In this article the author isolates an anecdote from Roland Huntford's account of the Scott and Amundsen expeditions’ meeting on 4 February 1911 at Framheim, the Norwegian base in the Bay of Whales. In this anecdote, Lieutenant Victor Campbell allegedly told Roald Amundsen that a British motor sledge was ‘already on terra firma’, which consequently led Amundsen to worry that a British motor-sledge had already travelled across the Great Ice Barrier to reach the Beardmore Glacier. The author demonstrates the primary evidence that indicates that this anecdote is unrealistic: Amundsen's journal further indicates that he did not consider Scott's vehicles a threat. This ‘terra firma’ myth has skewed our modern understanding of events, ascribing to Amundsen an erroneous motivation (a supposed fear of the British motor sledges) to explain and excuse his too-early start for the south pole in September 1911, which was an error that nearly led to a Norwegian death (that of Lieutenant Kristian Prestrud). In reality, fear of Scott's motor sledges was not the reason for Amundsen's ‘false start’. This article concludes with a discussion on the hazards of attributing ‘hidden motivations’ to historical figures without citation of primary evidence, and recommends that Huntford include clearly-cited references and endnotes for the next edition of his joint biography of Scott and Amundsen, in keeping with modern standards of scholarship.

The great wave of immigrants to the United States during the late 1800s brought many talented individuals who enriched American culture and society. Notable among them stands the Italian-born artist, Albert L. Operti (1852–1927), a versatile painter, illustrator and sculptor. For much of his professional career, Operti served as a scenic artist for the Metropolitan Opera House and later as an exhibit artist for the American Museum of Natural History. However, he maintained an avid personal interest in polar explorers and the history of polar exploration, ultimately turning his artistic skills to the subject. Operti served as official artist for Robert E. Peary during his Arctic expeditions of 1896 and 1897, producing paintings, drawings and even plaster casts of the Inuit from the expedition. Over the course of his lifetime he painted a number of ‘great’ pictures depicting, in a factually accurate manner, important incidents in Arctic history along with numerous smaller paintings, sketches, illustrations and studies. The quality of his work never rivaled his more talented contemporaries in the field of ‘great’ paintings, such as the prominent artists William Bradford and Frederic Church. Nonetheless, Operti achieved some recognition in his time as a painter of historical Arctic scenes, but the full extent of his contributions are little known and have been largely unexamined. Unlike the explorers themselves whose legacy rests upon geographic or scientific accomplishments and written narratives, Operti's legacy stands upon the body of distinctive artwork that served to convey, in realistic and graphic terms, the hardships and accomplishments of those explorers. This article recounts the life of Operti and his role as an historian in disseminating knowledge of the polar regions and its explorers to the public.

Maritime traffic is increasing in Arctic seas in the context of climate change. The rapid melting of sea ice led to the widespread belief that traffic was set to expand rapidly, challenging Canadian and Russian-claimed sovereignties over their respective Arctic passage, and underlining the risk posed by such a traffic in a risky but fragile environment. If projections on potential traffic for the medium term are probably exaggerated, the increasing traffic nevertheless challenges the adequacy of the regulatory framework.

Lack of support and interest among the public is one of the major challenges in strengthening and sustaining the future national agendas on Antarctica. The main goal of this study is to identify the perception of Malaysia's public with regard to Antarctic values and Malaysian involvement in the region. A survey on Malaysia's young citizen perception on Antarctic has been conducted for mapping out the future landscape of Malaysian involvement in the Antarctic region. Surveys have been conducted on respondents from secondary schools and universities in Malaysia. A questionnaire was designed to seek respondents’ knowledge and awareness on the values of Antarctica and their opinions on Malaysia's involvement. The results of the study showed that respondents had a high level of awareness of Antarctic environmental issues. However, general knowledge about the Antarctic region was still intermediate. On the other hand, the results of this study showed that the young citizens had positive and strong support for strengthening Malaysia's Antarctic involvement. This study hopes to contribute as baseline data on the matter. Such background information will reflect on the national strategy in strengthening Malaysia's current policy and future involvement in Antarctica.

