During the summer of 1952, investigations were carried out in the town of Aklavik to assess its possibilities for expansion through the addition of educational, health, and administrative facilities, and the construction of an airstrip to serve the community. The unsatisfactory local conditions uncovered by those investigations led the Advisory Committee on Northern Development to recommend that Aklavik should be moved to a new and more stable site. This recommendation was accepted in December 1953 and the Advisory Committee was given the responsibility of selecting a new site.

Remains of three whaling stations on small islands south of Edgeøya, Svalbard, are described. They are believed to be British stations dating from the 17th century. Construction of tryworks and dwellings may represent an intermediate stage between that of Basque whaling stations in southern Labrador and of west European stations on the west coast of Spitsbergen.

John Heap's whole working career was one devoted to the polar regions, primarily the Antarctic — as scientist, then as a distinguished, internationally respected polar diplomat, and finally to holding the Directorship of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge (Fig. 1). Much of the stability and innovative development of the Antarctic Treaty System during the crucial period of the 1970s and 1980s can be attributed to Heap's long tenure as Head of the UK Delegation to successive Antarctic Treaty meetings.

Biographical variables, clinical ratings and psychological tests were used to predict performance of the eleven subjects involved in the International Biomedical Expedition to the Antarctic. The results showed that of the biographical predictors, past polar experience and age were best for predicting low stress and high arousal. Of the clinical predictions those made by a psychologist who had access to both interviews and psychometric material, and had been to the Antarctic, were more accurate than those of two other psychologists who had access to only the psychometric material and had not been there. Of the psychological tests, the initial stress scores were found to be good predictors of later stress and arousal, the initial arousal scores to be good predictors of later stress and self adaptation ratings, and the preferred interpersonal distance scores to be good predictors of independent observer ratings and peer ratings of adaptability.

The strenuous and costly measures undertaken by the British Admiralty and others to find the missing expedition of Sir John Franklin during the period 1847–59 were hindered by malicious deceptions, misleading rumours, corrupted translations, unfortunate misunderstandings, and premature conclusions. The false leads included fake messages from Franklin, invented reports of his safety or death in various places, clairvoyant statements that placed him in several widely separated locations, discoveries of objects supposedly associated with his expedition, and distorted reports from Indians and Eskimos. The Admiralty had to investigate all leads, and this took time away from the planning and execution of more important measures.

Ever since 2007/2008, the European Union (EU) and its various institutional actors have been developing a dedicated EU Arctic policy, setting common positions, stressing the EU’s Arctic credentials and prominently expressing its own “Arcticness”. These Arctic steps have been thoroughly scrutinised over the past decade. Yet, research has almost ignored one particular pillar of the EU’s Arctic endeavour: the “Arctic exception” in EU–Russia relations and the related lack of a distinct Russian dimension in the EU’s Arctic policy. Similarly, little is known of how the Russian side views the EU’s Arctic policy steps taken since 2008. The extensive transdisciplinary literature on EU–Russia relations has basically ignored how the EU has been represented in Russia ever since 1991. This article examines EU and Russian Arctic policies and their relations in the European North. In attempting to explore how the EU’s “Arcticness” has been presented, narrated and perceived in Russian media between 2008 and 2018, we draw upon an analysis of articles published on various Russian media platforms during that period. The study identified four core narratives of the EU’s engagement in the Arctic: the EU as player, as seeker, as prohibitor and as partner. These narratives provide evidence of the “Arctic exception” in EU–Russia relations, as well as offering some related explanations.

The Arctic Contaminants Action Programme (ACAP), originally intended to follow up the work of AMAP (the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) on identifying the sources of pollution, became an official working group under the Arctic Council in 2006. ACAP has focussed on pollution from Russian sources, the main objective being to accelerate the reduction of national emissions of various environmental pollutants and climate forcers. Basically, ACAP initiates projects with a scientific basis in AMAP assessments of the health of the Arctic. The idea behind the creation of ACAP was to channel the work of the Arctic Council in a more practical direction and to improve the use of the knowledge produced by AMAP. ACAP is one of only two Council working groups not to have been specifically evaluated and analysed by external bodies and academics. This article undertakes a critical analysis of ACAP and argues that there are great potentials for improving its work. ACAP has established a forum where it has been possible to facilitate pilot projects aimed at limiting harmful emissions; this work should be strengthened.

