The story of the crash of Nobile's dirigible Italia to the north of Svalbard in 1928 and of the complex and often confused multi-national search for the survivors which ensued has become one of the best known themes in the history of Arctic exploration, and One which has given rise to a small library of books weighing every aspect of the story. While the role of the Soviet icebreaker Krasin in this story, as the vessel which reached and rescued the main group of survivors, has become world famous, it is not generally realized that Krasin's voyage represented only one facet of a multi-pronged Soviet assault, aimed at rescuing the Italia survivors. Two other vessels, Malygin and Sedov, were also involved in the search, in each case representing the first voyage for these vessels into the northern Arctic under the Soviet flag. Later, after a refit in Norway, Krasin made a second voyage in the autumn of 1928 to Svalbard and Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, still in search of any possible survivors from Nobile's Italia. This article will stress in particular these lesser known aspects of the Soviet rescue operation.

The creation of a 200-nautical mile [370-km] fishing zone in December 1976 for certain marine areas off the coast of the USSR, including Arctic waters, is a significant development for a subject which has given rise in the past to diplomatic exchanges and confrontations with foreign powers.

Scientific programmes in Antarctica have depended for their fulfilment on small groups of men working in conditions of prolonged social isolation in an alien physical environment. This is true of both early and recent phases of exploration: despite massive advances in technology and, hence, in material comforts and communications over the period, the element of prolonged social isolation remains as a dominant psychological problem. Contrary to the popular image of lonely living conditions and heroic tasks, the Antarctic worker has to cope with the very opposite of loneliness, and his tasks are likely to be mundane and routine. In his work he must adapt to a close, and closed, interpersonal world, and it is with this adaptation that the present article is concerned.

Native languages in northern Canada are under great pressure. Even in the remote settlements of the central and eastern Arctic schooling is primarily in English; Eskimo or Indian languages tend to be regarded as special items of culture that warrant a half-day per week in a ‘cultural inclusion’ programme, along with story-telling and traditional crafts. Even this ‘inclusion’ is a result of recent reforms in curriculum development: in the 1950's and '60's there were schools where the use of native language was simply forbidden. This pressure from within the educational system is compounded by demands from employers in the industrial sector: functional English has sometimes been a condition of being hired, and native languages are generally given minimum usefulness or status at the work-place.

Bernhard Hantzsch was a German zoologist and explorer, born in 1875, whose first work in Canada was in northernmost Labrador in 1906. He returned to the north in 1909 with the object of exploring the then unknown Foxe Basin coast of Baffin Island. His plan was to set off from Cumberland Sound and travel with Eskimos across Baffin Island by way of Nettilling Lake and the Koukdjuak River, follow the coast north and west to Fury and Hecla Strait, and then make his way to Pond Inlet. Unfortunately, the ship that was taking him to Kerketen sank in Cumberland Sound; although all aboard made their way safely to Blacklead Island, most of his supplies were lost. Nevertheless he set off, ill-equipped, in the spring of 1910 with a group of Eskimos. By the end of the year he had established winter quarters at the mouth of what is now 245 Sylvan called the Hantzsch River, with two families, Aggakdjuk, his wife Arnga and their children, and Ittusakdjuak and his wife Sirkinirk.

Six main British Antarctic Survey stations were occupied throughout the year. Of these, Adelaide air base on Adelaide Island was closed down at the end of the summer, as it has been replaced by a new station, Rothera, 64 km to the north–east. A snow runway near the new site had been brought into useforthe 1975–76 summer by a party camping in the area, and a small hut built there later in the season was occupied by four men during the 1976 winter. In the 1976–77 summer a small hut and all moveable equipment and stores were transferred from Adelaide, and extensive new living quarters and a generator shed constructed with the help of summer visitors. There are now 13 men at the station, including several builders who are completingthe interior work. The original hut which provided temporary living accommodation for 15 men is now used as a store. A number of field stations were also occupied during the 1976–77 summer.

The Ross Ice Shelf is a floating sheet of ice about the size of France. It ranges in thickness from 200 m to approximately 1 000 m. The Ross Ice Shelf Project (RISP) seeks to shed more light on the ice shelf's relationship to the west Antarctic ice sheet and on the possibility that significant fluctuations in thickness and extent have taken place during recent history. The project also aims to learn more about the unique ecological system in the unexplored waters under the ice shelf and in the sediments which floor the Ross Sca embayment.

The Ross's Gull breeds between 62°27' and 70°30'N and 142° to 160°E in wet alder and birch scrub in the deltas of some of the larger north flowing rivers of north-eastern Siberia (Buturlin, 1906; Dementiev and Gladkov, 1951). The species was first discovered on 23 June 1823 by James Clark Ross, then a lieutenant with W. E. Parry's second expedition in search of the North-west Passage. At the time, they were stationed at Igloolik, east Melville Peninsula, in the central Canadian Arctic (Stenhouse, 1930). Ross, once more in company with Parry, saw the species again north of Spitsbergen during their attempt at the pole in July 1827.