bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sledge dogs of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, 1947–50
Authors: Adie Raymond J.
Published: October 2009

The following notes are intended not as a rigid set of rules but as a guide for future antarctic travellers: common sense must be used in their application. Systematic breeding, training and driving of dogs are essential in an organization as large as the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, but modifications must naturally be made to suit particular requirements.
The Elephant Seal industry at South Georgia
Authors: Laws R. M.
Published: October 2009

South Georgia, one of the Dependencies of the Falkland Islands, lies in the South Atlantic Ocean between lats. 53° 50′ and 55° S. and longs. 35° 50′ and 38°15' W. The island is about 120 miles long from north-west to south-east and its greatest breadth is under thirty miles: it is heavily glacierized with an indented coastline and a backbone of high mountains rising to over 9000 ft.
French Antarctic Expedition, 1949–52
Authors: Liotard A.-F. , Barré M.
Published: October 2009

On 27 February 1947 P.-É. Victor, head of Expéditions Polaires Francaises obtained the agreement of the French Government for the organization of two scientific expeditions, one to Greenland and one to Terre Adélie. Preparations for the French Antarctic Expedition began at once. One of the greatest difficulties which had to be solved was the fact that France had had no polar vessel since the loss of the Pourquoi Pas? in 1936. Eventually, however, Expéditions Polaires FranÇaises bought at San Francisco the Atiette (ex-Lancewood), a wooden vessel built in 1943 as U.S. Navy net-layer AN-48. This vessel, a sister ship of the John Biscoe and Port of Beaumont, Texas, was brought to France and adapted for polar navigation, the hull being strengthened at the stem and stern. The vessel was then renamed the Commandant Charcot, and the French Navy agreed to commission her and carry the expedition to and from Terre Adélie. Engine trouble delayed the departure originally planned for September 1949, and the vessel did not leave Brest until 26 November that year.
Mechanical Transport of the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1949–52
Authors: Swithinbank Charles
Published: October 2009

The Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition was equipped with three amphibious Weasels (Light Cargo Carrier M29C, manufactured by the Studebaker Corporation) supplied by the British Army. Their performance was excellent, and few repairs were necessary. They had a bad start, however., by being immersed in sea water during the outward voyage. For at least a month the hulls and engine compartments were flooded, the water-level being above the oil filler gauge. The resulting corrosion was extensive and serious. The electrical system of each machine was put out of order, and most linkages and levers were rusted together. When this damage had been rectified, most subsequent repairs and replacements became necessary only as a result of fair wear and tear.
Geological investigations in the Falkland Islands Dependencies since 1940
Authors: Adie Raymond J.
Published: October 2009

Scientific interest in the Falkland Islands Dependencies was revived after a lapse of some years when Operation “Tabarin” was formed in 1943, under the auspices of the Royal Navy. In spite of severe wartime limitations on equipment, a great deal of fundamental survey and geological work was accomplished during these early years. The Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (F.I.D.S.), which was established in 1946, continued the scientific work of Operation “Tabarin”, and since that date it has gradually expanded its scientific activities in the Dependencies. The Survey is now solely responsible for all official British geological investigations undertaken in the Dependencies.
Metal buildings at the French antarctic base on Ile des Pétrels
Authors: Imbert Bertrand
Published: October 2009

In 1955 a new station was opened at Ile des Pétrels, off the coast of Terre Adélie, as part of the French contribution to the International Geophysical Year. The author and M. Vallette, who had planned the station at Port-Martin, investigated the properties of a number of prefabricated buildings in order to choose the most suitable type for the new station. The record of fires in polar buildings made it obvious that the materials used should, if possible, be non-inflammable in addition to being light, compact and easy to handle. Finally a metal type was selected, made by the firm of Fillod, Florange, Moselle. These buildings have many advantages. They are non-inflammable, and therefore fire breaking out inside them would be comparatively easy to control; in the fire at Port-Martin (in 1952) a hole had been burnt through the wooden roof of the hut and the forced draught so created, with the aid of a strong wind, made control of the fire impossible. These metal buildings are 30 per cent lighter, and far less cumbersome, than wooden prefabricated buildings of the same size. Fillod buildings had been in use on Ile Amsterdam since 1950 and Iles de Kerguelen since 1951 where they had successfully stood up to winds of 200 km./hour. The U.S. Navy had tested these buildings and proved that they could withstand weights of snow equivalent to 140 kg./sq.m. and a wind force of 160 km./hour. The average wind force at Ile des Pétrels was 34·2 km./hour.
The “prairie ice jigger”
Authors: Sprules W. M.
Published: October 2009

