This paper describes the background and analyzes the economic structure of that part of the shipping industry engaged in transporting cargo in ice-infested waters. The polar trade is a small sector of the ocean transportation market and a relatively recent development as a distinct service, though ice-strengthend ships and icebreakers have been in operation for over one hundred years.

During seven summer Brazilian expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula area the author used radio weather transmissions to collect data for synoptic analysis and operational weather forecasting. A particularly intensive effort aboard Barão de Teffé in 1989–90 yielded detailed information on frequencies, schedules, procedures and contents, which should be useful to radio-operators, meteorologists, and other Antarctic workers since official publications listing Antarctic radio transmissions are out-dated or incomplete. Radiotelegraph broadcasts particularly valuable to mariners, which may replace or complement facsimile transmissions, are made by Valparaiso, Punta Arenas, and Buenos Aires. Because of unreliable reception of regular fax and teletype broadcasts, synoptic reports were copied directly by monitoring voice and Morse point-to-point circuits, gaining time crucial to operational decisions. Especially useful sources of reports were the Frei, Marambio, and Faraday collections, and the USSR radiotelegraph communications carrying land and ship reports for all sectors of Antarctica and southern hemisphere oceans. Other signals, eg from Chilean lighthouses, ships of opportunity, and aircraft have become useful sources of meteorological information, especially for Drake Passage since Chile has suspended broadcasts, adversely affecting weather forecasting in the area. An insight into weather conditions on the Antarctic Plateau, as well as a sense of history in the making, were gained by monitoring Adventure Network International's radio frequencies.

In January 1962, a US Navy aircraft patroling the Denmark Stait mysteriously disappeared. In spite of an international search continuing over several weeks, the crash was first found accidentally 4.5 years later by geologists, but subsequently it was discovered that all the bodies had not been returned. It was not until 2009 that the story was brought to a close with a ceremony at the naval air base in Jacksonville, Florida.

Oil has been known in one locality of the Soviet Arctic since the second half of the seventeenth century (Probst, 1957). This is the deposit in the Ukhta region of Komi ASSR, known now as the Timano-Pechorskaya petroliferous province. Occasional attempts were made to obtain it, but intensive exploration started only in 1929, and significant exploitation in 1935. The oil is Devonian, aiid some of it is highly viscous. This led to development of a special mining technique for obtaining the oil, the extra cost being justified on the grounds that heavy oil of this type is particularly suitable for certain uses in the north. The refinery is at Ukhta itself, on the Pechora railway (Shishkin, 1959). Output figures have not been released, but are believed to have reached 1200 000 metric tons a year during World War II, but to have dropped in 1950 to 800 000 and in 1955 to 553 000 (Hassmann, 1953; Hodgkins, 1961). In the post-war period natural gas production was encouraged and it reached in 1960 about 1100 million m. per year (Rochev, 1961).

The narratives of the explorers who have visited the north-west coast of King William Island, and some of the maps, do not agree concerning the position of Victory Point, where, in the opinion of most writers, Captain F. R. M. Crozier, R.N., landed and left a record in April 1848 after abandoning H.M. ships Erebus and Terror. Since a complete survey of the locality is only a question of time, it may be useful to put on record the present knowledge of the subject.