The loss of Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition has provoked speculation about the cause of the fatal outcome from the expedition’s departure in 1845 to the present day. This study describes how The Lancet, first published in 1823 and now one of the world’s leading medical journals, drew conclusions at the time of the expedition’s loss, which closely parallel those of today’s most recent research. The journal took evidence from Arctic medical and naval experts to conclude in 1859 that the Admiralty’s misdirected searches committed the crews to ice-bound entrapment, which had fatal nutritional consequences. The Lancet’s prescience has been supported by recent research showing that the unique physical circumstances faced by the expedition had nutritional effects related to vitamin deficiencies, which explain mortality over the third winter and the eventual total loss. It is significant that, although published 160 years apart and with vitamins unknown in the Victorian era, both studies took robust evidence-based approaches to draw similar conclusions.

In the 19th century, sealing vessels visited the South Shetland Islands to exploit animal resources for the global skin and oil markets. The captains or mates of these vessels were responsible for keeping a logbook in which they recorded daily observations of weather conditions, hunting activities, etc. Despite the value of these documents as a source of information, archaeologists studying Antarctic sealing have not always relied on them. This paper examines the potential of logbooks for providing information that is relevant to the archaeological study of sealing in the South Shetland Islands. In particular, it discusses how documentary analysis of exploitation strategies can provide insight into the dynamics that influenced the configuration of sealers’ sites. To this end, we propose a methodology for investigating exploitation strategies, taking into account several archaeologically sensitive variables, including the number, location and duration of landings, as well as the activities carried out during these events. We have taken four logbooks dating from the early and late 19th century – specifically those of the Aurora (1820–1821), the Huron (1820–1822), the Thomas Hunt (1873–1874) and the Sarah W. Hunt (1887–1888) – as case studies to test the proposed methodology.

Much has been written about the so-called Franklin expedition (1845–), but not about the master mariners, who joined as “Greenland pilots,” as experienced whaling masters on Royal Navy expeditions were usually called in the 19th century. Having been on Royal Navy expeditions to the Arctic before, Thomas Blanky, the ice master of HMS Terror, was mentioned here and there in contemporary sources. But who he was and how and why he joined the expedition are still widely unanswered questions, to be dealt with for the first time here.

The new terricolous lichen species Thamnolecania yunusii Halıcı, Güllü, Bölükbaşı & Kahraman, which is characterised by its cream to greyish brown granulose-crustose thallus without vegetative propagules, is described from Horseshoe Island in the South-West Antarctic Peninsula region. All Thamnolecania species are known only from the Antarctic. The only species of the genus with a crustose thallus is T. racovitzae, but it differs from T. yunusii by growing on rocks, having an effuse to subeffigurate thallus that is sometimes isidiate and with shorter and narrower ascospores (c. 15 × 3.5 µm vs. 15.5–19.5 × 3.5–5.5 µm). The nrITS, mtSSU and RPB1 gene regions of the new species were studied and the phylogenetic position of the species was shown to be in the same clade as Thamnolecania gerlachei, T. brialmontii and T. racovitzae, but occurs on a different branch from these species. As T. yunusii is an Antarctic endemic, like the other Thamnolecania species, and most of the morphological characters fit well with this genus, we describe this new species under the genus Thamnolecania.

Plastic pollution in the Arctic marine system is sparsely quantified, and few enforceable policies are in place to ameliorate the issue. With an inflow-outflow budget for the Arctic Ocean, we identify gateways through which plastic enters and exits the Arctic marine system. While estimating the flux of plastic through rivers, sea ice, and ocean, we also quantify marine plastic pollution from Arctic shipping and fishing. Plastic fluxes are calculated using horizontal volume fluxes of water and ice and combining them with plastic waste concentration data; flux from fishing and shipping is generated through combining waste estimates with estimated ship traffic. We estimate that fishing and shipping contribute 105 tonnes of plastic flux per annum, compared to 10−1 tonnes per annum from river inflow. The ocean has a far smaller net outflow, dwarfed by that of ice, at 10−8 to 10−7 and 10−5 to 10−3 tonnes per annum, respectively. We examine how a suite of proposed policy interventions would quantitatively change those concentrations, and how the current governance environment makes each feasible; we find interventions targeting vessel traffic most effective. These interventions include a prohibition on the use of certain plastics in fishing as well as a Polar Code permitting scheme.