The term “prairie ice jigger” is a local name given by fishermen of western Canada to a simple but ingenious apparatus used to facilitate setting gill nets beneath an ice surface. A jigger consists of a board and two levers so arranged that a backward pull on a line attached to one lever is translated into a forward thrust which propels the board along beneath the ice. Thus only two holes need be chopped through the ice to set a standard net, and several nets can be set in different directions from any one hole. This represents a considerable saving in time and effort when compared with other methods such as pushing a pole with an attached line from hole to hole until sufficient line has been let out to accommodate a net. The jigger is almost a necessity to fishermen operating in northern areas of Canada, where winter fishing is carried on for several months beneath an ice cover which varies from several inches in thickness to as much as six feet.
Geological investigations in the Falkland Islands Dependencies before 1940
Authors: Adie Raymond J.
Published: October 2009

From the time of its discovery until the latter years of the nineteenth century Antarctica remained aterra incognitato the geologist, but in the early years of this century the Falkland Islands Dependencies attracted some academic interest, particularly from geologists. Undoubtedly this was mainly due to the fact that the Dependencies occupy one of the more accessible parts of the Antarctic continent and also bear a close geological relationship to South America.
Progress report on the Antarctic ice sheet
Authors: Robin G. de Q.
Published: October 2009

The art, science and sport of conducting scientific traverses across the Antarctic continent has advanced so rapidly during the past decade that we are making considerable progress towards understanding the main characteristics of that continent and its ice mantle. Many reports of recent work are provisional, so some changes of detail in the following account may eventually prove necessary. Nevertheless, some major features are now well established, such as the great depth of the subglacial floor to the east of the Ross Sea, and the observations that show considerable sections of the rock of East Antarctica† to be above sea level. On the other hand, the past glaciological history of the continent and the state of the present mass balance of the ice sheet still need much more investigation before we can be satisfied with the answers. The continued activity in Antarctica should result in our knowledge of the continent advancing much further during the coming decade.
Antarctic exploration yesterday and today
Authors: Priestley Raymond
Published: October 2009

On 1 January 19081 left New Zealand for Antarctica with Ernest Shackleton, in a 220-ton barquentine with auxiliary engines of 40 horse-power. Two years later, on a 750 ton barque—the Terra Nova—I left again with Scott on his famous but ill-fated journey during which the South Pole was actually reached. Half a century later I journeyed south again—in just as good company but under vastly different conditions—first in the Royal Yacht Britannia with H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh and then as the guest of the Americans on their great expedition, Operation “Deep Freeze IV”. I am the last survivor of Scott's Northern Party and first I want to give some idea of adventures at that time, for they were both varied and typical of those days, if somewhat extreme, and point well the contrast between then and now.
Mining in the Soviet Arctic
Authors: Armstrong Terence
Published: October 2009

The major economic benefit which the U.S.S.R. derives from its Arctic territory comes from the exploitation of mineral resources. Detailed information about production has long been withheld, at least in the case of important minerals, but enough general information is available to permit a summary in broad terms of current activity in this field. Murmanskaya Oblast' is not included in the summary, because its relatively mild climate, near absence of permafrost, and favourable location render it atypical of the Soviet Arctic as a whole.
Ice studies of the Canadian Geographical Branch
Authors: Cook Frank A.
Published: October 2009

The Geographical Branch of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys was created in 1947, and in the 12 years of its existence has conducted original research in many branches of Geography;1.2among these research programmes has been an extensive project for the study of land and sea ice.
Journal of a whaling voyage from Dundee to Davis Strait, 1894
Authors: Savours Anne
Published: October 2009

This account of an Arctic whaling voyage made in 1894 was discovered among the papers of the late W. S. Bruce, in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. Bruce and the author, a sailor named Redgrave, had sailed together in the Balaena during the cruise of the Dundee whalers to the Antarctic in 1892–93. Redgrave probably wrote the account at Brace's request.
Oil and gas exploration in northern Canada
Authors: Davidson A. T.
Published: October 2009

About 80 million acres on the mainland of the Northwest Territories and Yukon, and over 40 million acres on the Arctic islands, are under oil and gas exploration permit. Exploration permits were issued in the Arctic islands for the first time in June 1960, following promulgation in April of new Canada Oil and Gas Regulations for federal government lands. The issue of these permits extended the northern oil and gas search from the Alberta and British Columbia borders, in lat. 60° N., northward to the Arctic islands; in terms of land area this is one of the most widespread oil and gas searches in the world. The Arctic islands exploration also holds particular interest since it is the farthest north oil and gas exploration ever carried out.
Insect habitats in Antarctica
Authors: Gressitt J. L. , Leech R. E.
Published: October 2009

About fifty species of terrestrial arthropods have been collected in Antarctica; these include mites, ticks, springtails, sucking lice, biting lice and flies. The mites include both free-living and parasitic forms, the springtails and flies are free-living, and the ticks and lice are parasitic. The ticks, parasitic mites, and biting lice are associated with birds, and the sucking lice with seals. The number of species are about equally divided between free-living and parasitic forms. The ability of insects and mites to survive the very low winter temperatures and frequent strong winds of Antarctica is of considerable interest; judged in relation to commonly accepted ideas of tolerance, the environment is extremely forbidding.
Photographs of Antarctic bottom fauna
Authors: Bullivant J. S.
Published: October 2009

