On 19 March 1930 the German geologist, Hans K.E. Krüger, accompanied by a Dane, Åge Rose Bjare, and an Inughuk, Akqioq (the latter driving their dog sledge) set off westwards from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police post at Bache Peninsula, Ellesmere Island; two support sledges, driven by Inughuit, escorted them. It appears to have been Krüger's intention to study the geology of the coasts of the outer islands of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and to carry out soundings of the continental shelf and slope. The two support sledges turned back at Depot Point, Eureka Sound. Krüger, Bjare, and Akqioq were never seen again. This article reviews Krüger's background, his preparations for the expedition (which included two summers of field work in West Greenland and a wintering in northwest Greenland), and the extensive searches mounted by the RCMP in 1931 and 1932. Finally, it analyzes the evidence provided by three messages left by Krüger and subsequently recovered, with a view to making an educated guess as to the fate of the expedition.

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 tenth successive annual UN session on the ‘Question of Antarctica’ took place at the close of 1992. The UN First Committee considered the topic during the week following the close of the Seventeenth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting held at Venice. The passage of yet another resolution critical of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) suggested that little had changed as compared to previous sessions. However, during 1992, UN reports and discussions displayed evidence of a growing acknowledgement of a range of ‘positive’ developments on the part of the ATS, most notably the benefits accruing from the Protocol on Environmental Protection's designation of Antarctica as ‘a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science’ in which mining is prohibited. Significantly, both critics and the German spokesman for the Antarctic Treaty parties (ATPs) — individual ATPs still refused to participate in either the UN discussions or vote because of their belief that the UN has no meaningful role to play in the affairs of a region subject to a valid international legal regime—expressed satisfaction with the concerted approach towards Antarctica embodied in Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which met at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. As a result, ATPs agreed to ensure that research products were freely available to the international community. In December 1992 the adoption of UN resolution A47/57 reaffirmed the continuing divide between ATPs and other members of the international community regarding the management of Antarctica, even if the UNCED–type formula offers one route back to consensus when the UN takes up the topic again at the close of 1993.

A set of simple criteria for visual assessment of the effects of low-intensity fieldwork in ice-free areas of Antarctica was developed. These criteria were tested by using them to examine the impact of soil science investigations, both immediately and some time after disturbance, at Marble Point and at Cape Evans, on the shores of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The use of these criteria showed that for some types of impacts there had been a marked recovery of the surface with time, ranging from 22 months to 30 years. This was apparently due to repeated freeze and thaw of the soil surface and, to a lesser extent, to the influence of wind, which had partly or completely obliterated some of the earlier disturbances. More durable features remained, while deeper surface impressions, such as old soil inspection pits and vehicle tracks, showed little recovery after more than 30 years. Some biological colonisation of areas disturbed 30 years previously was occurring.