The Royal Naval Exhibition (RNE) of 1891 offers an important entry point for the study of naval mythmaking. Scrutinising one part of the RNE showcase, ‘The Franklin Gallery,’ highlights the imaginative potential of the polar regions as a resource for imperial visions. This paper provides a review of the RNE and, more closely, considers the ideology of polar exploration in the context of political debate and naval reforms. The utility of images of the Arctic presented at the RNE is discussed, in particular, its role in displaying the ‘heroic martyrdom’ of Sir John Franklin (1786–1847). The paper draws upon an extensive study of late nineteenth-century newspapers, illustrated weeklies, periodical reviews, popular adult and juvenile literature, art, poetry, pamphlets, exhibition catalogues and handbooks, and associated ephemera. It argues that the RNE played a central part in the construction and enshrining of narratives of naval and national achievement in the late-Victorian period and in reviving a British commitment to the exploration of the polar regions.

Stephen Burrough's voyage on board Serchethrift to northern Russia and Novaya Zemlya in 1556 is a standard reference point in general surveys of polar exploration. Unfortunately, for centuries its route in Russian waters has been garbled, due to a too literal reading of the term ‘Cola River,’ used by Burrough as the name of the first harbour he sought in Russia. Where was Burrough's Cola River? Determining its location is not at all as simple as it seems. More than a hundred years ago a Russian historian maintained most emphatically that this was not the Kola River (Reka Kola), which empties at Kola town, not far from present-day Murmansk, but Kuloy River (Reka Kuloy) in the Bay of Mezen, on the eastern coast of the White Sea. This article examines this question, which is significant because where Cola River is placed on the map clearly has repercussions for how the information contained in Burrough's travel account should be interpreted.

During the last decades, scholarly studies on Arctic identities have been on the increase, but less is known about how academic viewpoints diverge from aboriginal perspectives. The aim of this article is to compare both points of view, by looking at the way some academic specialists define Arctic identities, in contrast — or convergence — with how one Arctic people, the Inuit, perceive who they are. Twelve scholars conducting social research in the north and recognised for their competence were interviewed on their definition of identity and their assessment of the current situation of Arctic aboriginal populations. Their responses show that they view identity as a relational and constructed process, a process that continues without much disruption despite rapid social and cultural change. As modern Inuit are concerned, ethnography and personal testimonies tend to show that they perceive identity as an open-ended and individual — as opposed to collective — relationship rather than as a way of classifying people. Inuit perceptions agree on some points — the relational aspects for instance — but diverge on others — for example, the primarily individual nature of identity — from those of the interviewed scholars, and they should be taken into account in any assessment of the current human situation in the Arctic.

On Christmas Eve 1923, the whaling factory ship Sir James Clark Ross, commanded by Captain Carl Anton Larsen and accompanied by five catchers, reached the front of the Ross Ice Shelf; these were the first whaling vessels to operate in the Ross Sea. They had been dispatched by the Norwegian whaling company Hvalfangeraktienselskapet Rosshavet, which had obtained a licence from the British government. For most of the 1923–24 season, Sir James Clark Ross occupied an uneasy anchorage in the deep waters of Discovery Inlet, a narrow embayment in the front of the Ross Ice Shelf, while her catchers pursued whales widely in the Ross Sea. During that first season they killed and processed 221 whales (211 blue whales and 10 fin whales), which yielded 17,300 barrels of oil. During the next decade, with the exception of the 1931–32 season, Sir James Clark Ross and two other factory ships operated by Rosshavet, C.A. Larsen and Sir James Clark Ross II, operated in the Ross Sea. From the 1926–27 season onwards these ships were joined by up to three other factory ships and their catchers, operated by other companies. During the decade 1923–33 the Rosshavet ships killed and processed 9122 whales in the Ross Sea sector, mainly in the open waters of the Ross Sea south of the pack-ice belt. Total harvest for all factory ships from the Ross Sea sector for the period was 18,238 whales (mainly blue whales) producing 1,490,948 barrels of oil. From 1924 onwards the Rosshavet catchers wintered in Paterson Inlet on Stewart Island, New Zealand, and from 1925 onwards a well-equipped shipyard, Kaipipi Shipyard, operated on Price Peninsula in Paterson Inlet to service the Rosshavet ships.