During the Antarctic summers of 1958–59 and 1959–60, oceanographie survey work was carried out in the Ross Sea by members of the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute from HMNZS Endeavour. Photographs of the sea bed were taken at nine of the forty-nine stations occupied, and at seven of these stations bottom samples were taken with trawls and grabs.
Pack dogs in the Canadian Arctic
Authors: MacPherson A. H. , Manning T. H.
Published: October 2009

Before the Eskimo economy had been much affected by the advent of whites, pack dogs were a common means of summer transport in most if not all parts of the Canadian Arctic. Among the changes which have led to less inland movement in summer are the attraction of settlements at “ship time”, the increase in bulk and weight of the average Eskimo family's personal effects, the increased reliance on bought food, the advent of boats and modern weapons, and the decline of the mainland caribou. Also, the availability of steel-shod dog sledges and the increased size of dog teams have, in some areas, made it more convenient to use a sledge in summer than to use pack dogs. However, sledge travel is not suitable for a small party of whites on a single summer trip, as a large team is needed and sufficient dogs and dog food may be difficult to obtain. We have found the use of pack dogs both convenient and economical, particularly for reconnaissance work, where freedom to spend varying amounts of time in any place along the route is a requisite. The reduction of weight of one's personal pack increases the pleasure of travelling and facilitates work along the way. We have used from one to four dogs, depending on their availability and upon the amount of dog food which can be obtained before starting and en route. Five is probably the maximum number of pack dogs that a man travelling alone would want to look after, as loading in the morning and adjusting packs during the day are time-consuming tasks.
Icebreakers, their construction and use
Authors: Morley J. P.
Published: October 2009

Icebreakers are best defined by their primary uses: to break sea ice, to manœuvre in heavy concentrations of pack ice, and to clear channels through which other ships can pass in safety. Ice-strengthened ships, in contrast, are normally cargo transport ships strengthened for use in ice. Heavily reinforced hulls, a sloping forefoot and a ratio of horse-power to displacement of more than unity are characteristics common to both types; the icebreaker being usually distinguished by more powerful engines, higher ratio of beam to length, smaller cargo capacity and such distinctive features as heeling tanks. Icebreakers designed for use in regions other than the Arctic or Antarctic, e.g. in the Baltic or Gulf of St Lawrence, may possess one or two forward propellers, which are not found in polar icebreakers.
The McGill Ice Research Project, 1955–60
Authors: Harwood T. A. , Lotz J. R.
Published: October 2009

The understanding of ice, especially of sea ice, is basic to Canada's defence and economic development and yet, up to 1956, little had been done in Canada to study the formation, development and degeneration of sea ice. The National Research Council had been engaged in ice studies, but the emphasis here had been on fresh-water ice. Glaciological studies had been carried out by several universities, by the Geophysics Section of the Defence Research Board, and by other government departments.
Inuvik, Canada's new Arctic town
Authors: Pritchard Gordon B.
Published: October 2009

During the summer of 1952, investigations were carried out in the town of Aklavik to assess its possibilities for expansion through the addition of educational, health, and administrative facilities, and the construction of an airstrip to serve the community. The unsatisfactory local conditions uncovered by those investigations led the Advisory Committee on Northern Development to recommend that Aklavik should be moved to a new and more stable site. This recommendation was accepted in December 1953 and the Advisory Committee was given the responsibility of selecting a new site.
Recent development of Arctic air routes
Authors: Grierson John
Published: October 2009

Since Andrée's magnificent failure to fly to the North Pole in a balloon in 1897, two great epochs have been marked in polar aviation. The first was the epoch of adventure, lasting nearly 60 years, which attracted to its ranks such men as Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth, Umberto Nobile, Richard Byrd, Charles Lindbergh, Gino Watkins and the real father of Arctic aviation, Hubert Wilkins. Many others added their quota of experience until enough was known, and the technique of long-range polar flying had developed sufficiently far, for a regular air line to start operations across the North Polar Basin. That was on 15 November 1954 when Scandinavian Airways System (SAS) opened the first air route over the top of the world, from Europe to North America. This heralded the second epoch—the one of consolidation, and the purpose of this article is to describe very briefly the course of developments during these last seven and a half years.
Motor sledges in the Antarctic
Authors: Swithinbank Charles
Published: October 2009

Antarctic travellers have long dreamed of motor sledges as the successor to dog teams and man-hauling. Shackleton adapted an Arrol-Johnston motor car in 1907 by putting runners under the front wheels, and Scott used two fully tracked motor sledges in 1911. Owing to mechanical troubles, success came slowly. But by 1942 the Eliason motor sledge was patented and working in Sweden. Two kinds of motor sledge are now used in the United States Antarctic Research Program: the Eliason Model K-12 and the Polaris Model K-95.
Observations in the South Sandwich Islands, 1962
Authors: Holdgate M. W.
Published: October 2009

