The Circumpolar Arctic is one of the least technologically connected regions in the world. In an effort to change that, the people who call this vast geographic area home have been stepping up to take their rightful place in the growing global information society. Over the past two decades, rapid changes to communication technologies have created a steady rise of organizations and leaders dedicated to finding ways to better promote and share aboriginal experiences, current events, traditional stories and art from all high Arctic regions. Two events, the Shared Arctic: Contemporary Circumpolar Artwork Exhibition and a Round Table Discussion entitled Breaking the Ice: Communications with the Arctic have been scheduled in Geneva, Switzerland to celebrate both the d...

The permafrost regions occupy 24% of the Northern Hemisphere's land area and all glacier-free areas of the Antarctic continent. To obtain a snapshot of ground temperatures, thawing rates, and organic carbon contents of the permafrost regions, four coordinated IPY permafrost programmes are underway, involving 50 individual projects from 28 countries and hundreds of researchers and students. Geographically, the programme includes both polar regions and covers the mountains and plateau regions of the mid- and low-latitudes. The major focus of the programme is to observe and document current changes in permafrost conditions. These measurements serve as a baseline against which to evaluate future changes and to validate current models. Existing networks include boreholes for ...

This coming northern summer 25 contemporary Canadian artists set out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Northwest Passage by taking a voyage through the historic High Arctic waters and sharing with Inuit along their way. Art supplies were donated to schools and Inuit artists and $6,000 was raised for Inuit charities. Arctic Quest (IPY endorsed project #338) artists have had several very successful exhibitions to date. At present, you can see their exhibition at Vancouver Maritime Museum which continues until June 7, 2007, and watch for the travelling exhibition, which will begin at the Legislative Assembly in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada June 15th, traveling to The Prince of Whales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, on August 15th. From there, it wil...

There were a lot of filmmakers in and around McMurdo this season, but none were there longer than the Whiskey 218 trio. Producer and Director Anne Aghion and her crew - Sylvestre Guidi at the camera and Richard Fleming recording sound - arrived on the first flight of Winfly, August 20th and stayed for four months, until just before Christmas. Aghion says: "I wanted to be there during Winfly to get the feeling of the station waking up," and indeed they did. After two months filming in and around McMurdo, the three set up camp with four geologists for another couple of months, first in the Olympus Range and then in the Asgard Range. The focus of the film, which was made possible by a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers grant, is on...

The I-TASC Reconnaissance and Communication Expedition crew has successfully installed the Groundhog AWS at 71 deg 40.433 S 02 deg 48.700 W ahead of the IPY launch on 1 March. The data generated by the Automatic Weather Station is transmitted daily by the Groundhog unit and will be used as the basis for sound pieces, music and animations that are being prepared by artists for the I-TASC IPY launch events in South Africa and Brasil on 1 March. The data is viewable, and downloadable as ascii text on the front page of the I-TASC website together with regular updates about hew I-TASC projects for the IPY. ...

On December 22nd 2006, after completing the Stellar Axis star map on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, artist Lita Albuquerque conducted a performance using an Archimedian Spiral and 51 volunteers from the nearby US McMurdo station. Starting at the center, the participants walked out along the spiral arms to the boundary of the installation taking 10 minutes to complete the journey. The star map around which they spiraled mirrored the sky above on the Southern Hemisphere's Summer Solstice. The event was filmed from a helicopter and from the ground. Photographs were taken by Jean de Pomereu of the International Polar Foundation. For more information, visit the Stellar Axis website and ...

The Stellar Axis land art project is currently being deployed in Antarctica, to be completed for the Southern hemisphere Summer Solstice on 22 December 2006. Perhaps the largest and most ambitious arts project to take place in Antarctica, Stellar Axis is the work of the internationally known, Los Angeles based artist, Lita Albuquerque, and is sponsored by the US National Science Foundation and US Antarctic Programme. The concept is to mirror the southern constellations through the placement of 99 blue spheres on th...

By Linda Mackey — Twenty-five Arctic Quest artists followed in the footsteps of great artists and explorers of the past, as they marked the 100th anniversary of Amundsen's 1906 navigation through the Northwest Passage with a journey of their own this summer. During a twelve day voyage aboard the Akademik Ioffe, the group Arctic Quest recorded their impressions on canvas, paper and film as they traveled up the east coast of Baffin Island, Greenland, and parts of the Northwest Passage, ending in Resolute. Every day brought new surprises including icebergs emerging from the fog, waking up to Orca whales, circling incredible icebergs, taking a zodiac ride to the base of the icefields in Illilisat, Greenland, or donating art supplies to Inuit children in the Arctic communi...

By Linda Mackey — Announcing the upcoming launch of a new book by an amazing artist/scientist whose life embraced most of the 20th century. Maurice Haycock was born in Canada in the Victorian era, before cars, phones, radios and air travel. He went on to learn to use a computer at 80 and predicted the coming of the internet. He lived in the Arctic in 1926-27, painted at the North Pole, discovered a mineral which was named "haycockite" after him, was a worldwide recognized geologist and Canada's most travelled Arctic artist. For almost 40 years he travelled andMackey — painted across Canada's northern wilderness. In 2007 his manuscript will be released as a lavish book of Arctic paintings and drawings interspersed with historical notes and fasc...

This image is the design for the Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation (I-TASC) mobile research station, which we are planning to deploy in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica and Igloolik, Nunavut during IPY. The I-TASC station is an autonomous, zero-environmental impact, communications, research and living unit capable of sustaining up to 8 crew members for long periods of work in isolation/insulation conditions (60-180 days). Onboard renewable-energy systems, bioreactor/biological sewage processing, water recycling systems, satellite and HF communication systems and radar infrastructure will provide the I-TASC crews of artists, scientists, engineers and tactical med...