In his book Scott and Amundsen (1979) Roland Huntford described Captain Robert Falcon Scott R.N. as ‘not well thought of in the Service’ and ‘an obscure, rather dull torpedo lieutenant with mediocre prospects’. A myth has subsequently arisen that Scott was forced into Antarctic exploration as his only route to naval promotion. In reality, Scott was an extremely able officer held in high regard by his naval contemporaries; he was on course for promotion to flag rank (rear-admiral and above) had he not taken up polar exploration; and his primary motivation for polar work was financial support for his family. In addition to a chronological account of Scott's career, this article will present his Admirals’ reports in full.

The ‘Franklin expedition’ of 1845 set out to establish a ‘northwest passage’ between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but ended with the deaths of all 129 crewmen in the grimmest of circumstances. The hypothesis that lead poisoning may have contributed to the disaster is examined by re-analysis of the bone-lead content of seven skeletons in order to model statistically the likely variation in lead burden across the whole crew. Comparison of the estimated lead burdens with present-day data that associates lead with cognitive and physical morbidity suggests that a proportion of the crew may have experienced few or no adverse effects whilst those with higher burdens may have suffered some significant debility. It is unclear whether such debility would have been incapacitating or exceptional for the lead-contaminated environment of nineteenth-century Britain. Whilst lead alone may not have caused the disaster, it is proposed that high levels of lead may have interacted with other factors including dietary insufficiencies and individual constitutional differences to render some, but not all, of the crew more vulnerable to debility in the final throes of the expedition.

On 18 June 1928, Roald Amundsen and a team of five men (René Guilbaud, Leif Dietrichson, Albert Cavelier de Cuverville, Gilbert Brazy and Emile Valette) flew in a French Latham 47 prototype aeroplane from Tromsø, Norway, to aid in the rescue of survivors of the crashed airship Italia. The party disappeared nearly without trace into the Barents Sea. We shall examine Amundsen's last years, the decision to employ for an Arctic relief mission a prototype aeroplane which had not completed its flight tests, and the evidence that, in deciding to disregard warnings and fly this aeroplane unaccompanied over the Barents Sea, Amundsen took a significant risk that led to his death and those of his crew.

Scott's Northern Party, led by Victor Campbell, after almost a year at Cape Adare was moved south by Terra Nova. They landed at Evans Cove for five weeks’ sledging in the Wood Bay area. Bad ice-conditions prevented the vessel from returning. Campbell's party, stranded with little food and only summer equipment, faced the 1912 winter alone. For shelter they dug a snow-cave and there survived for seven months, living mainly on seals and penguins. Finally in early spring they sledged 230 miles back to Scott's party at Cape Evans. The small snow-cave provided little privacy. Authors have mentioned how Campbell divided the cave into two virtual messes, one for the ratings, the other for the officers, with the associated naval implications that conversations in one mess were not to be ‘paid attention to’ in the other. Still, at times, private exchanges were needed. Hooper describes one silent conversation between Campbell and Levick found in the latter's cave-diary, and mentions some others relating to health matters. This paper describes one drawing and nine new written conversations between Campbell, Levick and Priestley found in a field-notebook held in the Victor Campbell Collection at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. The conversations are transcribed, interpreted, and placed in the context of the life in the snow-cave. All were written during September, their last month there, and show that officers often needed to converse silently in writing and, furthermore, that the two-mess concept was not a satisfactory context for private conversations.

This article analyses the phenomenon of the post-Soviet Russian summer cottage, dacha, in the Arctic. We take an ethnographic comparative perspective for contributing to the refinement of our understanding of human-environment relations and urban anthropology of incomer-northerners, those with roots somewhere outside the north. Evidence from fieldwork in Murmansk Oblast, West Siberia and Sakha-Yakutia shows how for a socialist and post-socialist northern urban livelihood, the dacha has become an indispensable counterpart of life in the urban concrete housing blocks for most Russian northern inhabitants. We explore in this article the importance of dacha for northern identity of urban dwellers, by analysing spheres of individual and collective agency, freedom, attachment to place and land. We conclude that the dacha movement has filled a gap that had been left open by Soviet Arctic urbanisation: a dacha has come to stand for a human-environment relationship that gradually re-introduces rurality to urban life in the Russian Arctic so permanently that dacha places start losing their seasonal character.