The South Sandwich Islands lie between lats. 56° 18′ S. and 59° 28′ S., and between longs. 26° 14′ W., and 28° 11′ W. There are eleven islands, of which ten form a curved chain stretching north and south while the eleventh, Leskov Island, lies to the west of the group near its northern end. The group is the only typical volcanic island arc in the Antarctic region and forms the easternmost section of the Scotia Arc; to the east it is bounded by the associated deep South Sandwich Trench.
Oil and gas in the Soviet Arctic
Authors: Armstrong Terence
Published: October 2009

Oil has been known in one locality of the Soviet Arctic since the second half of the seventeenth century (Probst, 1957). This is the deposit in the Ukhta region of Komi ASSR, known now as the Timano-Pechorskaya petroliferous province. Occasional attempts were made to obtain it, but intensive exploration started only in 1929, and significant exploitation in 1935. The oil is Devonian, aiid some of it is highly viscous. This led to development of a special mining technique for obtaining the oil, the extra cost being justified on the grounds that heavy oil of this type is particularly suitable for certain uses in the north. The refinery is at Ukhta itself, on the Pechora railway (Shishkin, 1959). Output figures have not been released, but are believed to have reached 1200 000 metric tons a year during World War II, but to have dropped in 1950 to 800 000 and in 1955 to 553 000 (Hassmann, 1953; Hodgkins, 1961). In the post-war period natural gas production was encouraged and it reached in 1960 about 1100 million m. per year (Rochev, 1961).
Soviet terms for the north of the USSR
Authors: Armstrong T. E.
Published: October 2009

There has for long been discussion among Soviet geographers on the definition of various terms in Soviet usage to indicate the northern part of the USSR. Some of these terms—“the Arctic” [Arktika], “the Arctic region” [arkticheskaya oblast'], “the sub-Arctic” [subarktika], “the polar regions” [Zapolyar'ye]—are normally used to denote areas defined according to physical criteria. Such criteria are similar to those usually applied outside the USSR, such as the “10° C. July isotherm”, the “tree line”, or the “limit of continuous permafrost”, and, again as in the non-Soviet world, the terms have no generally accepted precise meaning and must be defined by each user. But in addition to these terms for natural regions, there are certain terms in predominantly economic and administrative usage: “the north” [sever], “the far north” [dal'niy sever], “the extreme north” [krayniy sever], “the northern marches” [severnyye okrainy], and “the Soviet north” [sovetskiy sever]. Some explanation of their current connotations may be helpful to those studying Soviet literature.
Current Canadian Coast Guard operations in ice
Authors: Stead Gordon W.
Published: October 2009

Maritime traffic in ice-congested waters in Canada moves under the control of the Canadian Coast Guard or with its close support, the annual sea supply of Arctic establishments is carried out mainly by merchant ships chartered for the purpose, escorted by icebreakers and assisted by shallow-draft Northern supply vessels and locally based landing barges. A rapidly growing commercial traffic into the Gulf of St Lawrence in winter is provided with routing advice or icebreaker escort on an organized basis worked out in consultation with the commercial interests. These and other related operations have developed in recent years with meteorological and other scientific support provided by various agencies of the Government of Canada.
The area of ice shelves in Antarctica
Authors: Giovinetto Mario B. , Behrendt John C.
Published: October 2009

In Polar Record, Vol 11, No 75,1963, p 735, I. A. Suyetova made calculations of the area of Antarctica and of its major ice shelves based on published and unpublished material available up to 1961. Suyetova's estimate of the area of the ice shelves, excluding attached islands and ice rises, is 1–38 × 106 km2. In a study of the drainage systems of Antarctica (Giovinetto, 1963) the area of the ice shelves as defined above is estimated at (1·63 ± 0·30) × 106 km2. The latter estimate is based, except for the region of the Filchner Ice Shelf, on the more recent chart of Antarctica compiled by the American Geographical Society (1962; 1:3000000). The difference between the estimates of total ice shelf area cannot be explained entirely by the margin of error; there are some differences between the areas estimated for particular ice shelves which are significant:
Radio echo sounding and strain rate measurement in the ice sheet of north-west Greenland: 1964
Authors: Rinker J. N.
Published: October 2009

The United States Army Research Support Group (USARSG), with headquarters at “TUTO”, provided all logistic support for the second phase of a co-operative programme of field work on the ice sheet of north-west Greenland designed to evaluate radio echo sounding techniques, to compare results with seismic and gravity surveys, and to continue measurements of strain rate in the ice sheet.
The use of satellite signals to investigate the polar ionosphere
Authors: Titheridge J. E.
Published: October 2009

