Frederick Gustavus Schwatka was one of America's most important Arctic explorers. While honoured in his time, he is only a footnote in the search for Sir John Franklin. He commanded, in 1878–1880, an expedition of the American Geographical Society of New York which had the aim of retrieving records from King William Island. Although none were found, he did discover a number of expedition relics and remains. His extensive sledge journey during this expedition was one of the longest recorded by a European-North American expedition, over 5232 km (3,251 statute miles). Moreover it was conducted under some of the coldest conditions ever endured in polar exploration. Schwatka's party included three Europeans, William H. Gilder, a journalist from The New York Herald, Henry Klutschak, a naturalist, and Frank E. Melms, an experienced seaman, and ‘Eskimo Joe’ Ebierbing, an Inuit who had served on previous expeditions in search of Franklin. ‘Schwatka's search’, as it was known, concluded efforts to discover the fate of the Franklin expedition in the nineteenth century. It laid the groundwork for the important expeditions in the twentieth century that revealed new information concerning the fate of Franklin's men. Schwatka's expedition was without death or deprivation. Much of his success was based on a clearly defined plan and on adopting Inuit practices including living off the land, lessons he learned from his experiences with American Indians as part of his military assignments. Born in Illinois, he was educated at West Point, the United States Military Academy, acquitted himself well in the Indian Wars and then went on to qualify for the bar and secured a medical degree during his military service. He died an early and unfortunate death at the age of 43. The research reported in this article provides an understanding of the factors that shaped Schwatka and the skills that he used in this expedition.

This article is a sequel to a word-model description of the ecosystem of sub-Antarctic Marion Island, published in this journal 30 years ago (Smith 1977). It expands on the qualitative considerations of patterns of energy flow and nutrient cycling presented in that paper, by providing quantitative information from subsequent research at the island. Primary production of the island's lowland plant communities is high on an annual basis, because the vegetation has a long growing season due to the lack of severely cold winters or drought. Daily productivity is actually low due to low radiation levels and a cool growing season. The vegetation is particularly efficient regarding its use of nutrients for its growth, but still requires substantial amounts of nutrients to support the high annual production. Seabirds and seals import large quantities of nutrients from the ocean when they breed and moult on the island. They markedly enhance soil and plant nutrient status in the areas in which they occur, and also in adjacent areas. However, by far the greater part of the island's inland vegetation is not directly influenced by birds or seals and most of the nutrients required for plant growth are provided by decomposition of plant litter and peat. Soil invertebrates are crucial facilitators of decomposition processes, which are otherwise restricted by low soil temperatures and high soil moisture contents. Introduced house mice have invaded almost all parts of the island and predate heavily on the invertebrates, thus affecting nutrient mineralisation. This threatens not only the functioning (lowered nutrient availability leading to slower plant growth and the production of a lower quality, more decomposition-recalcitrant plant litter), but also the structure (an altered balance between production and decomposition leads to a change in the relation between peat formation and degradation, which is an important determinant of vegetation succession) of the island's ecosystem. It is suggested that mice may also affect the island's ecology by predating on seabird chicks.

During the spring of 2006, Radarsat-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery was acquired on a continual basis for the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area (TLSA), in the northeast portion of the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska (NPR-A) in order to monitor lake ice melting processes. During data processing, it was discovered that the Radarsat-1 imagery detected features associated with winter seismic survey activity. Focused analysis of the image time series revealed various aspects of the exploration process such as the grid profile associated with the seismic line surveys as well as trails and campsites associated with the mobile survey crews. Due to the high temporal resolution of the dataset it was possible to track the progress of activities over a one month period. Spaceborne SAR imagery can provide information on the location of winter seismic activity and could be used as a monitoring tool for land and resource managers as increased petroleum-based activity occurs in the TLSA and NPR-A.

Two complementary studies were conducted to investigate both the immediate and longer-term influence of Antarctic cruise tourism experiences on participants’ knowledge of Antarctica, attitudes toward management issues facing the Antarctic region, and environmental behaviours and future intentions. In addition, the study investigated tourists’ attitudes toward visitor guidelines. The results suggest that Antarctica nature-based tourism operators have the potential to provide experiences that educate the public to the importance of Antarctica.

Although there are a number of distinct audiences (for example students, hunter and trapper organisations, and co-management agencies) for traditional environmental knowledge, little work has been done in analysing how indigenous knowledge can be best communicated to these different groups. Using examples mainly from northern Canada and Alaska, we explore the challenge of collecting and communicating different kinds of traditional environmental knowledge; the media types or communication modes that can be used; and the appropriateness of these kinds of media for communicating with different audiences. A range of communication options is available, including direct interaction with knowledge holders, use of print media, maps, DVD/video, audio, CD ROM, and websites. These options permit a mix-and-match to find the best fit between kinds of knowledge, the intended audience, and the media type used. This paper does not propose to replace traditional methods of communication with technology. Rather, we examine how technology can serve community and other needs. No single option emerges as a clear best choice for communicating indigenous knowledge. Nevertheless, various media types offer avenues through which northern people can meet their educational, cultural, and political needs, and build cross-cultural understanding.

In 1872, the British yachtsman and explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith led his second expedition to the Arctic. Seeking to further the impressive oceanographic and geographic research of his first expedition in the summer of the previous year, Leigh Smith first explored Jan Mayen and then sailed to Svalbard. There, after investigating Moffen, adverse ice conditions precluded effective continuation of the voyage and almost wrecked his research vessel, Sampson. During a brief meeting with Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld's Swedish polar expedition, a bond was formed between the two explorers with fortuitous benefits for the Swedish expedition the following year as it struggled to escape from the north coast of Svalbard. Leigh Smith was forced to make for England in September 1872, without sailing nearly as far to the north or east as during his first expedition. His 1872 experiences led him to reconsider his method for Arctic exploration, and consequently, for his third expedition in 1873, he decided to include a chartered steamer as his primary research vessel with Sampson relegated to the role of support vessel.

By 1890, sealing from southern Norwegian ports had been in decline for some years. The owners of the fleet of strongly built barque rigged ice-sheeted sealers were facing a serious problem. This was simply that their ships did not make money. This paper describes the options that the owners had at a time when the fleets of the world were about to change from sail to steam. There were alternative possibilities for employment of such strongly built ice going wooden ships. These included involvement in Arctic transport, American whaling, and Newfoundland sealing, and on Arctic tourist and polar expeditions. The paper analyses these possibilities and compares the development of the Norwegian fleet with the situation in the Scottish sealing fleet that had faced the same problem some 30 years earlier.

The fuel used for motor-sledging during Scott's 1910–1913 expedition has been reanalysed to assess its suitability for that task in Antarctica. A research octane number of 65 and volatility were low compared with modern fuels but probably suitable when considering the design of the flathead engine. The findings are consistent with view that engine design was the primary cause of the mechanical failings.

This one-act play was recently presented at an Antarctic workshop held at Universidad Marítima de Chile, Viña del Mar, Chile. Apart from being entertaining, it provided an example of how theatre can be used to generate or reinforce interest in polar studies. The script has been translated from Spanish by the playwright.

The setting is contemporary Chile. Fran is at home, sitting at a desk revising a manuscript for publication. James sits behind her on a stool reading. He often rises when speaking, as indicated, while she remains seated until the end. She does not acknowledge anyone else's presence until midway through the play when Ricky and Carlos speak of Admiral Richard Byrd's trip to Chile in 1940.

Further progress is reported concerning the preservation of Belgica, currently a wreck in Norwegian waters. The construction of a full sized replica of the ship has been commenced.