dissolved oxygen introduced along with the slurry may be important in reducing anaerobic photosynthetic bacteria. Biotic diversity is low. Only one vertebrate, Myoxocephalus quadricornis (four-horned sculpin), occurs in the lake. The zooplankton consists of only one species, Limnocalanus macruras; phytoplankton includes 51 taxa dominated by flagellates.

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.

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.