In December 1913 Sir Ernest Shackleton released a prospectus and announced The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. His goal was to undertake the first crossing of Antarctica from the Weddell Sea via the polar plateau to McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea. The journey had already been attempted by Wilhelm Filchner whose ship Deutschland, had become beset in the Weddell Sea ice for nine months in 1912. Shackleton aimed ‘to make all possible scientific observations on [the Trans-Antarctic] journey; to carry on similar work by parties operating from the two bases on the Weddell and Ross Seas [and] to carry on scientific work, and travel unknown portions of the coastline, by the two ships of the expedition’(Shackleton 1913: 3). With Endurance a continental crossing party of six led by Shackleton would begin from the Weddell Sea and a supporting depot laying party led by Nimrod veteran Lieutenant Aeneas L.A. Mackintosh RNR, with the auxiliary barquentine Aurora based in McMurdo Sound. Unbeknown to each party, both experienced problems beyond their control. Endurance was holed and sank in the Weddell Sea and Aurora locked in ice, although damaged, reached New Zealand. Here the ship was repaired and then undertook a relief expedition with Shackleton as a passenger, to McMurdo Sound. In spite of these major setbacks each party conducted valuable scientific observations.

When Shackleton published his book South (Shackleton 1919) on the expedition, compiled with New Zealand journalist and friend Edward Saunders, with exception of accounts on the Ross Sea party sledging and drift of the ship Aurora, no recognition was given to work undertaken by the four Ross Sea party scientists and an assistant. Later publications have focused on the depot-laying, while books on Antarctic science have largely overlooked the science undertaken.

The purpose of this paper is to make this better known, and to give credit to the four scientists involved. The science conducted although primarily concerned with meteorological observations, also covers limited glaciological observations including the ablation of lake ice, solution of glacier ice in salt water, tidal recordings, collection of zoological and other specimens, along with the use of improvised equipment to undertake observations. The science achieved was secondary to the field work. The Ross Sea party science was done however, under conditions not normally conducive for such field work with health issues a major contributing factor. A lack of funding, equipment, personality problems, concern for Aurora and crew, uncertainty of Shackleton's Antarctic crossing and their own relief, led to depression, sleeplessness and insomnia.

Arctic sea routes have for long been of interest for shipping because of much shorter distances between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Sea ice prevented real development of significant traffic, but did not prevent research from trying to assess their economic viability. With the melting of sea ice in the Arctic, this effort at modeling the profitability of Arctic shipping routes has received a new impetus. However, the conclusions of these studies vary widely, depending on the parameters chosen and their value. What can be said of these models, from 1991 until 2013, and to what extent can a model be drawn, capitalising on twenty years of simulations?

This paper describes the co-operation, for the purpose of data collection, that was established between scientific institutions in Scandinavia and the sealing trade in northern Norway in the period 1865–1875. The paper describes the cartographic work carried out by sealing masters, notably the making of new charts of Nordaustlandet, Kong Karls Land and Novaya Zemlya. It also describes how a scientific network in Norway and Sweden saw the potential in the masters’ knowledge of the Arctic and encouraged them to record their observations and to gather scientific data. The reasons why sealing masters engaged in Arctic research are described. The paper includes charts of parts of Svalbard and of Novaya Zemlya based on sealers’ sketches, notes and ship's journals.

In the summer of 1880, the British explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith made the first reconnaissance of the western reaches of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa [Franz Josef Land] in the specially built polar research vessel Eira. This was the first expedition to go ashore in the archipelago after its acknowledged discovery by Weyprecht and Payer in 1873. Combined with his brief reconnaissance in 1881 before Eira sank near Cape Flora, Leigh Smith added a total of 41 place names, 37 of which are still in use, to its geographic nomenclature during his two expeditions, 1880 (39 place names) and 1881–1882 (2). The 1880 names were a post-expedition collaboration, between Leigh Smith and Clements Markham, Secretary of the Royal Geographic Society (RGS). Leigh Smith provided the names of colleagues and scientists who had either been with him in 1880 or on one of his earlier expeditions to Svalbard, or those of favoured relatives, while Markham, along with Sir George Nares as an RGS peer reviewer, added the names of particularly influential individuals in geographical circles as well as a variety of museum curators who identified natural history collections returned by the expedition. Additionally, two place names are connected to the Dutch Willem Barents expedition of 1879.

In 1909, with two companions Swiss meteorologist Alfred de Quervain travelled to the Uummannaq area of west Greenland, to the same area investigated by Erich von Drygalski in 1892–1893. A major objective was to investigate the changes in the nearby outlet glaciers since Drygalski's visit. Man-hauling sledges, de Quervain and his companions also made a sortie into the interior of the ice cap, penetrating to a distance of about 100 km and to a height of about 1700 m. Having thus whetted his appetite, in1912 de Qervain mounted a further expedition aimed at making a crossing of the ice cap, only the second after that of Fridtjof Nansen in 1888, and along a trajectory significantly further north. De Quervain hoped to determine the shape and height of the ice cap along this trajectory. With three companions and using dog-sledges de Quervain set off from the Disko Bugt area of west Greenland and crossed the ice cap to the area of Ammassalik (now Tasiilaq) on the east coast. In 31 days on the ice the party travelled some 640 km, reaching a maximum altitude of 2510 m. A comprehensive range of scientific observations was effected en route. A support party of three men remained at the western edge of the ice cap for the summer to conduct meteorological and glaciological studies. Thereafter two of this group spent the winter of 1912–1913 at the Danish Arctic Station at Godhavn as guests of Morten Porsild to conduct aerological studies using pilot balloons and, to a lesser degree, captive balloons. All quotations in this paper are translated from the German by the author. This article is the first English-language account of de Quervain's expeditions.