The theorizing of a southern continent for more than two millennia before the discovery of Antarctica and its long representation in maps are phenomena unparalleled in the history of geography and are well known. However, the epistemological implications of the mapping of this non-existent place have received little consideration. After preliminary remarks about present-day remote imaging of Antarctica and limits to the completeness of all mapping and knowledge, the article discusses the representation of the southern Terra Incognita in examples of mediaeval and Renaissance maps. It is argued that filling in blank spaces both reflected a yearning for complete knowledge and provided an opportunity for non-geographical discourse that is missing in maps today.

To prevent boredom and restlessness during early Arctic and Antarctic over-wintering expeditions, leaders often encouraged ‘cultural’ activities, one of the most successful of which was the production of newspapers. Expedition members contributed poetry, short fiction, and literary criticism as well as scientific articles and accounts of their daily activities. These newspapers provide an important insight into the experiences and attitudes of the men who took part in the expeditions. In some cases, the newspaper would be published on the expedition's return, as a means of publicity, fund-raising, and memorialisation. The most famous example is the South Polar Times, the newspaper produced by Robert Falcon Scott's two expeditions. Other polar newspapers remain unpublished and unexamined. This article focuses on the Adelie Blizzard, the newspaper of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911–14, led by Douglas Mawson. Despite Mawson's efforts, the Adelie Blizzard was never published, and is rarely discussed in any detail in accounts of the expedition. The aim of this article is to address this neglect, by examining the genesis, production and attempted publication of the Adelie Blizzard.

Northeast Greenland supports a large indigenous population of musk-oxen (Ovibosmoschatus). Radiocarbon dating of remains of this mammal collected on the terrain surface and from archaeological sites has yielded mid- and Late Holocene ages. The species probably arrived shortly before this part of Greenland became inhabited by the first hunter cultures. Only Late Holocene dates are available from the southern part of northeast Greenland, but the authors suggest that musk-ox spread south to this region at an early date, because there are no physical barriers. The lack of older dates may reflect the lack of palaeo-Eskimo sites with bones.

Belgica, which Adrien de Gerlache used on the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic, was originally a bottlenose whaler named Patria, built in Norway in 1884. She was designed and constructed by Johan Chr. Jakobsen, renowned for his design of polar ships. Patria was sold to Adrien de Gerlache and renamed Belgica in 1896. In 1896–97 she was refitted and equipped in Sandefjord, Norway, for an Antarctic expedition. Nansen and Amundsen met for the first time on Belgica's deck. Late in 1899 Belgica returned to Antwerp after more than two years on an Antarctic expedition. From 1901 to 1904 Belgica returned to bottlenose whaling and, in addition, made a voyage to northeast Greenland to establish depots and build houses for the Baldwin-Ziegler Polar Expedition. In 1905 the Duc d'Orléans chartered her to survey the coast of northeast Greenland, and on her return he bought her. In 1907 and 1909 she sailed on Arctic expeditions led by the Duc d'Orléans and captained by de Gerlache. In 1916 she was sold to Det Norske Kulsyndikat and renamed Isfjord. She became a freighter carrying coal from Longyearbyen to ports in northern Norway. In 1918 she was sold and her new owner converted her into a floating cod-liver oil refinery and fish-processing plant. In 1940 she was impounded by British forces and used as a floating ammunition depot. On 19 May 1940 she was sunk during a German air raid. Her wreck was re-discovered in 1990.