The CCAMLR System of Inspection has been in place for more than 30 years, but its implementation and impact have yet to be summarised and analysed. The purpose of the research is to clarify the legal basis, analyse the implementation and make suggestions for further improvements. By analysing the CAMLR Convention and historical files, the System of Inspection has been further improved and many details have been added based on some international fisheries agreements and domestic laws regulating fisheries. Article XXIV of the CAMLR Convention, various Conservation Measures and documents form the legal basis of the System of Inspection. The System is divided into two types, namely At-sea inspection and Port inspection. Combined with the annual reports of CCAMLR meetings over the past 30 years, the System has become relatively complete as a “Compliance Monitoring Mechanism” under the CCAMLR Compliance Evaluation Procedure with other monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) tools. However, inspection data have not been stable over the years. Since 2017, the increase in catches has not led to an increase in the number of inspections in the annual reports. In addition, At-sea inspections do not cover all Subareas of the Convention. At present, the objects of inspection have been extended to Non-Member vessels, so that it should also be sanctioned through various mechanisms. In addition, the System of Inspection is different from the Compliance Evaluation Procedure and the relationship between the two needs to be confirmed in practice. Due to the change in inspection methods, the lack of inspection data and the increase in other MCS tools, At-sea inspection does not cover all Subareas of the Convention. The System of Inspection is constantly being practised and improved. The study calls on Members to continue to carry out inspections and to improve the System in order to achieve the conservation and rational use of fishery resources.

China’s role in the Arctic regime remains a debatable topic in the expert discourse on the High North. Currently, in view of the aggravated conflicts in other regions that include Russia as the largest Arctic state, and China as its strategic partner, the Arctic regimes are experiencing salient disturbances. Against this backdrop, an understanding of China’s opportunities to affect Arctic affairs is urgently needed. We address this issue by combining political and legal analyses. We used the regime theory approach to outline the Arctic regime complex (ARC), and through this lens, we discuss the recent changes that are being observed. Based on this, we determine China’s actual potential for making amendments to the ARC. We conclude that China has no capacity to make a crucial shift in the ARC, but it is still able to alter particular rules, like those related to Arctic Ocean management and scientific cooperation. The further efficient operation of the Arctic Council will play a decisive role in envisaging China’s behaviour in the region.

In 1866, Charles F. Hall recorded testimony from a Pelly Bay native named Sŭ-pung-er who reported that together with his uncle, they had visited the Northwest coast of King William Island 4 years prior in search of materials abandoned by the Franklin Expedition. Sŭ-pung-er told Hall that he had identified a site which Hall believed was a “vault” which might contain documents and speculated that it could have been a burial site for a high-ranking officer. Sŭ-pung-er’s testimony also included the description of a wooden “pillar, stick or post” which marked the spot of the vault. The location of this site and the pillar have never been found. Yet they remain sought-after for both their significance and the potential bonanza of information about the expedition. Any clue or artefact, which could provide clarity for this site, is therefore of great value. This paper describes a model of the pillar seen on King Williams Island, replicated by Sŭ-pung-er, which Hall brought back from the Arctic and included in his list of Franklin relics. The model, now housed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, was first featured in a drawing of relics appearing in 1869 in Harper’s Weekly magazine. The fact that this artefact has been in plain sight for so long, but unrecognised for what it is, is significant. The pillar model both provides clarity and continues the mystery surrounding the Franklin Expedition.

The tragic Andrée balloon expedition of 1897 serves as a haunting reminder of the dangers posed by ice drift during polar exploration. This paper examines Andrée’s initial decision after his balloon flight to march towards Cape Flora in Franz Josef Land, despite its much greater distance compared to the Sjuøyane archipelago. The rationale behind this choice remains unclear, but potential factors include stored supplies, the demonstrated winter survival in Franz Josef Land and the scientific interest in unexplored regions. By analysing historical accounts and employing scenario analyses, this study contributes to a better understanding of Andrée’s perception of ice drift and its impact on their ill-fated journey. The paper explores major forces affecting ice drift, reviews the historical development of understanding ice drift in the area, and presents an analysis of Andrée’s understanding and decision-making. The overall conclusion is that Andrée probably was unaware of the substantial deflection to the right of the direction of the wind that ice drift in the Arctic on average is characterised of due to the Earth’s rotation (the Coriolis effect). Without this deflection, the decision to march towards Cape Flora would have made sense under the assumption of continued northerly winds.

Much has been written about the so-called Franklin expedition (1845–52?), but not about the master mariners, who joined as “Greenland pilots,” as experienced whaling masters on Royal Navy expeditions were usually called in the 19th century. Having been on no Royal Navy expeditions before, next to nothing was known about Scottish whaling master James Reid, the ice master of HMS Erebus in Franklin’s expedition. Putting together all the available biographical information about him for the first time, the goal of this article is not only to tell who he was but also to tell how and why he joined the expedition, and as far as this is possible to say – what he experienced in its course.