The ionosphere is a thick mantle of partly ionized gas surrounding the earth at heights between 80 and 800 km. It was discovered about fifty years ago, and during the last decade has been studied intensively at observatories all over the world. These studies consist primarily of observing the characteristics of radio waves reflected from the ionosphere. Since waves of different frequencies are reflected at different heights, it is possible to determine how the electron density varies with height, up to the height of maximum density at about 300 km. Radio waves which pass this height, however, continue into space and are not reflected. Consequently very little direct information can be obtained from the ground about the characteristics and behaviour of the ionized region above 300 km.
The west Greenland cod fishery
Authors: Garrod D. J.
Published: October 2009

The conception of the sea as an unlimited reservoir of fish is now outdated. The post-war history of the fishery resources of the north Atlantic has shown that stocks can be depleted to a level where the catching rates are no longer an economical proposition, and the general pattern of expansion has been to move farther afield to grounds where the catches are sufficiently improved to offset the greater steaming time, and hence running costs, involved.
Frostbite
Authors: Washburn Bradford
Published: October 2009

Very significant progress has been made during the last decade towards an understanding of the nature of frostbite. Furthermore, recommended treatment today is so drastically different from the generally accepted practice of only a few years ago that it seems most important for modern methods to be understood and applied as widely and rapidly as possible. Although this article has been written primarily for those interested in climbing and exploring in high mountains, it is hoped that the data in it may prove as useful to the lowland traveller or outdoor labourer as to the mountaineer.
Noctilucent clouds
Authors: Witt Georg
Published: October 2009

The clear, bright twilight of the northern summer night offers to a keen observer a number of beautiful natural phenomena. Occasionally, about an hour after sunset, a delicate veil of clear bluish-white colour appears over the northern horizon, so tenuous that only a trained observer would be aware of its presence. Sometimes, however, this so-called noctilucent cloud exhibits much brighter billows, bands and other features reminiscent of common cirrus cloud formations. Noctilucent clouds consist of a layer of particulate matter, concentrated by some mechanism in the vicinity of the mesopause (the temperature minimum) at an altitude of 80 to 85 km. Because of their great height they are illuminated by the sun's rays when lower layers of the atmosphere at normal cloud heights lie in the earth's shadow; they can be seen when there is sufficient contrast between the light scattered by the cloud particles and the light scattered by the air molecules in the line of sight. These conditions are fulfilled when the sun is between about 4° and 12° below the horizon.
The biological laboratory and field research facilities at the United States “McMurdo” station, Antarctica
Authors: Wohlschlag Donald E.
Published: October 2009

In 1958, at the close of the International Geophysical Year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States initiated long-term plans for the support of Antarctic biological research. These plans included the erection and outfitting of a modest, but modern, biological laboratory at the United States station at “McMurdo” on Ross Island in the late summer and early winter 1959. With the increasingly diversified biological research programmes, and with the active construction and supply programmes in subsequent years, the biological laboratory has now become one of the largest Antarctic research facilities for a single scientific discipline.
The development of reindeer husbandry in Canada
Authors: Treude Erhard
Published: October 2009

The first reindeer were introduced into Canada for humanitarian rather than commercial reasons. Encouraged by the success achieved in Alaska, where 1280 reindeer imported by Dr Sheldon Jackson from Siberia between 1892 and 1902 had increased in a few years to several times that number, the missionary physician of Labrador, Wilfred Grenfell, hoped to develop a reindeer meat-and-dairy industry in his region, where tuberculosis was common and infant mortality high. In 1908, with financial support from the Boston Transcript and the Canadian Department of Agriculture, he bought 300 reindeer in Norway and brought them to St Anthony, Newfoundland. Under the supervision of four Lapp herders, the animals quickly adjusted to their new environment
The Canadian Reindeer Project
Authors: Hill R. M.
Published: October 2009

The reindeer experiment in the Mackenzie Districtf continues as the Canadian Reindeer Project, the contract for which is held by Sven Johansson, an immigrant from Sweden where he had gained experience in reindeer husbandry at Jokkmok and elsewhere. He had been employed as project manager in March 1963 for two years by A. J. Oeming, who was then sole contractor, and in 1965 he took up the contract himself for one year; it has been renewed annually since then. Project headquarters remain at Reindeer Station. Responsibility for the Project's support and over-all control lies with the Federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The Inuvik Research Laboratory, 30 miles south of Reindeer Station, provides valuable technical assistance.
The finding of Scott's South Pole Party, 12 November 1912
Authors: Williamson Thomas
Published: October 2009

28 October, Monday. Another grand day. During forenoon we packed all our sledges already for a start tomorrow if the weather is fine; in the afternoon we took the Ponies for a short stroll. The Camp just at present looks like a young township, sledges here, there and everywhere; tomorrow all being well it will be deserted except for 2 men who are remaining behind. These 2 men have got their work cut out also, they have to make a journey sometime next month to Cape Royds to study the bird life etc, ie (Penguins and Skuas), they have also to look after the Hut in general and stow all stores in the Pony stables.
Movement of the Amery Ice Shelf
Authors: Law Phillip
Published: October 2009

