
Covering the Poles for over 90 years
The Polar Times is the semi-annual magazine of the American Polar Society. Join the American Polar Society to receive the magazine in your mailbox twice per year to keep informed about what is happening in the Arctic and Antarctica.
The TPS Vault
The American Polar Society has one of the largest, if not the largest, archives of articles about U.S. activities in the polar region in the form of The Polar Times. We are in the process of digitizing copies and making them available to APS member. Below you will find pictures and snippets of stories that caught our attention as we go through this extensive process. We encourage anyone interested in polar history to join the APS to obtain access to this and other articles from our extensive archives.

70 years ago, the June 1955 issue of The Polar Times reported on the operations of the U.S. Navy icebreaker Atka (back when the US Navy had icebreaking capacity and responsibility), the final closing of the Little America base (which was the base for many of Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s explorations), the importance of submarines for U.S. national security in the Arctic, the activities of countries that claimed sovereignty over portions of Antarctica, and many other articles.
(Note: The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection prohibits the type of activity taking place in the photo.)