A number of governments maintain permanent research stations in the Arctic. Also known as Arctic bases, polar stations or ice stations, these bases are widely distributed across the northern polar region of Earth.

Historically few research stations have been permanent. Most of them were temporary, being abandoned after the completion of the project or owing to lack of funding to continue the research. Some of these were military or intelligence stations (listening posts) created as a result of the proximity of the U.S. and Soviet Union to each other's landmass across the polar region. (Full article...)

Sir William Edward Parry FRS (19 December 1790 – 8 July 1855) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for his 1819–1820 expedition through the Parry Channel, probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Passage, until it was finally negotiated by Roald Amundsen in 1906. In 1827, Parry attempted one of the earliest expeditions to the North Pole. He reached 82° 45' N, setting a record for human exploration Farthest North that stood for nearly five decades before being surpassed at 83° 20' N by Albert Hastings Markham in 1875. (Full article...)

James Weddell FRSE (24 August 1787 – 9 September 1834) was a British sailor, navigator and seal hunter who in February 1823 sailed to latitude of 74° 15′ S—a record 7.69 degrees or 532 statute miles south of the Antarctic Circle—and into a region of the Southern Ocean that later became known as the Weddell Sea. (Full article...)

Edward Adrian Wilson FZS (23 July 1872 – 29 March 1912) was an English polar explorer, ornithologist, natural historian, physician and artist. (Full article...)

Jacob van Heemskerck (3 March 1567 – 25 April 1607) was a Dutch explorer and naval admiral. He is generally known for his victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Gibraltar, where he ultimately lost his life. (Full article...)

James Booth Lockwood (October 9, 1852 – April 9, 1884) was a United States Army officer and arctic explorer. (Full article...)

Alexander Eduardovich Konrad (Russian: Алекса́ндр Эдуа́рдович Ко́нрад; 1890 – 1940) was a Russian sailor. Along with Valerian Albanov, he was one of two survivors, and the only surviving sailor, of the Brusilov expedition in which 22 people died. (Full article...)

Yevgeny Ivanovich Tolstikov (Russian: Евгений Иванович Толстиков; 9 February 1913 – 3 December 1987) was a Soviet polar explorer who was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1955 for heading the station "North Pole 4" for a year starting in April 1954. He led the Third Soviet Antarctic Expedition and one of the first manned drifting ice stations in the Arctic.

After the expedition he worked as deputy chief of the State Committee for Hydrometeorological Service Management. (Full article...)

Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs FRS (/fʊks/ FUUKS; 11 February 1908 – 11 November 1999) was an English scientist-explorer and expedition organizer. He led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition which reached the South Pole overland in 1958. (Full article...)

Wilhelm Filchner (13 September 1877 – 7 May 1957) was a German army officer, scientist and explorer. He conducted several surveys and scientific investigations in China, Tibet and surrounding regions, and led the Second German Antarctic Expedition, 1911–13.

As a young military officer, Filchner gained an early reputation for dash and daring, following his travel exploits in Russia and the Pamir Mountains range. After further technical studies, he developed expertise in geography and geophysics, before leading a major scientific survey in Tibet and western China in 1903–05. In 1909 he was appointed to organise and lead the forthcoming German expedition to the Antarctic, with both scientific and geographical objectives involving extensive exploration of the continent's interior. During the expedition his ship became trapped in the Weddell Sea ice, drifting for eight months and preventing Filchner from establishing a land base, thus failing in its main objective. Although important scientific results were obtained, the expedition was disrupted by serious interpersonal disagreements and lasting animosities, which harmed Filchner's reputation as a leader and ended his polar career. (Full article...)

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was a 1911–1914 expedition headed by Douglas Mawson that explored the largely uncharted Antarctic coast due south of Australia. Mawson had been inspired to lead his own venture by his experiences on Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod expedition in 1907–1909. During its time in Antarctica, the expedition's sledging parties covered around 4,180 kilometres (2,600 mi) of unexplored territory, while its ship, SY Aurora, navigated 2,900 kilometres (1,800 mi) of unmapped coastline. Scientific activities included meteorological measurements, magnetic observations, an expansive oceanographic program, and the collection of many biological and geological samples, including the discovery of the first meteorite found in Antarctica. The expedition was the first to establish and maintain wireless contact between Antarctica and Australia. Another planned innovation – the use of an aircraft – was thwarted by an accident before the expedition sailed. The plane's fuselage was adapted to form a motorised sledge or "air-tractor", but it proved to be of very limited usefulness.

The expedition was organised into three bases: one on the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island and two on the Antarctic mainland. The main base, under Mawson's command, was set up at Cape Denison, about 500 kilometres (300 mi) west of Cape Adare, and a western base under Frank Wild was established on the Shackleton Ice Shelf, more than 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) west of Cape Denison. Activities at both mainland bases were hampered by extreme winds, which often made outside work impossible. (Full article...)

