Introduction to the Circumpolar world

The Circumpolar North, containing the Arctic and Subarctic regions, is not an easily definable geographic area such as North America or the Mediterranean Sea. Rather, it is a sort of free-form cap on the globe, roughly centered on the North Pole and extending southward to or beyond the Arctic Circle in an irregular fashion, sometimes nearly half way to the Equator. Traditionally, we thought of the Arctic as being mainly the treeless coastal regions and islands around the fringes of the Arctic Ocean. The forested regions deep within the continents were called the Subarctic. Many of these southern lands are colder (at least in winter) and more inaccessible than the “true” Arctic, and we will consider both parts to be entirely within the scope of this course.

Included within the Circumpolar North are parts of eight countries (often called the Arctic Eight) on three continents, an entire ocean, the largest island in the world, and many seas, straits, bays, islands, rivers, and mountain ranges.

The Arctic regions have changed enormously, even in the past few tens of thousands of years since modern humans have been around. The last Ice Age ended only about 10,000 years ago, by which time people were beginning to grow crops and domesticate animals in parts of the Near East and Mesopotamia. At that time, Arctic conditions still existed in much more of the globe than at present. It is only during the latter part of the Pleistocene, or the last several hundred thousand years, that the tundra bioregion, or biome, began to appear in its present form. We know from studying pollen cores that major elements of the present tundra flora existed previously in places they are not found now but migrated ahead of advancing ice sheets or behind retreating ice sheets in Europe, eastern and central Russia, and Alaska.

The Subarctic region lies to the south of the Arctic. Its name is formed by adding the Latin prefix, sub, meaning below, or underneath, to Arctic. The Subarctic lands are characterized chiefly by the presence of the boreal forest. As an easier climate than the Arctic, it is more populated and better served today by roads and other infrastructure than the Arctic.

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