This paper simultaneously analyses some objective and subjective living conditions in Nunavut (federal territory of Canada located in the Arctic) in 2001: population, housing, language, education, economic activities, health, social problems and geographic mobility. It examines original descriptive statistics from the Survey of living conditions in the Arctic and other sources. In some cases the results confirm the ordinary depressing picture of Inuit conditions, but in other cases statistics qualify or even contradict such a picture. The overall findings show that despite objective difficult conditions, Nunavummiut living in Nunavut (primarily the elites and the lower class) are generally satisfied with their communities so that the majority wishes to remain there. Certain modern social institutions and individual rationalities are contributing to this situation: wage earning, market economy, utilitarian and consumption oriented approach, democratic state based on law, formal knowledge, individualism and the capacity for self analysis. The concepts of aspiration and mastery of one's own destiny seem accurate to explain the importance of education and employment in people's satisfaction, and their dissatisfaction about the housing situation. The existence of family and neighbourhood networks appears to explain both a certain residential stability and out migration, through the social support functions of these networks, in which sharing and exchanging food play a major role. In general, if most of Nunavummiut continue to live in the Arctic despite unfavourable conditions, it is not only because they are able to ensure their material existence there, but also because they attach a meaning to and believe that that is where they have the best chance to exert the highest degree of control over their personal and domestic reality.

In 1950–1958 Ahiarmiut were relocated, in three stages from Ennadai Lake to Nueltin Lake, from Ennadai Lake to Henik Lake and from Henik Lake to Arviat (Eskimo Point). This paper presents the results of a workshop conducted with elders and youths in Arviat, in May 2006, on these events. The participants in the workshop were Job and Eva Muqyunnik, Mary Anautalik, John Aulatjut, Silas Ilungijajuk, Geena Aulatjut from Arviat, Andrew Alikashuak, from Whale Cove, and Mary Whitmore from Churchill. The workshop was set up from an anthropological perspective and focused on Ahiarmiut perspectives of the first three relocations. Comparing archival and oral materials, the paper confronts the strategies, choices and decisions of the administration of the Canadian federal government with the experiences and views of the Ahiarmiut participants. The paper explores the causes of the failure of the relocations, notably the discrepancies between the values of the administration and those of the Ahiarmiut as well as the lack of communication between those parties. The paper concludes that there is no convincing evidence of any agreement between the Ahiarmiut and the administration so the relocation effectively became a deportation causing great economic and cultural distress as well as loss of life to the Ahiarmiut.

Caves of marine origin occur in tectonically uplifted stacks on the coastal terrace and in plateau edge cliffs at a number of locations around Macquarie Island. Some of the caves have been located and their distributions mapped. Four of the best known caves are mapped in detail. Aspects of their geology, structure and biology, including speleothem development, clastic deposits, faunal remains and subfossil deposits are explored. Many of these caves contain deposits, which may have the potential to be investigated, as beach and peat deposits have been, for dating key time periods in the island's evolution. The palaeoenvironmental research potential of the sea caves on Macquarie Island has yet to be exploited. Further knowledge about these caves will assist in the understanding of the processes that have acted on Macquarie Island and other polar and sub-polar islands.

In a very short time, discussions on Arctic governance have moved from being a topic of scholarly attention and NGO advocacy onto the agendas of states and of the European Union (EU). Increasingly, the various alternatives propounded by a diverse set of actors over what Arctic governance should look like appear as pre-negotiation tactics, a type of testing period before a regime change. The article examines whether the still predominant inter governmental forum, the Arctic Council, is facing a threat of being supplanted by other forms of governance. It will study how resistant the Arctic Council, and its predecessor the 1991 Arctic environmental protection strategy, are to change in order to understand whether the council could renew itself to meet future challenges. It will also examine the various proposals for Arctic governance set out by states, the EU and the region's indigenous peoples. All this will permit conclusions to be drawn on where the Arctic Council stands amid all these proposals and whether, and in what way, it should change to support more sustainable governance in the Arctic.

Climate change is already being experienced in the Arctic with implications for ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. This paper argues that an assessment of community vulnerability to climate change requires knowledge of past experience with climate conditions, responses to climatic variations, future climate change projections, and non-climate factors that influence people's susceptibility and adaptive capacity. The paper documents and describes exposure sensitivities to climate change experienced in the community of Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories and the adaptive strategies employed. It is based on collaborative research involving semi-structured interviews, secondary sources of information, and participant observations. In the context of subsistence hunting, changes in temperature, seasonal patterns (for example timing and nature of the spring melt), sea ice and wind dynamics, and weather variability have affected the health and availability of some species of wildlife important for subsistence and have exacerbated risks associated with hunting and travel. Inuit in Ulukhaktok are coping with these changes by taking extra precautions when travelling, shifting modes of transportation, travel routes and hunting areas to deal with changing trail conditions, switching species harvested, and supplementing their diet with store bought foods. Limited access to capital resources, changing levels of traditional knowledge and land skills, and substance abuse were identified as key constraints to adaptation. The research demonstrates the need to consider the perspectives and experiences of local people for climate change research to have practical relevance to Arctic communities such as for the development and promotion of adaptive strategies.

Visiting the city of Lichfield, Staffordshire, recently, the author was surprised to discover a handsome statue of Captain Edward John Smith, master of Titanic in 1912 on her first and only voyage (Fig. 1). That the sculptress was none other than Captain Robert Falcon Scott's widow, Kathleen, added even greater interest. The statue stands in Beacon Park, facing in the distance and nearer to the road, a statue of King Edward VII.

Perhaps the most tragic story from the Franklin expedition of 1819–1822 was the murder of Robert Hood, a talented midshipman who left a number of watercolours of the trip and of the peoples and fauna encountered (Houston 1974; Franklin 2000). The story even became the basis for a novel that won the annual Governor General of Canada's prize for fiction in 1994 for the Alberta writer, Rudy Wiebe (Wiebe 1994). The expedition undertook a desperately difficult trek that saw only nine survivors of the original twenty members, but it resulted in the first map of 800 km (500 miles) of the northern central Arctic coast of Canada.

Rosove (2001: 323) described James Clark Ross's Antarctic voyage as ‘one of mankind's greatest expeditions of geographical and scientific exploration’ and Captain Scott (1905 I: 22) wrote that it was ‘among the most famous and brilliant ever made.’ Ross himself published an account of the voyage (1847), which was followed by that of the surgeon on board Erebus, Robert McCormick (1884). J.E. Davis (1901), the second master of Terror wrote a long letter to his sister, and Cornelius Savage (Savage 1839–1843), the blacksmith in Erebus wrote notes for James Savage, seaman. There was also an article published by John Robertson (1843), the surgeon in Terror together with the scientific reports and papers, none of which contain a day by day account of the voyage. Indeed, apart from the first two the other accounts cover relatively short portions of the voyage. There is also a large number of modern volumes dealing with the voyage, among which Ross (1982) quotes quite extensively from the diary that is the present topic (Cunningham 1830–1843). This diary with full critical apparatus has been published in extenso by the Hakluyt Society on line and the purpose of this note is to draw this publication to the attention of readers of Polar Record.

Edward Adrian Wilson was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England on 23 July 1872. He attended Cheltenham College and then proceeded to Cambridge where he read natural sciences and to St George's Hospital, London where he trained in medicine. His name is best known because of his participation in Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expeditions of. 1901–1904 and 1910–1913. He reached the South Pole with Scott on 17 January 1912 and died with him on the return journey on or after 29 March 1912.