Reindeer racing is a sport that is unique to the Scandinavian and Russian Arctic countries. The paper is based on fieldwork carried out in Finnish Lapland in which the process of training race reindeer and the reindeer race competition is examined. It gives some insight into the cultural practices that are used by Finnish reindeer herders in Lapland to train reindeer to race and the relationship that is nurtured between the race reindeer and the trainer. This paper focuses primarily on two key ethnographic interviews from the field and uses additional fieldwork data to support the points of discussion. It gives insight into the concept of ownership and what is considered to be a ‘good’ race reindeer. The reindeer trainer's understanding of the semi-domesticated reindeer challenges the concept of what it means to be ‘wild.’ This is taken into consideration in an examination of the process of the further domestication and training of the reindeer to race. The research explored the nature of the racing environment, the uniqueness of the reindeer racing event and aspects that makes it traditional and appealing for both international tourists and spectators from the north.

This paper investigates historical quarry abandonment in Spitsbergen, Svalbard. A short-lived British marble quarry in Kongsfjorden lay deserted after 1920. We ask why this attempt at the large-scale development of Arctic marble was unproductive; whether there are structural features that affected the known historical trenches and boreholes; and whether the reason for abandonment was primarily geological. During interdisciplinary fieldwork rooted in industrial archaeology and structural geology, we employed medium-resolution ground penetration radar (GPR) to discern subsurface disturbances near the workings. Seven survey grids gave rise to both areas of fracturing and folding as well as areas of sound marble. Using complementary historical documents, we are able to dispel the myths that permafrost or shattered surface rock affected workability and profitability. Although structural disturbances were present, bedrock geology was, in fact, less important than the proportion of waste rock to marketable product. Whether a product was marketable depended on a multitude of other factors. This paper moves away from oversimplified reasoning in mining history and promotes the bridging of geological and historical scales in order to understand the full suite of local and global driving forces in the historical process.

An important component of northern research in Canada has been a strong emphasis on local participation. However, the policy and permit landscape for community participation therein is heterogeneous and presents specific challenges in promoting effective partnerships between researchers and local participants. We conducted a survey of northern research stakeholders across Canada in order better to understand the benefits and challenges associated with research partnerships with a view to informing northern research policy and practice. We found that local engagement at the proposal and research design phases, the hiring of community researchers and engagement of local persons at the results dissemination phase were important factors affecting success. Respondents also indicated a lack of social capital (trust and reciprocity) between researchers and communities as placing a negative impact on science partnerships. Overall, researchers were perceived to benefit more from research partnerships than their community counterparts. Partnerships in northern research will possibly require further decentralisation of power to achieve the policy objectives of local community participation. This could be achieved, in part, by allowing non-academic principal investigators to receive funding, or by involving communities in research priority-setting, proposal review and funding allocation processes.

This paper presents a brief history of Greenland which sets the scene for unprecedented recent developments, both materially and politically. After the war, in 1953, the political status of Greenland was changed from colony to an integral part of Denmark. Greenland gained home rule [Hjemmestyre] in 1979 and greater devolution to self rule [Selvstyre] in 2009. The population is becoming centralised, increasingly resembling consumer societies worldwide. In recent years the economy has been mainly based upon fish and mining, although at present there is no active mine and the economy is declining, making the country increasingly dependent on subsidies from Denmark. The former president recently predicted that Greenland would leave Denmark within her life-time, a view based upon her vision of the development of a rich mining industry. Additionally she established a reconciliation committee to examine supposed ill-treatment by Denmark. The present situation and the unrealistic expectations of huge production of different minerals are discussed based upon accepted predictions of mineral resources, world market prices, logistic problems (lack of infrastructure and tiny population) and environmental concerns. During the past year, a more realistic and less confrontational debate on the relations between Denmark and Greenland has been evident.

It had long been thought that Mys Flora [Cape Flora], with all its historical associations, was located on Ostrov Nortbruk [Northbrook Island] named by Frederick Jackson after the Earl of Northbrook, President of the Royal Geographical Society, 1890–1893. Fairly recently, however it has been established that it lies on a much smaller island off the western end of Ostrov Northbruka, and separated from it by a narrow strait (Fig. 1).