Over the last three centuries, geographers, oceanographers, geophysicists, glaciologists, climatologists, and geoengineers have shown great interest in Arctic Ocean sea ice extent. Many of these experts envisaged an ice-free Arctic Ocean. This article studies three stages of that narrative: the belief in an ice-free Arctic Ocean, the potential for one, and the threat of one. Eighteenth and nineteenth century interest in accessing navigable polar sea routes energised the belief in an iceless polar sea; an early twentieth century North Hemispheric warm spell combined with mid-century cold war geostrategy to open the potential for drastic sea ice loss; and, most recently, climate models have illuminated the threat of a seasonally ice-free future, igniting widespread concerns about the impact this might have on Earth's natural and physical systems. This long narrative of an ice-free Arctic Ocean can help to explain modern-day scepticism of human-induced environmental change in the far north.

The German Antarctic Receiving Station (GARS) O’Higgins at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula is a dual purpose facility for earth observation and has existed for more than 20 years. It serves as a satellite ground station for payload data downlink and telecommanding of remote sensing satellites as well as a geodetic observatory for global reference systems and global change. Both applications use the same 9 m diameter radio antenna. Major outcomes of this usage are summarised in this paper.

The satellite ground station O’Higgins (OHG) is part of the global ground station network of the German Remote Sensing Data Centre (DFD) operated by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). It was established in 1991 to provide remote sensing data downlink support within the missions of the European Remote Sensing Satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2. These missions provided valuable insights into the changes of the Antarctic ice shield. Especially after the failure of the on-board data recorder, OHG became an essential downlink station for ERS-2 real-time data transmission. Since 2010, OHG is manned during the entire year, specifically to support the TanDEM-X mission. OHG is a main dump station for payload data, monitoring and telecommanding of the German TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites.

For space geodesy and astrometry the radio antenna O’Higgins significantly improves coverage over the southern hemisphere and plays an essential role within the global Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network. In particular the determination of the Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) and the sky coverage of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) benefit from the location at a high southern latitude. Further, the resolution of VLBI images of active galactic nuclei (AGN), cosmic radio sources defining the ICRF, improves significantly when O’Higgins is included in the network. The various geodetic instrumentation and the long time series at O’Higgins allow a reliable determination of crustal motions. VLBI station velocities, continuous GNSS measurements and campaign-wise absolute gravity measurements consistently document a vertical rate of about 5 mm/a. This crustal uplift is interpreted as an elastic rebound due to ice loss as a consequence of the ice shelf disintegration in the Prince Gustav Channel in the late 1990s.

The outstanding location on the Antarctic continent and its year-around operation make GARS O’Higgins in future increasingly attractive for polar orbiting satellite missions and a vitally important station for the global VLBI network. Future plans call for the development of an observatory for environmentally relevant research. That means that the portfolio of the station will be expanded including the expansion of the infrastructure and the construction and operation of new scientific instruments suitable for long-term measurements and satellite ground truthing.

The Characteres Generum Plantarum of Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster was the principal printed botanical work emanating from James Cook's second voyage of 1772–1775. The printing most frequently encountered is a 31.2 cm quarto dated 1776 that was probably run off in several hundred copies. A single 1775 quarto was recently discovered. Also produced was a well-known but very rare 47.5 cm folio. In this first-ever census of folio copies, two dated 1775 and 14 dated 1776 are verified; their locations, descriptions, and provenances are detailed herein.

With the melting of sea ice in the Arctic, the potential for higher shipping access has markedly changed. Shipping activity in the Arctic is increasing, including tourism and exploration activities, underlining the need for reliable communication and monitoring. This article examines the interactions between climate and sea ice change, the patterns of cruise ship tourism through Arctic Canada and the interest of operators to increase their activities in the cruise tourism market in the region. Since 1995, the melting of the summer pack ice in the offers the possibilities of increased shipping in this region while encouraging speculation regarding the potential of the northwest passage (NWP) and the Canadian Arctic to become a major cruise maritime highway. Integrating research from both human and transport geography, this article presents an analysis of vessel movements. It also analyses perceptions of charters and cruise ship operators and of their interests in the cruise tourism market. Discussion is focused on issues associated with the lack of available vessels and maritime infrastructure, regulations in the Canadian arctic waters, security and search and rescue. This research could prove useful for communities, and policy makers, as well as the cruise sector itself, with regard to response to change in these remote locations.