The Lambert Glacier system, one of the largest in Antarctica, drains from Princess Elizabeth Land into Prydz Bay, terminating in the Amery Ice Shelf, in about long 70° to 75° E.
The identification of Vinland
Authors: Cooke Alan
Published: October 2009

During the past 200 years, few informed persons have doubted that abouta.d. 1000 the Norse attempted to colonize a part of the New World that theycalled Vinland. But the location of Vinland and the meaning of the word itself have long been subjects of dispute among scholars, and the lack of incontrovertible evidence of Norse occupation has permitted a proliferation of hypotheses. Among the earliest speculators in this matter were Torfaeus (1705) and Forster (1784), but the initiation of spirited controversy may be credited to Rafn (1837), who first forcibly drew public attention to the fact that it was the Norse who, some 500 years before Columbus, discovered the New World.
Some features of mean annual windspeed data for coastal East AntarcticA
Authors: Streten N. A.
Published: October 2009

The distribution of mean annual windspeeds at the stations on the coast, and the near coastal plateau, of Antarctica presents a problem of interpretation which apart from its intrinsic interest, is of practical importance in the use of observations for surface synoptic analysis and forecasting. Further, the mean windspeed pattern may throw light on both the gross features of high-latitude Southern Hemisphere circulation and on local peculiarities of topography adjacent to the station.
Progress of mineral development in northern Canada
Authors: Dubnie Amil , Buck W. Keith
Published: October 2009

For the purpose of this paper, northern Canada comprises all the territory north of lat 60° N. Included in this area of approximately 1500000 square miles are all of Yukon and Northwest Territories and small parts of Quebec and Labrador. Although the area is clearly defined by latitude, the subject matter of this paper also takes into account those developments farther south which have a direct effect upon the north.
Comments on Canadian proposal for changes in WMO sea ice terminology
Authors: Armstrong Terence , Roberts Brian , Swithinbank Charles
Published: October 2009

The Canadian proposals outlined by Miss Dunbar (antea, p 717–22) have the great advantage of having grown out of several years' practical application of the WMO International Ice Nomenclature. The proposals are made not only out of a desire to refine concepts and lessen ambiguity as knowledge grows, but also out of a need for reorganization called for by practical considerations. This is the right way for a terminology to develop.
Holy shivers
Authors: Botley Cicely M.
Published: October 2009

Judging from the common idea of the church calendar, a witty French meteorologist remarked, the saints of paradise are not above busying themselves in interfering with the weather and, sometimes, with each other's influence. The idea of associating weather with times and season is an old one, and, in Europe, goes back probably to the Middle Ages. It arose, no doubt, through the observation of more or less regular recurrences of certain kinds of weather and by the attribution of such recurrences, first to the gods, then, as Christianity spread, to the saints of the church.
Chronological list of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada: I. Early times to 1670
Authors: Cooke Alan , Holland Clive
Published: October 2009

The following pages, the beginning of a series, are the first results of a chronological compilation of expeditions and historical events that will eventually embrace the entire Arctic and sub-Arctic area. We began work on the Canadian segment of the Northern Hemisphere in 1968, with financial support from the History Division of the National Museum of Man, a part of the National Museums of Canada in Ottawa. The History Division is allowing this form of preliminary publication of the work it has supported in the expectation of securing corrections and additions to it, thereby enhancing the usefulness and authority of the list in its final form. The Canadian list, when it is published in full, will carry bibliographical references to each expedition and event, an alphabetical roster of persons known to have participated in the expeditions listed, a roster of ships' names, and a regional and topical index.
Rural Alaska's development problem
Authors: Harrison Gordon S. , Morehouse Thomas A.
Published: October 2009

Economic development programmes in rural Alaska face barriers created by ethnic and cultural variations from the standards of urban, industrialized Western society and by the virtual absence among the native population of the local capital and technical capabilities that are needed to achieve economic self-sufficiency. In addition, public and private agencies inevitably assume a dominant role, with respect to the local population, when they invest in or assist native villages or rural regions, a fact that compounds the problems of change. The objective of modernization may get in the way of the objective of self-determination, to the detriment of both. These problems confront programmes for vocational training, housing, transportation, community facilities, community organization, co-operative enterprises and small business development —virtually the entire range of programmes intended to support or to trigger further development and ultimately to increase self-sufficiency in Alaska's native villages and rural regions.
Chronological list of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada. II. 1670–1713
Authors: Cooke Alan , Holland Clive
Published: October 2009

This second instalment of our list deals mainly with the competition between the French and English for domination of the fur trade in Hudson Bay. The period has been comparatively little studied and it has been difficult to piece out accurately and succinctly from the sources available the history of this lively period.
Bellingshausen and the discovery of Antarctica
Authors: Armstrong Terence
Published: October 2009

