Concentrations of calcium and phosphorus were measured in the neonatal dentine of 11 crabeater and 11 Weddell seal postcanine teeth with an energy-dispersive x-ray analyser. The extent of variation in elemental concentrations in different parts of the tooth, differences between species and individuals, and whether variation in elemental concentrations can provide information about dentine deposition mechanisms were assessed. No consistent patterns in elemental deposition in different parts of the tooth were found, but there were differences in concentrations between and within species. Post-natal dentine is composed of layers that appear alternately bright and dark in backscattered electron images. The elemental composition of neonatal dentine was closer to the dark bands than to those that appeared bright. It is suggested that the composition of neonatal dentine is more similar to the dark than the bright layers of dentine because of nutritional stresses that were occurring during mineral deposition.

Svalbard comprises the islands between longs 10 to 35° E and between lats 74 to 81° N. The largest of these islands is Vestpitsbergen, followed by Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya, Barentsøya and Bjørnøya. The archipelago lies in the northwestern part of the Barents-Kara shelf. To south and east the continental shelf is covered by the shallow waters of the Barents Sea, whilst to the north and west the shelf falls away rapidly into the Arctic Basin and the Greenland Sea.

The landing of visitors in Antarctica presents wilderness managers with several challenges. Foremost among these is ensuring that visitors do not ‘love the wilderness to death.’ This article presents research gathered on Hannah Point, Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands during the austral summer of 1993/94. First, an estimation of duration and type of use was conducted to identify where visitors spent the majority of their time, and second, what conditions, such as weather, physical layout, or on-site supervision, influenced this decision. The implications of these results are discussed vis-à-vis the current system of visitor landings, and suggestions are offered to help devise criteria for landing procedures. This paper stresses how the pattern of visitor landings can be altered, as a preventative strategy, to ensure low impact on visitor sites.

A very clear mirage observed by Scoresby in the Greenland Sea shows an inverted ship floating above the horizon. This mirage can be mathematically reconstructed using a linear image diagram. Scoresby's description is here re-examined: anew set of essential assumptions is distilled from his report, and an ‘exact’ reproduction of the mirage is obtained to match these conditions.

Over a period of 142 days of polar cruising, all visits and reasons for those visits to the on board ship doctor's surgery by 360 crew members and 497 passengers were recorded and analysed. Despite the difference in age structure (passengers were mostly 60 years of age or older, while the crew were predominantly 20–30 years old), typically geriatric problems were seen in only a few passengers. While common cold related complaints dominated in the crew members, the passengers suffered more frequently from sea- and motion sickness and had slightly more respiratory and orthopaedic complaints. Typically cold weather related problems like hypothermia and frostbite were hardly seen at all and total prostheses of hips and knees (which involved several passengers) stood up surprisingly well to the polar climate and terrain. The surprisingly good physical condition of the elderly passengers suggests that the clientele of polar cruises represents an overall ‘fitter’ and healthier sub-population of elderly people. The on board preparatory lectures, warning the passengers of possible risks ashore and on board, must also have helped to keep down incidences requiring medical attention. A doctor, serving as an on-board physician on a cruise ship in polar waters, needs to be aware that the majority of his/her potential patients will be elderly folk. Familiarisation with facilities, medical equipment and drugs on board prior to departure is essential. The cruise ship doctor in addition to emergency experience needs experience in treating dermal disorders and orthopaedic conditions. Skills in chiropractic measures and/or acupuncture are an advantage and a thorough knowledge of cold weather induced conditions is a must.

Edward Wilson's career plans were changed by a diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. This diagnosis is reviewed as are the ‘allergies’, hypothermia, vitamin C deficiency and other medical conditions encountered by Wilson between 1901 and 1912. Edgar Evans’ death on the return from the South Pole and a possible infective cause, is discussed.

In this article, we engage with environmental conflicts on indigenous land through a focus on an attempt to gain social licence to reopen and operate the Biedjovággi mine in Guovdageainnu/Kautokeino in Sápmi, Norway. We argue that mining prospects bring forth ontological conflicts concerning land use, as well as ways to know the landscape and the envisioned future that the land holds. It is a story of a conflict between two different ways of knowing. The paper explores the Sámi landscape through different concepts, practices and stories. We then contrast this to the way the same landscape is understood and narrated by a mining company, through the programmes and documents produced according to the Norwegian law and standards. We follow Ingold’s argument that the Sámi landscape practices are taskscapes, where places, times and tasks are interconnected. These were not acknowledged in the plans and documents of the mining company. We conclude by addressing the tendency of extractive industries to reduce different landscapes in ways that fit with modern understandings, which oppose culture to nature.

A number of recent publications in English (Borgstrom, 1961; Herman, 1964; Helin, 1964; Kravanja, 1964; Shparlinskiy, 1964) have dealt with aspects of the growth of Soviet fisheries since the Second World War. Some of these publications are written from inside the Soviet fishing industry, others by western fisheries specialists. There would be no advantage in covering the same ground again in detail. The object of this paper is to draw attention to certain features of the Soviet industry not very fully considered in the accounts just mentioned. Before this can be done, however, it will be necessary to sketch in, as background, enough indication of the growth to make the rest of the paper comprehensible.

This paper presents the details of lichens and mosses found on whale vertebrae substratum in the Admiralty Bay area, King George Island, Antarctica. Samples were taken in the coastal area at Hennequin Point, a relict of the Antarctic whaling era. The samples were collected from the upper surface of the whale bones found in the study area during the austral summer 2010–2011. A total of 15 lichen and two moss species were found. All species sampled are known in the Admiralty Bay area, both as pioneers and in more advanced succession stages in ice-free areas. These results suggest that the colonisation of whale bones is not new for Antarctic plants, but it is an additional substrate on which these plants can develop. A map showing the distribution of colonised bones and details of the usual substrata for the lichens and mosses found in this study are provided.

