'Did you find one?" Tony Fiorillo yelled to his colleague, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi. The two paleontologists were climbing over dumpster-sized sandstone boulders, scanning the long, rocky beach of Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve at low tide for dinosaur footprints. “I think so,” Kobayashi called back. They have been coming to one of Alaska’s most remote coastlines since 2016 to search for evidence of Late Cretaceous era dinosaurs.

Caribou and moose hunting on federal lands in Northwest Alaska will remain open to hunters from the lower 48 and the rest of the state for the upcoming fall hunting season. Local subsistence hunters had hoped the hunt would be open to only to local federally qualified hunters to allow for better assessment of hunting impacts on herd migration.

Alaska is a strategic hotspot for defending the United States, the Indo-Pacific region and the Arctic, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said during a visit to Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, yesterday. The secretary met with troops and leaders at Eielson and Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He spoke about his visit during a press conference in an Eielson hangar.

Chinese painter-captain Zhai Mo and his sailors crossed the Bering Strait on their sailboat earlier on Saturday. Sailing in the Arctic Ocean for the first time, if successful, Captain Zhai and his team will become the first humans to complete non-stop circumnavigation of the Arctic in the next three months.

At the far northern end of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and along the shore of nearby Greenland, narrow Arctic Ocean channels between tightly spaced islands and headlands often hold thick, durable sea ice. Scientists have previously assumed sea ice will remain present in this area for longer into the future, even as it declines elsewhere, providing a refuge for ice-dependent animals such as polar bears.

The Department of the Air Force released its first Arctic Strategy on July 21, 2020. Signed by the Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and Chief of Staff of the Space Force, the Strategy noted that the “Arctic is among the most strategically significant regions of the world today.” Over the past year, the Department of the Air Force has worked to optimize air and space capabilities throughout the Arctic region in support of Department of Defense objectives. What progress has been made? Which obstacles and opportunities have arisen? The Wilson Center’s Polar Institute will host this event to facilitate a roundtable discussion with distinguished Department of the Air Force leaders and explore paths forward in implementation of the Arctic Strategy.

The Government of Nunavut is hosting a leadership forum in August to build capacity among Nunavummiut women. The GN’s department of Family Services is hosting the four-day event with funding provided through the federal government’s Women and Gender Equality Canada department. The forum aims to empower Nunavut’s women and girls using traditional knowledge, skills, and their roles as natural leaders.

The annual Arctic Circle Assembly is the largest annual international gathering on the Arctic, attended by more than 2000 participants from 60 countries. It is attended by heads of states and governments, ministers, members of parliaments, officials, experts, scientists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, indigenous representatives, environmentalists, students, activists and others from the growing international community of partners and participants interested in the future of the Arctic. 

For the first time, a Regional Conference on Permafrost will be combined with the bi-annual 19th International Conference on Cold Regions Engineering. This conference is hosted by the US Permafrost Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the International Permafrost Association, the Permafrost Young Researchers Network, and the University of Colorado Boulder. A complete list of planned sessions is available here.

The Maritime Risk Symposium is an annual three-day conference in which government and maritime industry leaders, port representatives, researchers, and solution providers convene to examine current and emerging threats to maritime security. Government agencies, commercial entities, institutions of research, and higher education come together to discuss various threats, challenges, and risks to international and domestic maritime sectors.

The European Commission and the European External Action Service will organize a high-level EU Arctic Forum and the Annual Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Dialogue. The EU Arctic Forum will bring together key Arctic players and stakeholders to assess recent developments in the region and discuss challenges ahead. The event will provide a strategic outlook for the updated EU Arctic policy and delve into topics that are of particular significance for the Arctic’s inhabitants.

The New England Arctic Network (NEAN) will host its 2021 meeting at the University of New England in Portland, Maine. Additional information will be published soon. 

Arctic Symposium 2021 continues momentum in Arctic defense and security collaboration established in prior ALCOM-hosted events. AAS21 seeks to address the challenges faced by the U.S. military and our allies and partners in understanding and responding to our respective national interests. AAS21 is planned and organized by the Arctic Domain Awareness Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) in support and in compliance to guidance from Alaskan Command (ALCOM) Staff and Commander. More information available soon.

Hosted entirely online the ArcticNet Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting 2021 (ASM2021) is a hub for Arctic research in Canada. The ASM2021 brings together researchers from the natural, health, and social sciences to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing Arctic region, shaped by climate change and modernization. This conference will push the boundaries of our collective understanding of the Arctic and strengthen our ability to address the Arctic issues of today and tomorrow.

The National Academies’ Polar Research Board is convening the following session at the Fall AGU meeting (Dec. 2021), and we welcome proposals for presentations in this session.  Abstract submission deadline is August 4, 2021.  Submissions to this session can be made at: AGU Fall Meeting 2021 (confex.com), and general submission instructions at: Abstracts | AGU Fall Meeting 2021.

Organizers announce, that due to the coronavirus outbreak, the 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses has been postponed to 2022. This symposium will bring together molecular microbial ecologists specializing in different organism groups to share our latest results and discuss methodological problems, as well as future prospects in the field, including practical international collaborations. The environmental focus will be on cryospheric environments including sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost, but excellent research in other polar environments is also invited. The methods to be discussed will focus on 'omics' techniques, ranging from single cells to metagenomes, but research using additional methods is encouraged as well.