At Cape Adare, there are three wooden historic huts in varying condition. Two are the first permanent structures erected in Antarctica for human habitation and were occupied in 1899 by the British Antarctic Expedition (1898–1900) led by C.E. Borchgrevink. The third hut was built in 1911 by the northern party of R.F. Scott's British Antarctic Expedition (1910–13) led by V.L.A. Campbell. Previous research has focused on the unusual wind regime at Ridley Beach, Cape Adare, with the use of an environmental wind tunnel to support field observations, and on the sequence of destruction by wind of the 1911 hut. The present paper focuses on the weathering of timber at some historic huts in Antarctica and presents observations and data collected on three visits to Cape Adare spanning 21 years. The results indicate that over 23% of the timber has been eroded from exposed board ends on one corner of Borchgrevink's ‘stores hut’ and further damage to the huts is being caused by wind blown sand and pebbles which, at two meters above the ground surface, can attain a velocity of 29–203 km/hr−1. This has in places, resulted in severe degradation of the timber.

The introduction of the ‘western diet’ marked a decline in omega–3 fatty acids rich foods and a concurrent increase in saturated and omega–6 fatty acids that persists today. Historically, circumpolar people have had a low incidence of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease and this has been largely attributed to polyphenolic compounds and omega–3 fatty acids offered from subsistence foods. In this report, we studied sled dogs as an Arctic sentinel species for monitoring the effect of a changing diet on lipid profiles along the Yukon River. Subsistence fed village sled dogs along the Yukon River, maintained largely on salmon were compared with a control kennel maintained on commercial food. Profiles showed higher levels for long chain omega–3 fatty acids in village subsistence fed dogs compared to control dogs and an opposite trend for omega–6 fatty acids, establishing baseline levels for follow up studies. A comparison with data for previously published mercury levels from the same cohort of dogs revealed a positive correlation with alpha–linolenic fatty acid and a negative correlation with linoleic fatty acid. Food and nutritional security is a concern in the Arctic as the impacts of climate change and transport of contaminants become obvious. This study supports not only the nutritional value of a subsistence diet but also the utility of sled dogs as a sentinel for human dietary change.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott has been attacked in recent decades because his Terra Nova expedition (1910–1913) had to rely on substandard Siberian ponies. Certain commentators have argued that this was Scott's fault, but the available evidence indicates that blame should rest with the buyer Cecil Meares. Additionally, archive evidence indicates that Scott specifically requested Captain Lawrence Oates to travel to Siberia to assist Meares in 1910, and that Oates refused Scott's request.

This article investigates recent reforms of the Greenland coastal fisheries in order to contribute to the general lessons on reform and policy networks in the context of a changing Arctic stakeholdership. It analyses participation in fisheries governance decision-making by examining the emergence of discourses and policy networks that come to define the very need for reform. A policy network is identified across state ministries, powerful officials, banks and large scale industry that defined the need for fisheries reform within a ‘grand reform’ discourse. But inertia characterised the actual decision-making process as reform according to this ‘grand reform’ discourse was blocked by a combination of small-scale fishers’ informal networks and the power of the parliamentary majority. After a parliamentary shift in power the new government implemented the ‘grand reform’ gradually whilst new patterns of participation and exclusion emerged. In this process, the identities of the participating participants were reinterpreted to fit the new patterns of influence and participation. The article argues that fishery reform does not necessarily start with the collective recognition of a problem in marine resource use and a power-neutral process of institutional learning. Instead, it argues that fishery reform is likely to be the ‘reform of somebody’ and that this ‘somebody’ is itself a changing identity.

The range of the barren-ground caribou in Canada includes approximately 700 000 square miles [1 812 993 sq km]: north from the forests of Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the Arctic Ocean and west from Hudson Bay to Alaska. Much of that vast expanse of stunted forests and tundra remained virtually unmapped until the ingress of the aeroplane in the 1930's.

In January 2007, MS Golden Princess, carrying 2425 passengers and a crew of approximately 1100, became the largest ship to sail Antarctic waters within the northern limit of pack ice. This note describes the ship and its itinerary, discusses aspects of the cruise, and comments on the use of large cruise liners in Antarctic waters.

