In recent years the circumpolar region has emerged as the key to understanding global climate change. The plight of the polar bear, resource extraction debates, indigenous self-determination, and competing definitions of sovereignty among Arctic nation-states have brought the northernmost part of the planet to the forefront of public consideration. Yet little is reported about the social world of environmental scientists in the Arctic. What happens at the isolated sites where experts seek to answer the most pressing questions facing the future of humanity? Portraying the social lives of scientists at Resolute in Nunavut and their interactions with logistical staff and Inuit, Richard Powell demonstrates that the scientific community is structured along power differentials in response to gender, class, and race. To explain these social dynamics the author examines the history and vision of the Government of Canada’s Polar Continental Shelf Program and John Diefenbaker’s “Northern Vision,” combining ethnography with wider discourses on nationalism, identity, and the postwar evolution of scientific sovereignty in the high Arctic. By revealing an expanded understanding of the scientific life as it relates to politics, history, and cultures, Studying Arctic Fields articulates a new theory of field research. Advocating for a greater appreciation of science in the remote parts of the world, Studying Arctic Fields is an innovative approach to anthropology, environmental inquiry, and geography, and a landmark statement on Arctic science as a social practice.

In recent years the circumpolar region has emerged as the key to understanding global climate change. The plight of the polar bear, resource extraction debates, indigenous self-determination, and competing definitions of sovereignty among Arctic nation-states have brought the northernmost part of the planet to the forefront of public consideration. Yet little is reported about the social world of environmental scientists in the Arctic. What happens at the isolated sites where experts seek to answer the most pressing questions facing the future of humanity? Portraying the social lives of scientists at Resolute in Nunavut and their interactions with logistical staff and Inuit, Richard Powell demonstrates that the scientific community is structured along power differentials in response to gender, class, and race. To explain these social dynamics the author examines the history and vision of the Government of Canada’s Polar Continental Shelf Program and John Diefenbaker’s “Northern Vision,” combining ethnography with wider discourses on nationalism, identity, and the postwar evolution of scientific sovereignty in the high Arctic. By revealing an expanded understanding of the scientific life as it relates to politics, history, and cultures, Studying Arctic Fields articulates a new theory of field research. Advocating for a greater appreciation of science in the remote parts of the world, Studying Arctic Fields is an innovative approach to anthropology, environmental inquiry, and geography, and a landmark statement on Arctic science as a social practice.

A geographer with extensive research experience in the Canadian North, Jack D. Ives has written a lively and informative account of several expeditions to Baffin Island during the "golden age" of federal research. In the 1960s, scientists from the Geographical Branch of Canada's Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources travelled to Baffin to study glacial geomorphology and glaciology. Their fieldwork resulted in vastly increased knowledge of the Far North-from its ice caps and glaciers to its lichens and microfossils. Drawing from the recollections of his Baffin colleagues as well as from his own memories, Ives takes readers on a remarkable adventure, describing the day-to-day experiences of the field teams in the context of both contemporary Arctic research and bureaucratic decision making. Along the way, his narrative illustrates the role played by the Cold War-era Distant Early Warning Line and other northern infrastructure, the crucial importance of his pioneering aerial photography, the unpredictable nature of planes, helicopters, and radios in Arctic regions, and of course, the vast and breathtaking scenery of the North. Baffin Island encompasses both field research and High Arctic adventure. The research trips to Baffin between 1961 and 1967 also served as a vital training ground in polar studies for university students; further, they represented a breakthrough in gender equality in government-sponsored science, thanks to the author's persistence in having women permitted on the teams. The book contains a special section detailing the subsequent professional achievements of the many researchers involved (in addition to the later career moves of Ives himself) and a chapter that delves deeper into the science behind their fieldwork in the North. Readers need not be versed in glaciology, however. Ives has produced a highly readable book that seamlessly combines research and adventure.

This book addresses the growing demand for collaborative and reflexive scholarly engagement in the Arctic directed at providing relevant insights to tackle local challenges of arctic communities. It examines how arctic research can come to matter in new ways by combining methods and engagement in the field of inquiry in new and meaningful ways. Research informs decisions affecting the futures of arctic communities. Due to its ability to include local concerns and practices, collaborative research could play a greater role in this process. By way of example of how to bring new voices to the fore in research, this edited collection presents experiences of researchers active in collaborative arctic research. It draws multidisciplinary perspectives from a broad range of academics in the fields such as law and medicine over tourism and business studies, planning and development, cultural studies, ethnology and anthropology. It also shares personal experiences of working in Greenland and with Greenlanders, whether communities, businesses and entrepreneurs, public officials and planners, patients or students. Offering useful insights into the current problems of Greenland representative of the arctic region, this book will be beneficial for researchers and scientists involved in arctic research.