This paper examines the development of Malaysia's position on the ‘Question of Antarctica’ and its relationship to the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). Malaysia's challenges to, and criticisms of, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs) are mapped from 1982 to 2004, indicating a shift from challenging the ATS to engagement with the ATCPs. The paper highlights how Malaysia's position on the ‘Question of Antarctica’ reflected a mix between domestic political concerns and its international and regional interests. The mix between domestic and international interests is reflected in the ongoing involvement of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, including his retirement in 2003, in shaping Malaysia's position, from initiating the challenge to the ATS in 1982 to recommending that Malaysia join the ATS in 2004. Mahathir's domestic agenda, most notably through Malaysia's ‘Vision 2020’ development program is identified as providing an impetus for change, increasing Malaysian scientific interest in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

Using research methods well-known to family history investigators, it is possible to discover a remarkable amount of biographical information not merely on the officers, but also about the ratings who sailed — and died — with Sir John Franklin and Captain Francis Crozier on the 1845 Northwest Passage expedition. The findings from this research, mostly carried out at local and national archives in and around London, greatly enhances the understanding of that disaster, filling in gaps and answering questions raised by recent archaeological and forensic discoveries. This is the hitherto ignored social background to the last voyage of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

The Norse colonisation or landnám of the North Atlantic islands of the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland from the ninth century AD onwards provides opportunities to examine human environmental impacts on ‘pristine’ landscapes on an environmental gradient from warmer, more maritime conditions in the east to colder, more continental conditions in the west. This paper considers key environmental contrasts across the Atlantic and initial settlement impacts on the biota and landscape. Before landnám, the modes of origin of the biota (which resulted in boreo-temperate affinities), a lack of endemic species, limited diversity, and no grazing mammals on the Faroes or Iceland, were crucial in determining environmental sensitivity to human impact and, in particular, the impact of introduced domestic animals. Gathering new data and understanding their geographical patterns and changes through time are seen as crucial when tackling fundamental questions about human interactions with the environment, which are relevant to both understanding the past and planning for the future.

This paper discusses map projections suitable for representing the whole of the Earth's surface while drawing particular attention to the polar regions, and proposes a new projection. The projection is a latitudinally distorted variant of the transverse Mollweide projection, relative to which it roughly doubles the linear scale and trebles the areal coverage of the polar regions. It was adopted by the Scott Polar Research Institute in 2005.

In Iceland, studies that integrate local perceptions about the landscape with scientific evidence of change have been few. This article presents a case study from southeast Iceland that has two main objectives. Firstly, ethnographic data is used to explore the human dimension of the Little Ice Age through perceptions of landscape and climatic change and to describe the impacts that these changes had on life and livelihood. Secondly, the paper critically assesses the coherence of the scientific record regarding the Little Ice Age glacial maximum with evidence gained from the ethnographic survey and the local historical record. Although climatic deterioration from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries ultimately affected farming viability, it was the interplay of climate with concomitant cultural and socio-economic factors that ensured effective strategies were emplaced to preserve life and livelihood in southeast Iceland. Furthermore, despite different trajectories of perception emanating from either the scientific or the local points of view, data from all sources are strongly coherent and point to a Little Ice Age maximum during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. This study also illustrates that sensitive landscapes can ‘store memories’ through the cumulative accumulation of disturbances during periods of climatic variability, eventually reaching a critical threshold and inducing landscape instability, such as occurred during the nineteenth century.

Northwest Greenland formerly supported a population of musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus). Radiocarbon dating of musk-ox remains collected on the terrain surface and from archaeological sites has yielded Late Holocene ages, indicating that the species was a late immigrant to this part of Greenland. Musk-ox arrived at a time when Greenland was uninhabited, and the species had at least several hundred years to expand and spread south, before the Late Dorset people arrived and began to hunt. The main reason that the species did not disperse south to West Greenland was probably because of the barrier presented by Melville Bugt, which was heavily glaciated in the Late Holocene. However, if there had been a longer period of time before hunting of the musk-ox occurred, there would have been an enhanced likelihood that chance dispersal south could have taken place.

Joseph Shackleton, an older relative of Sir Ernest Shackleton, visited Iceland with two friends in 1861. They travelled in Arcturus, a Danish vessel that ran a scheduled service in summer. They visited the two main local ‘attractions,’ Thingvellir and the geysers. Shackleton kept a detailed manuscript account of the trip, which is presented in its entirety. The manuscript shows that tourism was already developed in Iceland, with an infrastructure that was in place and efficient. His account also provides interesting information concerning contemporary Iceland.

