It is widely believed among historians that in 1920, the Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen and the Danish government challenged Canada's sovereignty over Ellesmere Island. This paper draws on a wide range of Canadian and British government files and private papers to contest this view. It demonstrates that Prime Minister Arthur Meighen and others in Ottawa were initially convinced by Vilhjalmur Stefansson that Denmark harboured territorial ambitions in the north, but most realised in the spring of 1921 that they had been mistaken. However, one civil servant, J. B. Harkin, stubbornly maintained his belief in the Danish threat. After Mackenzie King's Liberals came to power, Harkin was able to obtain a hearing for his views. It was largely due to Harkin's persistence that the first Eastern Arctic Patrol went north in 1922.

It is sometimes argued that the Arctic is so fragile that oil and gas development is never acceptable. Occasionally the argument rests on a fundamental objection to any development of fossil fuel resources. This paper will argue that under some conditions development can be carried out in a way that safeguards the natural environment, and that when the resources are exhausted all traces can be removed. This conclusion applies both offshore and onshore. It will require great sensitivity and care, and the application of the best technology developed by the petroleum industry for developments elsewhere. Some locations will have to be left inviolate until better technology is discovered, and perhaps for ever. The argument will be illustrated by case studies, some of them taken from completed projects.

The article considers the perceptions of Inuit in one settlement in Nunavik regarding the dynamic relations between market and subsistence economies. The socio-economic role of country foods in Inuit society are described followed by a discussion about the impacts of the Hunter Support Program (HSP) on Inuit society. A hybrid institution, the HSP buys country foods in order to give them away. Based on interviews that included Inuit purveyors to, and administrators of, the programme, the article discusses some socio-economic effects of commoditisation of country foods on subsistence economies and explores the ways in which this food moves in and out of commodity status. It is argued that these shifts are linked to conflicting notions of value. Some Inuit justify the existence of the HSP because they perceive it to be an essentially non-Inuit institution which lies outside the realm of customary socio-economic organization and thereby frees them from the need to observe those rules strictly while providing them with the income to be able to respect the requirement to share food amongst Inuit. Others express reservations about the programme because it elicits behaviours amongst Inuit that they perceive as threatening their socio-economic reproduction. It is argued that the HSP, an institution that both mimics and breaks with tradition, one which is designed to help Inuit to promote the subsistence way of life yet does so in the context of at least some components of the market, is an example of Wenzel's (2001) contention that the analytical distinction between acculturation and adaptation is not a matter of oppositions, but rather, part of a whole.

Amchitka Island, Alaska, is a historical underground nuclear test site. Three underground tests were conducted there by the United States Atomic Energy Commission, now US Department of Energy (USDOE), between 1965 and 1971. These were Long Shot, an 80 kiloton detonation; Milrow, a 1 megaton detonation; and Cannikin, a 5 megaton detonation. Subsequent to these tests, several scientific assessments have been conducted regarding the impacts of the tests on the terrestrial and marine environments surrounding the island. However, many citizens and groups still voice concerns over the potential for detrimental effects on human and ecological health. In its responsibility for the long term protection of human and ecological health consequent to its nuclear programme, USDOE has recently prepared a plan for the long term surveillance and monitoring of the site. The purpose of this paper is to summarise the history of the island, specifically with regards to its use as a nuclear test site, to summarise the results of investigative activities following testing, to summarise USDOE's plan for surveillance and monitoring, and to offer the authors' viewpoints on the long term stewardship of the island. The authors deemed the stewardship plan to be essentially protective of human and ecological health; however, they recommend a stronger commitment to site oversight and review, as well as to future research, for addressing uncertainties remaining at the island.

Over the last four decades, Norwegian rule on the Svalbard islands has developed gradually, from being virtually non-existent to firm. This study explains these developments in Norwegian jurisdiction both from a perspective of international relations and within a paradigm of domestic politics. It finds that external forces have been the permissive causes of change, while internal forces represent the efficient causes. Norway's incremental strengthening of jurisdiction, notably from the mid-1970s onward, has resulted in an unprecedented Norwegian grip on the Arctic islands in which the other parties to the 1920 Svalbard Treaty seemingly acquiesce.

Within the scope of climate change and the worldwide shift in travel patterns, the Arctic has become a highly favoured tourist destination. However, the literature on studying destination images of the northern polar regions lacks analysis of prevailing perceptions and of corresponding images held by tourists without previous travel experience. Therefore, this research, recently carried out in Germany, attempts to delineate tourists' perceptions of Greenland on the one hand and the Arctic as a whole on the other as destinations. Similarities, positive and negative differences of the cognitive and affective stages are generated and an overview of perceived dimensions and factors influencing the images are given. Although the results strongly coincide with each other, there are minor differences found in favour of Greenland. With the findings it is hoped to provide a better insight into the images held by potential visitors to the Arctic and to help those engaged in marketing Greenland as a tourist destination to identify an efficient strategy.

This paper traces the Soviet responses to initiatives of international scientific institutions for collaborative research in the Antarctic dating from the International Geophysical Year (IGY) through to the formation of the Special Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the extension of the IGY for a year during the International Geophysical Cooperation. It demonstrates the consistently positive attitudes of the USSR to these initiatives and the steps that were taken at the national level to enable it to continue international collaboration. Other countries with interests in the Antarctic conjectured whether the Soviets had a long term strategy for continuing their presence in the South Polar region. The evidence suggests that from the day the Soviets set foot on the Antarctic continent, they had no intention of leaving.

It has long been suspected that James Weddell was born in Ostend, Belgium. However, no record of his birth was found during earlier searches in the Belgian archives. New searches in the parish registers of Ostend reveal that he was born in that town on 24 August 1787. The Weddell family is recorded in these archives under the name of Waddle, and it was as such that father Waddle signed documents. The parish registers of Ostend are in Latin and James's name was Latinised to Jacobus. The first record of James Weddell thus refers to Jacobus Waddle. In the parish registers are two other documents relating to the Weddell family: the birth of a brother Charles in 1782 and the death of another brother who was also called Jacobus in 1787. Therefore, the family lived in Ostend at least from 1782 to 1787.

A new name for a geographical feature in the Antarctic Peninsula known for many years by its colloquial name of Una's Tits, was formally approved by the Antarctic place names committee of the United Kingdom. It is now known as Una Peaks, named for a former secretary in the governor's office, Stanley, Falkland Islands.

This note updates the author's paper with the title ‘Whither the Arctic? Conflict or cooperation in the circumpolar north’. published in the last issue of this journal (Young 2009). Particular attention is paid to the policy issues arising from the ongoing and rapid changes unfolding in the Arctic.