Major archaeological excavations have been conducted at Scott's 1910–13 expedition hut site on Cape Evans, Ross Island, Ross Dependency, Antarctica over the past three years. The work has involved experimentation and the use of a wide range of equipment for excavating in ice and permafrosted ground and to deal with specific problems encountered during archaeological fieldwork in a frozen environment such as Antarctica. The equipment, its operations, and advantages and disadvantages are described.

In the literature of the exploration of the Antarctic in the early 20th century, there are many references to ‘medical comforts’. While ‘medical comforts’ was sometimes used as a euphemism for alcoholic beverages, the term, which originated in the army, covered all foods and drinks used for the treatment and prevention of illness and during convalescence. This article describes the use of medical comforts during the Antarctic expeditions of the so called ‘heroic age’. Apart from alcohol, medical comforts included beef extracts, milk extracts and arrowroot. These products were extensively advertised to the medical and nursing professions and to the general public and the Antarctic connection was sometimes used in the advertising. The products were largely devoid of vitamins and their use may have contributed to some of the disease that occurred on these expeditions.

This article investigates how in the Soviet Arctic researchers and indigenous communities searched and understood the mammoth before and during the Cold War. Based on a vast number of published and unpublished sources as well as interviews with scholars and reindeer herders, this article demonstrates that the mammoth, as a paleontological find fusing together features of extinct and extant species, plays an in-between role among various environmental epistemologies. The author refers to moments of interactions among these different actors as “environmental encounters”, which comprise and engage with the physical, political, social and cultural environments of the Arctic. These encounters shape the temporal stabilisations of knowledge which enable the mammoth to live its post-extinct life. This article combines approaches from environmental history and anthropology, history of science and indigenous studies showing the social vitality of a “fossil object”.

In 2013, partial skeletal remains from three members of the 1845 John Franklin expedition were recovered from an archaeological site at Erebus Bay, King William Island, Nunavut. The remains included three crania, two of which were sufficiently intact to allow craniofacial reconstructions. Identifications are not proposed for either reconstruction; however, tentative identifications are being explored through DNA analyses currently underway that include samples obtained from both crania.

A rich seam of scientific research has been opened by the recent location of both shipwrecks from the disastrous 1845 Franklin northwest passage expedition. Even more than the forensic study of any human remains, the contents of Her Majesty’s Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror have already begun to illuminate the day-to-day lives of Victorian sailors in the Arctic. Yet many hitherto unexamined but informative documents have survived too, both in the British National Archives and at local levels throughout the United Kingdom, which also enable us to focus upon those men, their work and families, thereby gaining a far better understanding of their meticulously planned but ultimately doomed voyage. This article examines the previously ignored Royal Navy Allotment Books and cross-references them with other contemporary records, such as censuses and parish registers, to give us new insights into the backgrounds of the crews of HMSs Erebus and Terror.

C. E. Borchgrevink was born in Christiania (present-day Oslo) in 1864. His Norwegian father was a lawyer, and his English mother was a Miss Ridley. Little is known about his early years, but he said he had part of his education at Gjertsen College. He was a full-time student from the winter term 1885 to the winter term 1888 at the Royal Forestry School, Tharandt, Saxony, but seems to have obtained no certificate or diploma; later he mentioned that he had been a pupil of Professor E. Nobbe. When he was in his thirties he told H. J. Bull that he had been educated at Christiania University, but there is no evidence to support this. He also said he had served as a boy or apprentice in the Borghild in 1878, crossing the Atlantic in her, but there are no details.

The planning and direction of the British government's efforts to find and rescue Sir John Franklin were carried out in the Admiralty offices on Whitehall by the Board of Admiralty, which comprised six Lords Commissioners and two Secretaries, subject to the ultimate authority of Parliament. The Board worked closely with the Navy's Hydrographer, Francis Beaufort, who was probably the single most influential person involved in the planning. He and the Board utilized advice from various officers who had been on Arctic expeditions, and consulted many organizations and individuals in Britain and abroad on particular aspects of the search.

The importance of Australia taking an active interest in her Antarctic Dependencies was strongly urged by Sir Douglas Mawson for several years before the war. Support by the government of the day was evidenced by the fact that the Wyatt Earp was purchased from Lincoln Ellsworth after his return from the Antarctic in 1939, the express intention being to use her for further Antarctic operations. No firm plans, however, were made, and with the gathering war clouds in Europe the idea of an Australian expedition to the Antarctic was temporarily deferred.