At the Arctic Council’s Ministerial Meeting in Reykjavik on 20 May 2021, Russia assumed the chairmanship of the council for the second time since its establishment in 1996. Though some Russian analysts and practitioners were skeptical about the usefulness of such a mechanism during the 1980s and 1990s, Russia has become an active contributor to the progress of the Arctic Council (AC). Russia’s first term as chair during 2004–2006 led to the creation of the Arctic Contaminants Action Program as an Arctic Council Working Group. Since then, Russia has served as co-lead of the Task Forces developing the terms of the 2011 agreement on search and rescue, the 2013 agreement on marine oil spill preparedness and response, and the 2017 agreement on enhancing international scientific cooperation. Russia also has participated actively in the creation of related bodies including the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and the Arctic Economic Council whose chairmanships rotate together with the chairmanship of the AC. Now, far-reaching changes in the broader setting are posing growing challenges to the effectiveness of these institutional arrangements. The impacts of climate change in the high latitudes have increased dramatically; the pace of the extraction and shipment of Arctic natural resources has accelerated sharply; great-power politics have returned to the Arctic foregrounding concerns regarding military security. Together, these developments make it clear that a policy of business as usual will not suffice to ensure that the AC remains an important high-level forum for addressing Arctic issues in a global context. The programme Russia has developed for its 2021–2023 chairmanship of the council is ambitious; it proposes a sizeable suite of constructive activities. In this article, however, we go a step further to explore opportunities to adapt the Arctic governance system to the conditions prevailing in the 2020s. We focus on options relating to (i) the AC’s constitutive arrangements, (ii) links between the council and related governance mechanisms, (iii) the role of science diplomacy, and (iv) the treatment of issues involving military security. We conclude with a discussion of the prospect of organising a heads of state/government meeting during the Russian chairmanship as a means of setting the Arctic governance system on a constructive path for the 2020s.

In the 1860's, Svend Foyn laid the foundation of modern whaling in north Norway. In 1904, whaling was prohibited by the Norwegian Storting because fishermen claimed that it was detrimental to the cod fisheries, and, in the same year, whaling was begun in the Antarctic. Most accounts find a causal connection between the two events: whaling was begun in the one place because it had been prohibited in the other. This was not the case, for none of the whaling companies that were stopped from whaling in north Norway turned straightaway to Antarctic waters. The pioneer in 1904 was a completely new Argentine company, and the first three Norwegian companies to start whaling in the Antarctic, between 1905 and 1907, had never been whaling from north Norway. It has also been said that whalers had over exploited the Norwegian Sea by 1904 and that they had, therefore, to find new whaling grounds. But this is not true, either. From the whaling stations on the Norwegian Sea (excluding Norway), 1 427 whales were killed in 1901, 1 614 in 1902, 1 769 in 1903, 1 921 in 1904, and 2 613 in 1905. There was, therefore, a definite increase in the northern catches in precisely the year that Norwegians started whaling in the south. The reason for the development of whaling in Antarctic waters was neither the prohibition of 1904 nor a decease in the catches in the old northern grounds. The reason lay, in facf, partly in a steep fall in the price of whale oil and partly in a newly awakened global interest in the Antarctic continent and Antarctic waters.

On 12 January 1921 the British Imperial Antarctic Expedition 1920–1922 led by 27 year old Cambridge graduate John Lachlan Cope, arrived at Paradise Harbour situated west of Andvord Bay on the Danco Coast, Graham Land. The four-man party was landed by Norwegian whalers, on a small island with a promontory they named ‘Water-boat Point’ now Waterboat Point (64°49’S, 62°52’E), because of an abandoned water-boat there. Fortunately ready accommodation was available in the boat and to this were attached cases of provisions to form an improvised hut with an extension added before winter. Cope and Wilkins his deputy leader stayed just six weeks and after helping to build the hut, in effect abandoned the other two members of the expedition, Bagshawe and Lester. The two men voluntarily remained and in the belief that they would be paid, vigorously pursued a varied scientific programme. Although lacking essential items including certain scientific instruments, they were comparatively well off until relieved by Norwegian whalers in January 1922. The expedition that lasted one year and a day and was supported logistically by Norwegian whalers, became the smallest British expedition to overwinter in Antarctica and was the only expedition at that time. Bagshawe and Lester produced an impressive record of observations in meteorology, biology, oceanography, glaciology, botany and geology. In 1951 when Chile established Presidente González Videla Station, remains of the water-boat and hut were present, but today little evidence remains of the site destroyed by natural processes, human intervention and buried by guano. With exception of a few papers and chapters in books, Two men in the Antarctic (Bagshawe 1939) remains the definitive work on this generally forgotten expedition. For this paper primary resources have focused on original manuscripts. Although much material including financial records if indeed they existed, has been lost, surviving documents provide insights into the expedition. Reasons for the eventual loss of Bagshawe and Lester's field station are discussed.

By Article 2(e) of the 1951 Treaty of Peace, Japan renounced ‘all claim to any right or title to or interest in connection with any part of the Antarctic area.’ This paper traces the process by which Australian diplomacy ensured the inclusion of such a provision in the Treaty and assesses the contemporary significance of the article. While in the unlikely event of the breakdown of the Antarctic Treaty System, Japan would be legally entitled to make a territorial claim on the basis of activities undertaken between the conclusion of the Peace Treaty and the coming into force of the Antarctic Treaty, such a claim would likely be weak. It is more probable that the Japanese government would assert that, just as Japan had had no rights to renounce in Antarctica, neither had any of the Antarctic claimants complied adequately with the provisions in international law for territorial acquisition.