An opinion piece by Ben Macintyre entitled ‘Sorry, Scott fans: noble death is so last century’ appeared in The Times (London) on 20 September 2013. In this, Macintyre argued not only that Ernest Shackleton should be explicitly contrasted against his contemporary and rival Robert Falcon Scott, but that Shackleton should be found superior to Scott in virtually every way. It was a dispiriting piece, strongly suggesting that that the media's understanding of Scott has not greatly advanced since the savage, cod-psychological and often unsubstantiated attacks upon Scott's character and reputation in the 1970s–1990s. Sadly, all too often polar history is reduced to a zero-sum game where praise for Shackleton is directly proportional to insults directed at Scott.

For some time, Inuit have made it clear that they wish to play a more substantial role in research with implications for themselves and their territory. To understand how researchers communicate and relate to each other, cultural analysis is often employed. Although cultural differences are relevant to understanding problems in the conduct of research, limiting differences to these realities is overly deterministic and essentialist. Many differences arising in the research process are products of social constructions found in Canadian culture and, increasingly, in Inuit communities. The paper re-examines the complexities of cross-class relations, focusing on how different relations to money, as a proxy for other relations characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, consumption and commodification, impact Inuit interaction with western-educated researchers. Using the Nanisiniq Arviat History Project in the community of Arviat, Nunavut Territory Canada, as a case study, the paper is a qualitative analysis of miscommunication resulting from cross-class differences. The Nanisiniq project was a two-year participatory action research project bringing Inuit youth and elders together to rediscover, interpret and apply knowledge of their history and culture to contemporary social issues affecting them.

This is a follow-up to the article ‘Could Captain Scott have been saved? Revisiting Scott's last expedition’, published in this journal in January 2012. Additional research in the expedition's primary documents reveals that there was a clear opportunity for One Ton depot to have been re-stocked with dog food in January 1912, preparatory to the final relief journey to meet the polar party that February, and that the dog driver Cecil Meares failed to follow Scott's relevant orders. The consequences will be examined in this article. All distances are given in geographical miles.

The beauty of nature in Greenland and the selling point of Greenlandic tourism ‘Our ice is melting, yet it is still here’ have been attracting more tourists in recent years. Therefore, demand for tourist accommodation is expected to grow in the future. Staying overnight in small huts is a traditional way for nomadic Greenlanders and for tourists. However, the austere condition of the existing huts cannot meet requirements nowadays. Meanwhile, climate change is causing retreat of ice, so tourist attractions might change in the future. Therefore the contradiction of ‘improved lodging’, ‘environmental friendliness’ and ‘flexibility of location’ raise the problem for the future development of tourist accommodation. The aim of this work is to explore a desirable solution by developing stand-alone mobile tourist huts with light and heating based on renewable energy supply, and sustainable black waste water management. The cabin can be disassembled into pieces and transported to new areas by trucks, snow scooters, boats or dog-sledges with almost no disturbance to the environment of the original location. In addition, cultural sustainability is also taken into account.

In the summers of 1858 and 1859, the Scot Sir James Lamont of Knockdow embarked on two cruises to Svalbard (referred to by Lamont as Spitzbergen [sic]) to hunt, make geographical surveys, and collect geological and biological specimens. Lamont's return from these voyages coincided with the publication of the joint Charles Darwin-Alfred Russel Wallace paper, ‘On the tendency of species to form varieties; on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection’ by the Linnean Society in August 1858 and, a year later, the publication of Darwin's On the origin of species (Darwin 1958). Profoundly influenced by Darwin's ideas, Lamont initiated a correspondence with the naturalist, relating examples of what he considered to be natural selection, observed during his hunting expeditions. In his Svalbard travelogue, Seasons with the sea-horses (1861), Lamont expounded specifically upon walrus and polar bear evolution, ideas inspired by sporadic yet encouraging letters from the renowned naturalist.

When policies are adopted, it seems reasonable to assume that they address a certain issue and provide means to mitigate specific problems. This seems the case with the EU's regime on trade in seal products, but it becomes evident that the goal formulation in this case is blurry and unclear. Taking animal welfare, the so-called ‘Inuit exemption’, and internal market harmonisation into account, this article examines the goals of the seal products trade regime and how they are applied. It becomes clear that the attainment of goals bears consequences that are unprecedented due to conceptual and formulation difficulties. Given the indistinct goal formulation during the policy-shaping process and the goal formulation in the policy itself, it seems fair to say that the regime does not aim to improve animal welfare standards in the commercial seal hunt, but rather aims to shut down the commercial hunt completely. This, however, affects Inuit and non-Inuit seal hunters equally and is inconsistent with secondary goals that are formulated in the EU's documents relating to the Arctic. Therefore, the seal products trade regime has consequences that challenge the EU's ambitions in the north.