The most stirring event in the Arctic in 1944 was the return voyage of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Schooner St Roch from Halifax to Vancouver by the North-West Passage. Not only was it the first passage made in a single summer season, but it was also by a new and probably better route. In her 1940–42 voyage the St Roch had followed Amundsen's southerly track in the reverse direction, namely eastwards. In 1944 Staff-Sergeant (now Sub-Inspector) H. A. Larsen was again in command for the return westward, but on this occasion a northern route was chosen via Barrow Strait and Melville Sound, where Parry had made his attempts in 1819 and 1820 and Bernier in 1908 and 1910.

The fur seals of the North Pacific comprise three distinct herds, which do not intermingle in any way, having distinct breeding grounds, feeding grounds, and routes of migration. By far the most important of the three herds is that which resorts to the American Pribilof Islands. This herd breeds upon the islands of St Paul and St George during the summer, and in winter passes down through the channels of the Aleutian Islands into the Pacific Ocean. The migration reaches as far south as the coast of southern California and returns along the west coast of North America. The next herd in importance is that resorting to the Russian Komandorski (Commander) Islands. This breeds upon the islands of Beringa and Medni, passing in winter down along the eastern coast of Japan and returning by the same route. The third herd is resident in the Sea of Okhotsk on the Japanese Robben (Kaihyoto) Island, where a considerable remnant still exists. It formerly occupied other rookeries on four islands of the Japanese (formerly Russian) Kuril (Chishimi) group, but these are now virtually extinct. The migration route of this herd lies in the inland sea of Japan.

One of the minor misfortunes of the war has been the suspension of many lines of scientific investigation; while another has been the difficulty of receiving information concerning researches in lands in which, despite the war, it has been possible to pursue important original or collative work. The U.S.A. is a case in point, and it will be of interest to all students of ice and snow that there has appeared from the pen of Mr François E. Matthes, the well-known head of the Section of Glacial Geology of the U.S. Geological Survey, an important monograph entitled “Glaciers”. It is published as Chap. 5 in Hydrology (Physics of the Earth, Vol. 9, edited by Oscar E. Meinzer, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1942). This chapter of seventy pages reviews some of the work done and the advances made in recent years, more particularly in glaciology, as distinct from glacial geology. Incidentally, it is common knowledge that while there is in all a very large body of students of glacial geology, that is to say of the actual effects of ice masses upon the land surface, there are at work remarkably few glaciologists, whose particular study is the physical condition and constitution of those masses, even in countries where glaciers are a normal feature of the landscape.