First Air flight 6560 crashed yesterday in Canada's High Arctic. Fifteen passengers were on board, including four crew and eleven passengers. All the crew members were killed in the crash, while three pasengers survived. The plane crashed five miles from the airport in Resolute. Rescue efforts began immediately, as hundreds of military personnel were in Resolute participating in the annual Arctic military exercise Operation Nanook, an operation which includes an exercise in which military personnel respond to a mock air disaster. As a result, military helicopters, medical personnel, Canadian Coast Guard, and local fire and medical crews were on site and ready to respond immediately.
posted by smitt on Aug 21, 2011 - 25 comments

"A group of Inuit experts, community researchers, and university researchers, have worked together over the past several years to document specialized Inuit knowledge about sea ice." [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Mar 27, 2011 - 29 comments

"I filled my water bottles , fuel bottle and ate some snacks. I reset my altimeter to 1300ft and started shortly past 2pm. The first sign stated 'Eagle Plains 363, Inuvik 735'. The distances were measured in kilometers with green km posts every 2km along the road. A few kilometers down the road, I crossed an old fire burn area with dead trees still standing. The sun was shining and I was eager to get started on the road. The gravel was occasionally soft as the road slowly climbed along the valley." An enterprising man relates his journey up the Dempster Highway on bicycle. [more inside]
posted by Avenger on Jun 19, 2009 - 14 comments

Abandoned plane wrecks of the north. The Arctic North is a cruel environment for men and machine; for planes it is no different. The weather creates all sorts of hazards, the terrain offers its own variety of opportunities for disaster. (Warning: extreme comic sans.)
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese on Sep 13, 2007 - 12 comments

Tales from the DEW Line. In the mid-50's, the Distant Early Warning, or DEW Line, a series of radar stations along the 69th paralell, began scanning the arctic skies for signs of soviet bombers. Though cut off from direct contact with civilization, and often hoping that nothing would happen, staffers of these remote outposts still found plenty worth writing about or photographing (1, 2, 3).
posted by Durhey on Feb 2, 2007 - 36 comments

Arctic Blue Books Online - 'a searchable, World-Wide Web version of Andrew Taylor's unique index to the 19th Century British Parliamentary Papers concerned with the Canadian Arctic. '
posted by plep on Dec 28, 2004 - 2 comments

Photographs of Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories: the three northern territories of Canada which are possibly one step closer to becoming the 11th, 12th and 13th provinces and further establishing "Canadian sovereignty" of the Arctic. (Perhaps as a rebuke to the Denmark's plans to claim the North Pole?) [more au verso]
posted by myopicman on Nov 23, 2004 - 54 comments

Wild goose chase - "British wildlife experts are mourning the loss of Kerry the goose after tracking him by satellite all the way from Ireland to an Eskimo's kitchen in Arctic Canada." No, seriously.
posted by paladin on Aug 27, 2002 - 10 comments