From the book: "They were five weeks out of England, driving through a storm on the icy edge of the world, when a sudden blast knocked Gabriel on her side. The helmsman tried frantically to turn the tiny ship into the wind that pinned it down, but the rudder had lifted clear of the surface and took no purchase. Water poured over the side, roaring into hatches as the wind drove the vessel across the waves and the crew clung frozen in despair. Only the captain acted, scrambling along the almost-horizontal upper sides, casting off lines to spill wind from the sails, forcing the crew into action to cut away the mizzenmast and the broken foreyard, then preventing them from doing the same to the mainmast. Finally Gabriel rose sluggishly, heavy with seawater but steering slowly off the wind. A tangle of broken rigging and sodden sails, she wallowed before the storm through the remainder of the day and all of the following night, while the captain restored order and set men to pumping the ship dry." Under orders from Queen Elizabeth I, Gabriel's captain B privateer and adventurer Martin Frobisher B took up the search for a northwestern route to Asia. A few days after enduring the storm of 14 July 1576, Frobisher sighted the most easterly outlier of Arctic North America and for the first time England became aware of this vast northern region. Over the next three summers it would be the scene of an adventure involving the fruitless search for a northwest passage, the first attempt by the British to establish a settlement in the New World, and the first major gold-mining fraud in North American history. Over 1,200 tons of rock were mined from Baffin Island and shipped to England, where they were found to contain not an ounce of gold. Yet Frobisher's claim of possession established British interest in northern North America and was the first step in the eventual establishment of British sovereignty over the northern half of the American continent. Using reports from the men who participated in the venture, details preserved in the oral histories of the Inuit, and archaeological information recovered from the sites of Elizabethan activities on Baffin Island, Robert McGhee describes Frobisher's expeditions and offers new insights into this audacious venture. The story ends on an ironic note B the capital of the new Territory of Nunavut, which restores to the Inuit a measure of the sovereignty claimed for England by Frobisher, lies at the head of the bay named after him, where over four centuries ago the English first ventured into Arctic America.

Ice in the Arctic is disappearing—and opportunity is calling. As climate change transforms the top of the world, warmer conditions are exposing a treasure trove of energy resources previously trapped in ice. The Arctic's oil, natural gas, minerals, and even wind and hydroelectric power are becoming more accessible than ever before. With untold riches hanging in the balance, the race is on to control the Arctic and its energy potential. Oil companies vie for drilling rights that go to the highest bidder. Nations around the globe—whether they're on the Arctic's doorstep or half a world away—hope to claim territory for themselves. And the indigenous peoples who have called this region home for thousands of years are determined to be on the ground floor of its development. But the Arctic's new possibilities come with grave risks. The pursuit of oil and natural gas threatens to further damage the Arctic's fragile ecosystems and accelerate global warming worldwide. International disputes over who owns which pieces of the Arctic could bring countries to the brink of war. The fate of the entire planet may hinge on how far people are willing to go to tap and control the Far North's energy resources. From oil rigs to military bases, the Arctic has never before hosted so many warring interests, and the stakes have never been so high. Join Stephanie Sammartino McPherson on a journey to the Far North to explore the energy controversies that will decide the future of the Arctic—and of the earth.

The Arctic region is the keystone to understanding the present status ofcurrently ongoing Earth systems and to predicting future imagesof our planet as viewed from northern high latitudes. The Arctic region,composed of ice-covered Arctic ocean in its center and surroundingfragmentation of the major continents, has been investigatedduring the last half century through all kinds of scientific studies:bioscience, physical sciences, geoscience, oceanography, and environmental studies, together with the technological domain. This book covers topics on the recent developments of all kinds of scientific research in and around the Arctic region, with a view to monitoring the current variations in the extreme environment, affected by remarkable changes in temperature and sea-ice extent, mass loss of ice-sheet and glaciers, and variations in marine and terrestrial ecosystems, including human activities.