In mid-1968, Atlantic Richfield Company announced an oil strike in northern Alaska that triggered off an exploration and development boom such as Alaska never had witnessed, either as a territory or as a state. The excitement still continues. Although the potential implications are still by no means clear, the effect on Alaska is bound to be great and lasting. In terms of persons involved, amount of capital expended, amount of work done, and importance of resources discovered, the current effort far exceeds any of the gold rushes of the early years of the century. This article attempts to weigh some of the implications of Alaska's current strike, to place them in some kind of perspective, and to predict some of the trends that may develop as Alaska struggles to become a major oil state.

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has been receiving regular satellite photo coverage of the Antarctic Peninsula area since 1967. Supplied by courtesy of the United States Environmental Science Services Administration from their National Environmental Satellite Center, the photographs have been used principally to observe the distribution of pack ice to facilitate the passage of the Survey's ships to Antarctic stations. While they are proving of immense importance in sea ice studies, they have also been used to plot the changing position of ice fronts. In the long term the series will provide an unparalleled source of data for climatology, since cloud patterns continually reveal weather systems that cannot be identified from observations coming only from the sparse network of meteorological stations in Antarctica.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, British Arctic whaling enjoyed a prolonged period of expansion and prosperity. The industry began to grow rapidly after about 1812, and between 1814 and 1817 engaged the largest fleet in its history, an average of nearly 150 ships each year. After 1816, the whalemen embarked on an adventurous programme of geographical expansion, which brought extensive new whaling-grounds within their reach. This enterprise proved highly successful at first, but later brought the industry to the threshold of financial ruin.

The Government of Canada began supplying housing for some of its Eskimo people in the Northwest Territories in 1956. At this date the majority of Eskimos still followed their traditional nomadic way of life and lived in igloos or snow houses during winter, and in skin or canvas tents during summer. Since 1956, the tendency of Eskimo families to settle in the vicinity of trading posts, church missions, and newly established federal schools has increased, and the problem of providing permanent accommodation for them has been aggravated. At first the new townsmen improvised shelters from a combination of tents, packing cases, and scraps of metal, tar paper and lumber. When these inadequate dwellings were used as permanent residences, grave social and public health problems resulted from overcrowding.