For the last twenty years there has been considerable Soviet interest in the circumnavigation of Antarctica by the Russian naval expedition of 1819–21, led by Captain T. T. Bellingshausen, with Lieut M. P. Lazarev as his second in command, in the sloops Vostok and Mirnyy. It is now reasonably certain that Bellingshausen sighted the Antarctic continent several times, notably on 27 January 1820 (New Style) at a point about lat 69°21′S, long 2°14′W, and was thus the first to see it (Edward Bransfield sighted the north-west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula at about lat 63°50′S, long 60°30′W on 30 January 1820, three days later). Bellingshausen did not claim to have done so however, but his descriptions of what he saw tally very well with what the edge of the continent here is now known to look like. There is one relatively new point. Bellingshausen's first sighting has been moved forward one day, from the 28th to the 27th, because it has been shown that he was keeping ship's time, from mid-day to mid-day, and therefore that what his log called the 28th (his sighting being in the second half of the day) was what the civil calendar would call the 27th (Belov, 1963, p 19–29). All this much is well documented and unlikely to be disputed. The question is, how much importance did he, and his contemporaries, attach to this discovery? And did he realize that he had seen the edge of a continent? Recent Soviet studies have sought to show that he had a very good idea of the importance of what he had seen, and that this idea did get through to his contemporaries. It is here that there is room for argument with the Soviet scholars.
The number of Eskimos: an Arctic enigma
Authors: Bone Robert M.
Published: October 2009

Eskimo-speaking peoples inhabit Arctic lands that extend some 6 400 km longitudinallyfrom Chukotka to Greenland. This enormous territory comes under the administration of four nations: Canada, Denmark, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and United States of America. As citizens of these nations, Eskimos are becoming more and more enmeshed in the cultures and economies of their respective industrial societies, with the result that, as in other underdeveloped regions of the world, their numbers have increased markedly in therecent past
Chronological list of expeditions and histrical events in northern Canda. IX. 1881–96
Authors: Cooke Alan , Holland Clive
Published: October 2009

During this short period began what may be termed the re-exploration of northern Canada, a scientific examination of lands that had been roughly charted by expeditions of the previous hundred years, but that were otherwise little known except to fur traders, a few missionaries, and the occasional traveller. Only now did the newly confederated Dominion of Canada begin to take a practical interest in its vast northern expansions. The government sent three scientific expeditions to Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay, and the Geological Survey of Canada began to direct its attention towards the north. One of its officers, A. P. Low, explored the length and breadth of the Quebec-Labrador peninsula virtually single-handed and, as if anticipating the Klondike gold rush, towards which the work of many prospectors in Yukon Territory was steadily leading, Dawson, McConnell and Ogilvie published detailed accounts of routes and conditions in the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory, information that proved invaluable to both government and individuals when the rush was on.
Mass communications and Canada's Eskimos
Authors: Mayes Robert G.
Published: October 2009

Since the time of first contact with Europeans, the social system of the Eskimos of Canada has undergone a severe alteration in its structure and function.1 Under a generally paternal and directive administration, this process of social change has been very disorderly and has produced a continuing state of crisis in present-day Eskimo society. Indications of this state of crisis are the incidences among Eskimos of poverty, unemployment, venereal disease, drunkenness, and juvenile delinquency at rates that are markedly higher than among other Canadians, taken as a group (Rowley, 1972; Economic Council of Canada, 1968, p 121). Further change in Eskimo society is inevitable, but the speed at which change occurs and the directions it will take are controllable. Recognizing this fact, many Eskimos and non-Eskimos see the need for a new and more enlightened northern administration, one that would enable the Eskimos to cope with, adapt to, and share control of the institutions that now shape their lives.
Notes on Alaskan Native electoral politics
Authors: Harrison Gordon Scott
Published: October 2009

Electoral politics is to politics as university education is to education; a highly visible, formal, and ritualistic process, the function of which is as much symbolic as it is substantial. In Alaska as elsewhere, and for Natives as for other groups, electoral politics is only one dimension of an elaborate wideranging political process. The matter of aboriginal land claims, for example, dominated Alaskan Native politics through the 1960's, but this issue was only peripherally one of electoral politics. However, because Alaskan Natives have not traditionally had access to many political advantages, such as money, property, communication facilities, education, health, and organization, that are available to other groups, voting has been an important means of political influence for them. For these reasons and because electoral behaviour indirectly reflects many non-electoral phenomena, electoral politics is a good point of departure for the study of Native politics in Alaska. This article surveys selected factors that have conditioned Native electoral participation generally, the evolution of Native representation in Alaska's territorial and state legislatures, and collective voting patterns. Two earlier papers (Rogers,1969; Harrison, 1970) have dealt even more selectively with this subject. Together they offer a general introduction to it.
Chronological list of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada. X. 1896–1902
Authors: Cooke Alan , Holland Clive
Published: October 2009