Studies of Antarctic fauna have led to tentative identification of a range of potential pathogens for both animals and humans. The rapid increase in visitors on tourist ships to the continent, now exceeding 10,000 per year, raises the concern that humans might transmit pathogens into and between wildlife colonies. The authors investigated the feasibility and efficacy of chemical disinfection of the microbial contamination on visitors' boots. During three voyages to penguin colonies in the Ross Sea, swabs were collected from the boots of visitors prior to landing, immediately on return to the ship, after a water wash, and after a chemical disinfectant wash using Virkon S. For the first two visits, abundant growth of bacteria was identified on boots at all three stages prior to disinfection. Following disinfection, the growth of bacteria was virtually eliminated. On the third visit, previously disinfected boots grew virtually no bacteria. After this landing the bacterial growth was substantially reduced by disinfection. These results indicate that consideration should be given to including disinfection in cleaning the boots of visitors to wildlife sites in the Antarctic to reduce the risk of translocation of microbial pathogens.

The ship that the oceanographer Dr William Speirs Bruce used on the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–04, was originally a sealer named Hekla, built in Norway in 1872. In 1889 the Norwegian skipper Ragnvald Knudsen explored the northeast coast of Greenland between latitudes 74° and 75°, and in 1891–92 the ship was used by the Danish naval officer, Lieutenant C. Ryder, to explore the inner recesses of Scoresby Sund, finally visiting Angmagssalik. In 1902, re-named Scotia and captained by Tam Robertson from Peterhead, she sailed to the Weddell Sea under the leadership of Bruce. The southern winter of 1903 was spent at Laurie Island in the South Orkney Islands, and in March–April 1904 the party discovered 150 miles of previously unknown coastline of the Antarctic continent, reaching a farthest south of 74°01′S, 22°00′W. An extensive programme of marine survey and biological research was carried out. Back in the UK, Bruce sold the ship, and she returned to sealing, based in Dundee until appointed to be the first international North Atlantic Ice Patrol ship after the tragedy of Titanic. The Great War caused her to become a freighter in the English Channel area until she caught fire and was burnt out on a sandbank in the Bristol Channel on 18 January 1916.

Recent biographers of Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) have begun the job of attempting to differentiate the man from the ‘myth.’ A necessary stage in the assessment of any historical figure is the identification of the legendary aspects that make up that figure's reputation. The tale of the young Nelson engaging a huge polar bear on an ice floe off Spitsbergen in 1773 has been met with varying degrees of delight and dismissal through the years, and is one of the events an examination of which could improve an understanding of Nelson and his reputation. This paper draws upon a study of primary and secondary materials: original manuscripts and correspondence, early nineteenth-century popular biographies, souvenirs and pamphlets, periodical reviews, and a wide selection of adult and juvenile literature. This paper examines the developments of Nelsonian biography and hagiography. In a broader sense, an extended examination of the literary and visual manifestations of Nelson's encounter with the bear becomes a useful historiographical exercise into the genesis of a myth.

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Boris Osipovich Dolgikh, the great Russian ethnographer of Siberia, this article gives an account of his first field expedition to the Kets, Evenkis, Nganasans, and Dolgans of central Siberia. The author, himself a former student of Dolgikh, argues that Dolgikh's work as an enumerator for the 1926/27 census forged his identity as an ethnographer. He also implies that the expedition for the 1926/27 census was a cradle for the careers of many other scientists. The article is framed by a history of Soviet science by the editor. It also serves as an introduction to the unique polar census expedition, which the editor argues is better understood as ‘an inscription’ of Siberian aboriginal peoples than as a statistical census in the traditional sense.

Henry James Snow hunted marine mammals in the sub-Arctic Kuril Islands and adjacent areas of the North Pacific between the years 1873 and 1896. His success resulted from careful study of the animals hunted, in particular the sea otter. He had continual difficulties with the governments of Japan and Russia, which had sovereignty over the land and territorial waters of the region, some of the encounters involving violence. At the same time, Snow was a careful observer of the wildlife and surveyor of the natural features, especially of the Kuril Islands. His works represented the most accessible source of information about the islands as late as the start of the Pacific War in 1941.