LASHIPA: History of Large Scale Resource Exploitation in Polar Areas (Circumpolar Studies)

This book contains most of the papers presented at the final LASHIPA workshop in St Petersburg, Russia 2-4 November 2009. The workshop was organized to finalize the bilateral LASHIPA Russia-Netherlands project and to discuss possible future cooperation between the participants of the sub-project of the Eurocore Boreas project and the participants of the International Polar Year project Large Scale Historical Exploitation of Polar Areas (LASHIPA).
LASHIPA and CEE/Boreas are linked together by different fields of expertise. The common grounds of the two projects are the relation between industrial resource development and science in an international perspective. Knowledge production and knowledge transfer from science to industry as well as between different national communities of resource users are very important in the Arctic as is transfer of legitimacy. All these fields might give opportunities for future research. The different contributions in this book try to answer some of these questions.

Table of Contents

Preface vii
Introduction ix
Alexei Kraikovski, Yaroslava Alekseeva, Margarita Dadykina, and Julia Lajus
The Organization of Pomor Hunting Expeditions to Spitsbergen in the 18th Century 1
Alexei V. Kraikovski
Productivity and Profitability of Russian Spitsbergen Hunting in the Late 18th Century 17
Ypie I. Aalders
Perceptions of Polar Resources: a Comparison of the Animal Remains of the Russian Hunting Station Kokerineset and the Dutch Whaling Station Smeerenburg 33
Hidde de Haas
In Search of Profit in the High Arctic. The Commercial Background of the Dutch Expedition to Spitsbergen in 1920 47
Frigga Kruse
Spitsbergen – Imperialists beyond the British Empire 61
Seth DePasqual
Winning Coal at 78˚ North: Mining, Contingency and the Chaîne Opératoire in Old Longyear City 71
Alexandr Portsel
Barentsburg: The Soviet Period in the History of the Mine 83
Dag Avango, Anders Houltz
"The Essence of the Adventure": Narratives of Arctic Work and Engineering in the Early 20th Century 87
Cameron Hartnell
Heritage in Our Wake: A Review of Heritage Provisions Managing Svalbard’s Industrial Past 105
Ulf I. Gustafsson
A Science & Technology Studies (STS) Approach on the Evolution of the Modern Whaling Industry 113
Louwrens Hacquebord
The History of Exploration and Exploitation of the Atlantic Arctic and its Geopolitical Consequences 127
Ronald E. Doel
Cold Conflict: The Pentagon’s Fascination with the Arctic (and Climate Change) in the Early Cold War 147
Urban Wråkberg
Euroarctic Strategies and Synergies 161