The 17th-century German traveller and writer Adam Olearius is best known for his account of travels in Russia and Persia, first published in 1656. Parts of this work have been translated into English under the title ‘The travels of Olearius in seventeenth-century Russia’. Among hitherto untranslated sections is the chapter ‘Von den Grünländern’, an early and well-researched account of Greenland and its inhabitants, prompted by his examination of a party of three Greenlanders in Gottorp, Schleswig, in 1656. This article is a translation of the chapter, with an introduction to Olearius and his background.

In coastal north Norway the Saami people have lived in a close relationship with Norwegians or Norse people for a thousand years or more. This relationship has been articulated in various ways over the centuries, and this article argues that in parts of the region it took a rather intimate form based on the shared exploitation of the dominant marine and terrestrial niches, a common class position as tenant farmers, a varying practice of inter-ethnic marital relations and the effects of a bilateral kinship system. Various forms of inter-ethnic contact and exchange may thus have served to reduce the relevance of ethnic difference in daily life, as suggested by Barth's argument about the integrative effect of transactions, but contrary to his argument about the transactional reinforcement of ethnic boundaries. Contrary to the intention, governmental assimilatory efforts served to reproduce the boundary as the basis for a ranked society and left coastal Saami individuals in some confusion as to how to define themselves, often opting for a mixed category of Norwegian and Saami, labelled ‘Northerner’. Ethno-political emancipation in recent years has tended to put pressure on this identity construction and promoted a dichotomised identity as either Saami or Norwegian.

In 1958, at the close of the International Geophysical Year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States initiated long-term plans for the support of Antarctic biological research. These plans included the erection and outfitting of a modest, but modern, biological laboratory at the United States station at “McMurdo” on Ross Island in the late summer and early winter 1959. With the increasingly diversified biological research programmes, and with the active construction and supply programmes in subsequent years, the biological laboratory has now become one of the largest Antarctic research facilities for a single scientific discipline.

British-Russian rivalry along the North Pacific littoral after 1815 was at once an extension of 18th century ambitions, commercial and geopolitical, and an enlargement of the interests of both nations in the existence of a Northwest Passage. John Barrow in Britain and Adam John von Krusenstern in Russia exhibited the opposing yet complementary interests of the two powers. British Admiralty activities resulted partly from a fear of Russian pre-emption, partly from ambitions for territorial and commercial aggrandizement. The Russian government supported the Russian American Company, and consolidated its overseas empire in Alaska. This paper describes die maritime activities and plans of both nations concerning the North Pacific and Northwest Passage, explaining political and territorial ambitions of the two powers that underlay the exploration, and their expansion of territorial empire and commerce in this area.

In 1978 the Younger Stone Age (6500–1800 BP) site of Nyelv Nedre Vest in Varangerfjord, northeastern Norway, was partly excavated before road widening, allowing reassessment of Younger Stone Age settlement patterns in die area. Early settlement in Varanger was formerly thought to involve regular seasonal movements between sites. Analysis of faunal refuse from Nyelv Nedre Vest now indicates year- round occupation, and re-examination of data from other inner fjord sites suggests diat they too might have housed sedentary or semi- sedentary populations. Special-purpose satellite' camps seem also to have been associated with these settlements. This settlement pattern has implications for other aspects of the social group, and the results of the analysis are relevant to other settlement studies in northern maritime regions.

Samples from 73 pieces of non-structural driftwood on Heard Island (53°06′S, 73°30′E) were identified to genus or species. Thirty-one belonged to South American species of Nothofagus. The remainder, consisting mostly of conifers especially Picea and Larix, probably came from ships' cargoes. The assemblage is similar to those reported, from smaller samples, on other southern islands. Other items of flotsam, including fishing buoys and drift-cards, are also reported from Heard Island. The significance of driftwood transport from South America to the island in accounting for long-distance dispersal of terrestrial and intertidal organisms is discussed.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, British Arctic whaling enjoyed a prolonged period of expansion and prosperity. The industry began to grow rapidly after about 1812, and between 1814 and 1817 engaged the largest fleet in its history, an average of nearly 150 ships each year. After 1816, the whalemen embarked on an adventurous programme of geographical expansion, which brought extensive new whaling-grounds within their reach. This enterprise proved highly successful at first, but later brought the industry to the threshold of financial ruin.