Radiocarbon age determinations on marine shells in lateral moraines and other deposits several kms behind the present day termini of tidewater outlet glaciers from the Prince of Wales Icefield, east-central Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Arctic Canada, as well as tidewater glaciers from two nearby ice-caps, show that these glaciers have fluctuated considerably through the Holocene, both in length and in thickness. The terminus of Leffert Glacier, for which the best documentation is available, has been more than 20 km west of the position that it occupied in 1898–1899, when it was mapped for the first time. Leffert Glacier was much reduced in size for a period of several thousand years, between roughly 6450 and 1850 14C years BP. Other major outlet glaciers that have experienced significant fluctuations of their termini during the Holocene are: 1) MacMillan, Ekblaw and Tanquary glaciers in the Baird Inlet area, 2) Stygge Glacier and adjacent unnamed glaciers at the head of Jokel Fiord, 3) Benedict Glacier at the head of Sawyer Bay and 4) Parrish Glacier, the southernmost outlet glacier from the Agassiz Ice Cap. Of the glaciers investigated, only Alfred Newton Glacier, south of Cape Herschel, has surged during the period of field observation (1977 to 2009), and this glacier is now receding from the position attained in a surge which commenced in 1981. The terminus of Ekblaw Glacier, at the head of Baird Inlet, is now well forward of the position it occupied in 1950, when the first aerial photograph coverage was achieved.

In 1974–75 30 muskoxen Ovibos moschatus were introduced to the tundra of Poluostrov Taymyr, ten from Banks Island NWT, Canada and 20 from Nunivak Island, Alaska. Originally enclosed in large corrals near a special research station in the Bikada valley, at the east end of Ozero Taymyr, the animals were released in 1980/82. The first calf to survive infancy was born in 1978; since then the death rate has been extremely low. By July 1987 the population had risen to 230, running in 10–12 herds. Most of the animals still range close to the Bikada valley, but one herd of 40 animals has moved noth across the main range of Byrranga Gory. Bachelor bulls wander even farther afield, up to 300 km from the release site. In August 195 two bulls appeard at Mys Chelyuskina, the northernmost tip of the continent.

Domesticated reindeer are not indigenous to North America. Between the years 1892 and 1902, some 1 280 reindeer were imported into western Alaska from Siberia as a supplemental food item for the Bering Strait Eskimo, a novel attempt to introduce a herding technology among hunting societies. Very little is known about the experiences of Eskimo reindeer herdsmen or about the probable success or failure of this particular approach to the economic and social development of remote Arctic regions.

John King Davis captained S.Y. Aurora on three voyages to Antarctica and on other sub-Antarctic cruises for Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) 1911–1914. Between the first and second Antarctic trips, he made a short return cruise in 1912 from Melbourne to Eden in southeastern Australia with the Director of Commonwealth Fisheries, on the fisheries investigation steamship, F.I.S. Endeavour. This cruise was a milestone in his continuing training for the AAE's oceanographic work. Davis went not as captain, but as an observer. His aim was to gain greater knowledge of operating techniques when using oceanographic research equipment and to apply that knowledge to observations on forthcoming voyages with Aurora. He kept abbreviated notes of the research conducted on Endeavour, and of his visit to Eden, in a small pocket notebook. These informal observations, apparently made just for his own future reference, give us a glimpse of the 28 year old Davis. He has often been portrayed in a negative light, but here his personal notes reveal an experienced seaman, temporarily freed from responsibilities of captaincy and navigation, hard working, keen to acquire new skills on board and sociable when ashore. His subsequent work on Aurora, using the skills he acquired on this trip, resulted in significant contributions to the scientific reports of the AAE, including the discovery of an extensive elevation in the sea floor south of Tasmania, now known as the South Tasman Rise.

With this instalment of our list, the Klondike gold rush reached its height and, nearly as quickly, began to decline as the miners’ interest turned to newer strikes in Alaska. The great influx of prospectors to the Klondike region led to the passage of the Yukon Act and to the extension into the area of the enforcement of Canadian laws by the North West Mounted Police. In most other respects, the important trends noticed in the previous instalment continue: the officers of the Geological Survey of Canada and other scientists continued their careful and productive surveys; missionaries extended their efforts to remoter tribes; and sportsmen ranged still farther afield in search of big game. The number of expeditions each year steadily increased, and we are having to be increasingly selective in the ones we list. It has been impossible to include individual journeys to the Klondike, even of those persons who published narratives.

The Greenland ice sheet, the area of which is some 1,870,000 sq.km., between three and four times that of France, has remained largely unknown until the present time. Between 1948 and 1951 extensive investigations were made by Expéditions Polaires Françaises (Missions Paul-Émile Victor), relying largely upon new methods of transport which had been developed, particularly in North America, during the Second World War. Perhaps the most important of these were the use of the amphibious tracked vehicle known as the Weasel (Light Cargo Carrier M29C, manufactured by the Studebaker Corporation) to transport men and equipment over the ice sheet, and of aircraft to drop supplies to the ground parties, so that their radius of action could be greatly increased. During the course of the expedition the Weasels covered a combined total distance of approximately 85,000 km., and from 1949 to 1951 a well-equipped scientific observation post, known as the “Station Centrale de Recherches” was maintained in the centre of the ice sheet in lat. 70° 55′ 3″ N., long. 40° 38′ 22″ W. These achievements were made possible by the use of aircraft to drop a total of some 230 tons of stores and equipment on the ice sheet.