The earliest recorded observations of Antarctic icebergs occurred in 1688 and 1700 in the Gregorian New Style (NS) Calendar. The first sighting took place after Christmas 1687 in the Julian Old Style (OS) Calendar, when just north of the Antarctic Peninsula, Edward Davis observed “ice islands” with lengths of 5–10 km; the second occurred in February 1699 OS, when north of South Georgia, Edmond Halley observed and first sketched tabular icebergs. Although these were the earliest documented observations, because icebergs occur adjacent to New Zealand and South America, seagoing Māori and indigenous South Americans may have observed them eight centuries earlier. Davis and Halley’s observations were in the iceberg stream that flows to the east of the Antarctic Peninsula. Davis’s observations were the result of the Batchelor’s Delight being blown south from Cape Horn by a storm; his misadjusted compass meant they sailed east across instead of north through the stream. Comparison of Davis’s positions with satellite iceberg trajectories suggests his observations occurred at 62.5°S between 53.0° and 54.3°W. Davis assumed his icebergs were floating, but because Halley’s ice islands appeared stationary, he thought they were grounded, missing an opportunity to speculate on the existence of a southern ice-covered continent.

The deaths in the Antarctic of Captains Robert Falcon Scott and Lawrence “Titus” Oates are the most examined in almost all exploration. However, one object, until today unknown, gives a clue to the real story of the last three days of the Terra Nova expedition leaders. This is the sextant that Captain Scott had with him throughout his career until his death, passed from Kathleen Scott to Peter Scott and thence to its current owner. The sextant, its history and the meaning of the relic are set out before the public for the first time.

Iceland was one of the last places in Europe to be settled. It thus has a relatively short population history as it was completely depopulated until about 871. Harsh climatic conditions, periodic epidemics, and numerous natural disasters were not conducive to robust population growth on the island. This article traces the demographic transition of Iceland’s population from the initial settlement to the present. This is the transition from high to low birth and death rates as a population modernises. Iceland has an impressive literary and historical record-keeping tradition beginning with the Saga Age in the 900s. It also has long had a well-developed statistical system which allows the study of population trends much further back in time than many countries. The results show slow population growth for much of Iceland’s history with many episodes of steep population decline. A series of technological innovations in the 19th century allowed the country to modernise, the population to grow, and its demographic situation to improve. Iceland has completed the demographic transition, the population is growing, in part due to high immigration, and it has some of the best demographic indicators in the world. Despite these favourable trends, the country faces some demographic challenges.

As the Arctic warms and growing seasons start to lengthen, governments and producers are speculating about northern “climate-driven agricultural frontiers” as a potential solution to food insecurity. One of the central ecological factors in northern spaces, however, is permafrost (perennial frozen ground), which can drive cascading environmental changes upon thaw. Considering the land requirements for expanded agriculture and the unique challenges of northern farming, national and subnational governments are grappling with and facilitating this speculative boom in different ways. Analysing agricultural land use policy instruments from the US State of Alaska and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Russia, this paper investigates if and how permafrost factors into their legal frameworks and what impacts this has on agricultural development, conservation, and food security. Alaska and the Republic of Sakha were chosen for reasons including both having at least 100 years of agricultural history on permafrost soils, both containing extensive amounts of permafrost within their landmasses and both containing permafrost that is ice-rich. Comparing legal texts as indicative of state capacities and strategies to govern, the paper finds that the two regions diverge in how they understand and regulate permafrost, and suggests that these approaches could benefit from one another. Bringing together geoclimatic and sociocultural concerns to problematise static policy divisions, this paper gestures to a path forward wherein subnational policy can balance needs for food, environmental, and cultural security in the North.

The Antarctic Treaty System has put in place international agreements to provide comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment. Despite this high degree of protection, human presence on the continent has resulted in environmental contamination, particularly at locations established prior to the development of the more stringent codes of conduct in recent decades. Rehabilitation of legacy contaminated sites is a priority for environmental management, and a framework for such efforts has been established. In this contribution, we re-evaluate the rehabilitation of the site of the former Vanda Station, a New Zealand outpost occupied from 1969 to 1991. We describe the design and implementation of the restoration, which included the removal of many tonnes of contaminated soils and groundwater, along with the post-action monitoring of the site. Our goal is to determine where challenges to the use of recent guidelines would have arisen. We found that while guidelines on clean-up of contaminated sites in Antarctica are valuable, challenges to implementation remain. These largely reflect a lack of understanding of the consequences of contamination on Antarctic ecosystems and the trajectory of natural rehabilitation. We present recommendations on how to address some of these challenges.

The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) faces serious demographic challenges. One of the most important among them is the imbalance of population flows within internal migration. This paper examines the patterns of internal migration in the Republic, based on the distribution of municipal districts (uluses) by economic zones designated by the authorities for administrative purposes. The six most common indices characterising the intensity of migration of the population were used for the analysis. The homogeneity of Yakutia’s districts according to these indices was tested using the van der Waerden test. The article reveals that the intensity of migration in Yakutia has increased since 2011. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant but temporary impact on internal migration in Yakutia. Only Yakutsk has experienced population growth due to internal migration throughout the period studied. The intensity of migration in the Arctic uluses was not statistically different from central and eastern uluses, but differed from the most economically developed districts in southern and western Yakutia. The Republic was homogeneous with respect to the balance of migration inflows and outflows, but there was considerable heterogeneity in terms of the impact of migration on the size of the population.