Since the early nineteen-twenties whaling in the Antarctic has dominated the world's whaling industry. In recent years, however, there have been increasing signs that the Antarctic industry is approaching an important crisis. There is no doubt that too many whaling expeditions are pursuing too few whales. This article attempts to review the present position of the industry, first dealing very briefly with the biology of the commercially important whales and the history of whaling generally and then discussing the development of Antarctic whaling and the events which have led to the present situation.

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.

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.

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.

The general effect of pack ice in calming down waves and swell is well known. In the section on ice navigation in the Arctic Pilot, the abrupt smoothing of the sea and the gradual lessening of ordinary ocean swell are noted as good indications of pack ice to windward. In discussing the formation of slush, the Arctic Pilot says “The formation of slush damps down any swell…”, while in discussing the method of entry of a ship into pack ice, the following warning is given: “If the wind is blowing, or a current setting from the open water on to the ice edge, this will be more compact, with a more or less clear-cut outline. On the other hand, if the wind is blowing off the ice, or a current is setting from it towards the open water, the ice edge will be more or less broken and indistinct. It is therefore better to enter the ice from up wind, if possible. When it is necessary to enter the ice down wind, very great care must be exercised on account of the compactness of the edge and the movement of the ice due to waves, which may cause heavy blows against the hull. A combination of these two factors may render the entry difficult, the surge of the ice being especially dangerous if considerable.”

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.

Disease in the Canadian Arctic has, until quite recently, been of minor concern to the world. The Eskimo and northern Indian lived in a climate which was antagonistic to contact diseases and very little attention was paid to indigenous infections. During the past decade, more and more white men have gone to the Arctic to survey and mine its abundant natural resources, and to work on such projects as the DEW Line. This influx of personnel introduced bacteria and European viruses to a native population which had no resistance or immunity to the diseases of civilization, and consequently even such mild viruses as those producing colds have caused serious illnesses and mild epidemics; the introduction of tuberculosis has had tragic results.

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.

Seventy years ago Fridtjof Nansen and thirteen companions drifted across the Arctic Ocean in the specially designed ship, Fram. The drift took three years because the sea ice cover governs movements of a surface ship, allowing a ship's commanding officer only an occasional freedom of choice of direction in which to move his ship. In contrast, during August 1958, the nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, under the command of Captain W. R. Anderson, crossed the Arctic Ocean in ninety-six hours, using the open sea that lies beneath the ice. In further demonstration of the capability of submarines to sail the Arctic Ocean, the USS Skate departed from New London, Connecticut, and the USS Seadragon from Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, proceeded to the Arctic Ocean, and on 31 July 1962 met each other at a prearranged point and time underneath the sea ice.

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.

James Weddell is celebrated in polar history for his voyage of 1822–24 during which he penetrated the then unknown Weddell Sea as far as lat. 74° S., in the brig Jane and the cutter Beaufoy. This note sheds light on some other events in his life and records where the source material is to be found.

The increasing use of electronic techniques in making measurements in all branches of science has been evident for many years in laboratories, and we must expect the same trend at scientific stations and in field operations in the polar regions. The aim of this and a later article is to provide information about polar conditions for those already familiar with electronic methods in the laboratory, and to call attention to the variation in properties and reliability of components for which allowance should be made in specification and design of electronic apparatus.

Surface winds are responsible for the two main types of feature observed on the Antarctic plateau: (a) sastrugi, produced by katabatic (gravity) winds, and (b) snow dunes, which are raised by blizzard winds. The two are often associated in the sense that the severest patches of sastrugi seem to be eroded out of dunes deposited by a previous blizzard. However, sastrugi are by no means limited to this; they may occur more or less continuously, merging one into the next over a wide area of plateau.

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.

In recent years, phenomena observed in two quite separate fields of study have led to the suggestion that radio waves may propagate through cold ice masses with sufficiently small loss by absorption to permit the thickness to be measured, and some information about the nature of the bottom surface to be derived by radar. This article describes first some work by the United States Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory arising out of spurious echoes noticed on radio altimeters (ground clearance indicators) carried by aircraft flying in the polar regions. Afterwards it reviews work at the Scott Polar Research Institute where unexpected phenomena on some IGY ionosondes operated in the Antarctic have led to the development of a radio instrument specifically to measure ice thickness.

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.

With the release of somewhat fuller information on the results of the Soviet census of January 1959 it is now possible to gain a more complete picture of the population of the northern parts of the USSR. Figures are available for major administrative areas down to the level of oblast' and natsional'nyy okrug, for all towns of over 50,000 inhabitants and for certain smaller ones. There is, however, no generally agreed definition on the extent of “the north”, and, furthermore, none of the definitions which are used for specific cases (e.g. labour law, building regulations) follow the boundaries of major administrative areas. It is possible, therefore, to obtain an accurate figure only for an arbitrary definition of the north, in the case when its southern limit coincides with major administrative boundaries. But rough approximations are now available for certain areas defined as “the north”, and it is also possible to make a more accurate guess than before of the population within the boundaries of some of the other defined areas.

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.