With this instalment of our list, the Klondike gold rush reached its height and, nearly as quickly, began to decline as the miners’ interest turned to newer strikes in Alaska. The great influx of prospectors to the Klondike region led to the passage of the Yukon Act and to the extension into the area of the enforcement of Canadian laws by the North West Mounted Police. In most other respects, the important trends noticed in the previous instalment continue: the officers of the Geological Survey of Canada and other scientists continued their careful and productive surveys; missionaries extended their efforts to remoter tribes; and sportsmen ranged still farther afield in search of big game. The number of expeditions each year steadily increased, and we are having to be increasingly selective in the ones we list. It has been impossible to include individual journeys to the Klondike, even of those persons who published narratives.
Chronological list of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada. XI. 1902–09
Authors: Cooke Alan , Holland Clive
Published: October 2009

With this instalment, we conclude our presentation of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada. Although we end here at about 1909, we have compiled the list up to 1920, a termination date chosen because the introduction of aircraft to northern Canada at about that time brought very many more persons into the region, and the list, to be continued after that date, would have to be conducted on different principles. We have presented these instalments in Polar Record as a means of preliminary publication, hoping that such appearance would elicit corrections and additions from readers before our work is published in full, not only with the entries seen in these pages, but also with an extensive roster of the names of persons associated with the expeditions described, a list of ships, a topical and regional index, and a supporting bibliography for each entry. Discussion is now going forward with officers of the Human History Division, National Museum of Man, Ottawa, the department that has financed this work, about full publication. We should like to take this opportunity to thank the National Museum of Man for its support, to acknowledge the permission of the Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose archives we have used, to include hitherto unpublished dates and facts, and to say that we have greatly enjoyed the work of compiling this list and have especially enjoyed corresponding with the many persons who have written to us about it.
The Drift of the whaler Viewforth in Davis Strait, 1835–36, from William Elder's Journal
Authors: Cooke Alan , Ross W. Gillies
Published: October 2009

In the autumn of 1835, eleven ships from British ports were beset in Davis Strait. A journal kept by William Elder, an officer of one of the unfortunate ships, the Kirkcaldy whaler Viewforth, was recently given to the Scott Polar Research Institute by Elder's great-niece, Mrs Ann M. E. Jackson. It was this journal that provided the inspiration and the quarry for a small book, now rare, edited by the Reverend J. Bain of Kirkcaldy (Bain, 1836). Elder's original journal (Elder, 1835–36) is here summarized to provide further detail of that harrowing winter, which, as Bain remarked, “will be long remembered as one of the most eventful and disastrous in the history of the Whale Fishery”.
Seventy-five years of resource administration in northern Canada
Authors: Judd David
Published: October 2009

These words were written by an American senator from California about his experience in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. In the Canadian north of the 1890's, government meant public order. The first resident servants of the Dominion Government were an Inspector and twenty men of the North-West Mounted Police who were assigned to the Yukon in 1894 to “represent all the different departments of government in the district” (Canada, Department of Interior 1907, p 15).
Atlantic Oceanographic Laboratory, Bedford Institute: the first six years
Authors: Loncarevic B. D. , Ford W. L. , McMullen R. M.
Published: October 2009

With the longest coastline in the world, Canada has a vital need for oceanographic information and it has been a matter of national policy for some years to increase substantially the scale and scope of Canadian oceanographic research and survey. A major step in the implementation of this policy, taken in mid-1962, was the opening of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, since February 1968 known as the Bedford Institute (BI).
Work of the Geographical Branch, Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, Canada, in Baffin Island, 1961–64
Authors: Ives J. D.
Published: October 2009

The Geographical Branch is the smallest of six branches of the Canadian Government's Department of Mines and Technical Surveys. Its staff comprises thirty professional geographers and has a total establishment of eighty-five. In addition it has positions for thirty-three students and nine university geographers during the summer field season. As the Branch's responsibilities embrace the full range of geographical studies of Canada, the world's third largest country by area, it has to be selective in its approach. Thus, in 1960, the Baffin Island Project was initiated as its first long-term programme of co-ordinated research in physical geography and allied fields in the natural sciences. This programme is the prime responsibility of the Branch's Division of Physical Geography, which contains about one third of the total professional staff.
Electronic components and apparatus for use in polar field operations
Authors: Atkinson L. G. , Dummer G. W. A. , Evans S.
Published: October 2009

It was noted in Table 3 of the first paper that the failure rate of common types of valves is about one half per cent per thousand hours of operation. Some other components are as unreliable as this, but they are not employed in such large numbers in typical electronic equipment so that (at least until very recently) valves are much the commonest cause of electronic equipment failure. The mechanical and electrical tests which valves are required to pass before the Armed Services grant type approval are given in Joint Service Specification K1001, Ministry of Aviation, June 1958. In an analysis of failure reports made in 1953 in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, civil aviation, and under typical laboratory conditions, the proportion of faults traced to valves ranged from 45 to 55 per cent of the total. Under conditions of rough handling the average life of valves is likely to be further reduced, more so than for any other common component, so that the number of faults and the proportion of faults due to valves, will be even higher.