Polar Studies: Other library resources

The Arctic mission is a scientific and film-making expedition through the fragile but treacherous Arctic ice. This breathtakingly beautiful environment has become the first victim of global warming.

The pressure to drill for oil in the Arctic has intensified with the increasing prices of crude oil. But the potential for lower oil prices is at what cost? In this feature-length documentary the Alaskan Inupiat show how oil drilling in their nearby seas will forever alter their subsistence-living lifestyle and multiply the struggles of preserving their rich cultural history.

Captures nature above and below the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic and showcases the fluctuations that occur with the changes of the seasons.

Incredible amounts of ice are melting in the Arctic and the warmer temperatures have made it possible to sail all the way around Svalbard, the northern most civilization in the world. What is happening in the Arctic islands is the best illustration of what happens to nature when global warming spreads. ...

"This epic blockbuster is a breathtaking celebration of the amazing, complex, profound and sometimes challenging relationship between humankind and nature. Humans are the ultimate animal, the most successful species on the planet. From the frozen Arctic to steamy rainforests, from tiny islands in vast oceans to parched deserts, people have found remarkable ways to adapt and survive in the harshest environments imaginable. Human Planet weaves together 80 inspiring stories, many never told before on television."

Follows Canadian Arctic anthropologist Niobe Thompson on a visually stunning journey across the North to trace the origins of the modern Inuit. In a circumpolar expedition stretching from the ancient hearth of Thule culture in Siberia, to the high Arctic home of the gentle Dorset people, and to the final battleground of the Thule and the Norse in Greenland. This film explores the mysteries of the Thule conquest of the Arctic. Drawing on research from Russia, Canada and Denmark, Thompson advances a new solution to the mystery of Greenland's lost Norse colonies, shedding new light on the first meeting of Asiatic and European settlers in the New World.

Each season, as the ever-thinning Arctic ice recedes, polar bears face a daunting challenge; ... ; The annual plankton boom of Alaska's coastal waters attracts humpback whales and sea lions, who must avoid predatory killer whales.

In the recent past, Arctic sea ice prevented regular marine passage throughout most of the year, but climate change has reduced this ice, making the waterways more navigable. From the makers of last year's award-winning and bestselling feature documentary, The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning, The Polar Explorer chronicles a rare crossing of the Passage on a three-week scientific expedition taking place on the aptly named icebreaker, the Amundsen.

Originally a topic for explorers and scientists, driven by quest for territory, fame, and recognition, polar geography was a field for those who were willing to brave extreme weather conditions in the name of science and empire, and who were backed by foundations with funding to mount the extraordinary costs of an expedition. Up to the second half of the 20th century, academic geographers primarily engaged with polar regions in ways that focused on science. Barry (1983), published in the Annals of the AAG, summarized “polar geography” as a field for physical geographers. “Arctic Ocean Ice and Climate: Perspectives on a Century of Polar Research” spoke to ice and “large-scale ice-climate interactions” and “potential human-induced impacts on the Arctic ice regime” but was in no way a human geography. Similarly, Sudgen 1982 (cited under Books and Edited Volumes) attempted to redirect this interest and identified a range of issues and topics in “polar geography” of potential interest to both human and physical geographers. By and large, however, until fairly recently, human geographers were more interested in the Arctic than Antarctic, except for matters related to boundary delineation. ...

Observations by the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour support what has long been predicted--that climate change would be felt first in the Polar Regions. This community's way of life is at risk, an urgent warning of the negative impacts of climate change predicted to occur elsewhere in the world. This video documents the impacts of climate change from an Inuvialuit perspective. On Banks Island in Canada's High Arctic, the residents of Sachs Harbour have witnessed dramatic changes to their landscape and their way of life. Exotic insects, fish and birds have arrived; the sea ice is thinner and farther from the community, carrying with it the seals upon which the people depend for food; the permafrost is melting, causing the foundations of the community's buildings to shift and an inland lake to drain into the ocean. In the fall, storms have become frequent and severe, making boating difficult. Thunder and lightning have been seen for the first time.