The emergence of the Sámi Parliament has lifted Norwegian Sámi politics into an international discourse on indigenous peoples. The clearest imprints of the new Sámi political space are found in the High North region of Norway, where the Sámi account for a significant proportion of the population. The article shows to what extent and how Sámi agency affects governance structures and business development in the north in an increasingly globalised economic setting. From its origin, Sámi agency has influenced development in the High North through three processes: the first is through the Sámi institution building and strengthening of Sámi communities; the second is through its links to local and regional societal development; and the third is through the role of Sámi politics in globalised development processes. One main finding is that the boundaries between these links to the surrounding environment have become more diffuse. Sámi agency is taking a more important role in the economic development processes in the High North, often in terms of the local and regional processes, and now also within the increasingly important globalised economic modernisation processes in which inclusion in new multi-level governance structures is important.

Participatory methods have become essential for research with Indigenous Arctic peoples. To understand how researchers use such methods, we conducted a scoping review of participatory action research (PAR)—a classic qualitative methodology—with Inuit communities. Although other systematic reviews exist on participatory methodologies in the Arctic, our scoping review is the only one focusing only on the Inuit.

We reviewed 11 empirical studies published between 2000 and 2019 in peer-reviewed journals. Most of them had been conducted with Canadian Inuit. Although the authors came from a variety of disciplines, the studies were mostly about the health and well-being of Inuit communities. The authors did not use the same definition of PAR, but their definitions did share some key components: Inuit participation, Inuit engagement and a goal of social change. There were also a variety of methodologies of research and forms of Inuit participation, although the photovoice method was frequent.

Scoping reviews are most often used in the natural sciences. This one was a challenge because we were using it in the social sciences and because it concerned PAR, an approach with different definitions and uses. A remaining question is how to assess such a method, either by peers or by other stakeholders.

The DIMA Network (Developing Innovative Multi-proxy Analyses – in Siberia and the Russian Far East (SRFE)) started from a small nucleus of palaeoenvironmental researchers in the UK and SRFE at a workshop in 2008 and currently includes researchers from over 25 institutions. The mutual interest in creating long-term records of environmental change was rekindled during workshops in Magadan (2018), Tomsk (2018) and Southampton (2019). These events were organised to connect researchers from the UK and SRFE with these aims: (1) provide training in new techniques and methods, (2) facilitate knowledge transfer about local sites and conditions, (3) stimulate large-scale collaborative projects across SRFE and (4) inspire a new generation of palaeoenvironmental researchers.

Drawing from ethnographic participation in a ski excursion among a group of Arctic Nature Guide students on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, this paper explores guiding as a model of practice embedded in relations – material encounters, discursive frictions and collaborative efforts. The article pays attention to practical negotiations and navigations of these relations while making use of historical scholarship on the role of the guide as a basis for theoretical reflections on the role’s mediation activities. More precisely, the paper advocates a “creation-model of mediation” that challenges modernist representational discourse (and conceptualisations of nature) through a recognition of guiding as productive behaviour. Displaying agency in meaning-making and embodying Svalbard’s transient cosmopolitan population, the guide emerges as a figure on ground far from fixed and settled, and as a tool with which to appraise Svalbard as more geo-aesthetical condition than bounded place.

The Svalbard archipelago is a centre of global research on climate change and also an example of a rapidly changing Arctic area with tourism replacing the traditional mining industry. We compared the different development paths of the Norwegian (Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund) and Russian settlements (Barentsburg and Pyramida) on Spitsbergen as part of the Svalbard archipelago using demographic and socio-economic data until 2022 when available, but not focusing on the impacts of COVID-19 and changing geopolitics after 2022. We analysed strategy documents produced by Norway and Russia and by organisations connected to Svalbard. The analysis continued by scrutinising the statistical data available to ascertain if this supported the strategic goals outlined in the documents. Data collection was by direct enquiry to national statistical bureaus, agencies and institutions in Norway and Russia. Secondary data were collected from media publications and social media accounts. Statistics Norway provided very detailed data on demographics and industrial structure, turnover, investments and comprehensive statistics on employees by industry on Norwegian settlements on Svalbard. The results revealed disparities in socio-economic development, striking differences in data availability and in transparency between the Norwegian and Russian settlements. The population in the Norwegian settlements continued to grow during the period 1990–2022 with an increasing number of foreign nationals, and the population in the Russian settlements decreased by 85% at the same time period. The Norwegian settlements exemplify a diversified economy with a growing private sector, and the Russian settlements continued to rely on the town-forming Russian state unitary coal mining enterprise, Trust Arktikugol. While Svalbard presented a prime example of open data and transparency in the environmental sciences, the socio-economic and demographic statistics were lagging behind. Several practical proposals are presented for improved data collection on the Svalbard settlements.

Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022 was the end of the Arctic cooperation between states and others as we knew it, despite the fact that Russia’s illegal actions are not occurring in the Arctic region. Russia’s attack on Ukraine caused pronounced security fears and responses, particularly from the European and North American countries, including the other Arctic states. This naturally affected Arctic cooperation because it is precisely in the Arctic region that Russia is such a vastly central actor. For example, the region’s pre-eminent inter-governmental forum, the Arctic Council, is struggling to continue its activities in full, as the seven western Arctic states paused participating in meetings held in and activities involving Russia. On the other hand, the first in-person meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO) fisheries agreement in late November 2022 successfully adopted its COP Rules of Procedure by consensus, including Russia. The purpose of this article is to investigate how adversely Arctic international cooperation in inter-governmental forums and treaties has suffered due to the Ukraine war, utilising a qualitative research methodology to collect internal and sensitive information from key informants. In particular, the article aims to find an answer to the following question: In which types of Arctic inter-governmental structures have the states been able to continue the cooperation and for what reasons? The hypothesis that will be tested in this article is whether treaty-based cooperation has fared better than cooperation founded on soft law. This article will flesh out the current state of Arctic cooperative frameworks and actual cooperative activities under them, analysing three soft law-based cooperative frameworks, including the Arctic Council and several treaty-based cooperative frameworks, such as the CAO fisheries agreement and Arctic Science Cooperation Agreement. This article is based on the facts as of 22 February 2023.

In this article, we introduce the concept of politics of comparison in tourism development, looking at how comparison contributes to shaping and making sense of tourism development in Greenland. Decision makers and operators in Greenland foresee tourism growth as new transatlantic airports are set to open by 2024. To navigate an uncertain tourism future, many look towards neighbouring Iceland, who experienced exponential growth in international tourism arrivals between 2010 and 2018. In this North Atlantic reflection, comparison also works as a tool to understand tourism, positioning Greenland as a potential destination and deliberating about the future of tourism in the region, while also bringing forth competing logics and trajectories of development. Thus, comparison serves to engage with the meaning and value of tourism, seeing it not only as a pillar of the economy but also as a force affecting landscapes and communities. We argue that the comparisons made by tourism actors work epistemologically – creating knowledge of ‘what is’ – as well as ontologically, forcefully interfering with and producing tourism realities.

This paper examines the production of Arctic governance expertise, understood here as the specialised knowledge through which international cooperation is regulated in the region. Instead of presuming that such expertise is created primarily in the capitals of Arctic states, I ask a more open-ended question: where specifically does that process take place? I argue that Arctic governance expertise increasingly operates in a transnational and networked fashion: an array of think tanks, foundations and events like conferences are as important as the obvious places like foreign ministries and universities. It is a quasi-diplomatic social field characterised by blurry boundaries between different states, professions and institutional settings: between government and academia, legal and political fields, public and private sectors. The paper foregrounds that field of expertise as an object of study.

Kuhnian’ paradigms are a commonly used method of explaining the structure of knowledge production within the social sciences; however, in some ways, they are also in opposition with Popperian’ critical thinking. The opposing approaches surmount to a comparative analytic method – Kuhn advocates undertaking science that is incommensurable, discipline-specific and ideologically and metaphysically fixed in nature; whilst Popper advocates science that is pluralistic, rebellious, interdisciplinary, and ideologically and metaphysically adaptable. This article utilises a systematic literature review of key peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and online articles from respected sources relating to Arctic scientific cooperation during and since the Cold War in order to provide a qualitative data source for comparative theoretical analysis. This article analyses key trends in Arctic environmental decision-making since the Cold War utilising a comparative critical constructivist framework based on epistemological challenges visible in the “Science Wars” between Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. By applying two of the foundations of social science (critical thinking and paradigms) to Arctic International Relations and Geopolitics, this article assesses the state of Arctic science cooperation and; the potential for Arctic science cooperation to solve wicked environmental problems. The article concludes that there are power relationships within the epistemological background to environmental decision-making which impacts science cooperation in the Arctic and; current trends in Arctic decision-making further propels the Arctic along a trajectory of environmental degradation.