The koch (Russian: коч, IPA: [ˈkotɕ] ^ⓘ) was a special type of small one- or two-mast wooden sailing ships designed and used in Russia for transpolar voyages in ice conditions of the Arctic seas, popular among the Pomors.

Because of its additional skin-planking (called kotsa) and Arctic design of the body and the rudder, it could sail without being damaged in the waters full of ice blocks and ice floes. The koch was the unique ship of this class for several centuries. (Full article...)

The Second Soviet Antarctic Expedition was led by Aleksei Treshnikov on the continent; the marine expedition on the "Ob" was led by I. V. Maksimov. The "Ob" left Kaliningrad on 7 November, 1956.

Three ships were used to transport the expedition, all diesel-electric. The two main ships were as for the first expedition: RV Ob (flagship; captain I. A. Man [ru])) and RV "Lena" (captain A. I. Vetrov). The third ship was Kooperatsiya (captain A. S. Yantselevich), used mainly as a transport vessel. (Full article...)

James Hall (d. 1612) was an English explorer. In Denmark, he was known as Jacob Hald. Born in Hull, he piloted three of King Christian IV's Expeditions to Greenland under John Cunningham (1605), Godske Lindenov (1606), and Carsten Richardson (1607). In his first voyage he charted the west coast of Greenland as far north as 68° 35' N. The discovery of silver resulted in larger expeditions being sent the following two years, both of which were expensive failures.

In 1612 Hall again went to Greenland, this time in search of the Northwest Passage. He had two English ships under his command, the 140-ton Patience and the 60-ton Heart's-Ease. William Baffin served as his chief pilot. On 12 or 22 July, he encountered Inuit in Amerdloq Fjord. Angry over the seizure of several Inuit by Cunningham in 1605, one of them struck Hall with a spear; he died the following day. (Full article...)

Khariton Prokofievich Laptev (Russian: Харитон Прокофьевич Лаптев) (1700–1763) was a Russian naval officer and Arctic explorer.

Khariton Laptev was born in a gentry family in the village of Pokarevo near Velikiye Luki (in the southern part of today's Pskov Oblast), just a year before his cousin Dmitry Laptev was born in the nearby village of Bolotovo. (Full article...)

Charles Wilkes (April 3, 1798 – February 8, 1877) was an American naval officer, ship's captain, and explorer. He led the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–1842).

During the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865, he commanded USS San Jacinto during the Trent Affair in which he stopped a Royal Mail ship and removed two Confederate diplomats, which almost led to war between the United States and the United Kingdom. (Full article...)

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (UK: /ˈɑːmʊndsən/, US: /-məns-/; Norwegian: [ˈrùːɑɫ ˈɑ̂mʉnsən] ^ⓘ; 16 July 1872 – c. 18 June 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen began his career as a polar explorer as first mate on Adrien de Gerlache's Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899. From 1903 to 1906, he led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage on the sloop Gjøa. In 1909, Amundsen began planning for a South Pole expedition. He left Norway in June 1910 on the ship Fram and reached Antarctica in January 1911. His party established a camp at the Bay of Whales and a series of supply depots on the Barrier (now known as the Ross Ice Shelf) before setting out for the pole in October. The party of five, led by Amundsen, became the first to reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911. (Full article...)

Arved Fuchs (born 26 April 1953) is a German polar explorer and writer. (Full article...)

Michael Barne (15 October 1877 – 31 May 1961) was an officer of the 1901-04 Discovery Expedition. (Full article...)

Alistair Forbes Mackay (22 February 1878 – c. February 1914) was a Scottish physician, biologist, and polar explorer known for being the first, along with Australians Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David, to reach the South Magnetic Pole on 16 January 1909, during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907–1909. (Full article...)

Operation Tabarin was the code name for a secret British expedition to the Antarctic during World War Two, operational 1943–46. Conducted by the Admiralty on behalf of the Colonial Office, its primary objective was to strengthen British claims to sovereignty of the British territory of the Falkland Islands Dependencies (FID), to which Argentina and Chile had made counter claims since the outbreak of war. This was done by establishing permanently occupied bases, carrying out administrative activities such as postal services and undertaking scientific research. The meteorological observations made aided Allied shipping in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Following Cabinet approval in January 1943, there was an intensive period of planning, recruitment and procurement, before the expedition left the UK in November 1943, led by Lieutenant-Commander James Marr. Two bases were established in early 1944 – firstly, Base B, at Deception Island, South Shetland Islands, and later the main base, Base A, at Port Lockroy, Wiencke Island. A variety of science and mapping work was carried out. 14 men over-wintered in 1944. (Full article...)

Vladimir Yulyevich Wiese (Russian: Владимир Юльевич Визе; 5 March 1886 – 19 February 1954) was a Russian scientist of German descent who devoted his life to the study of the Arctic ice pack. His name is associated with the Scientific Prediction of Ice Conditions theory. Wiese was a member of the Soviet Arctic Institute and an authority on polar oceanography. He was also the founder of the Geographico-hydrological School of Oceanography. (Full article...)

Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield KCB FRS FRGS (27 March 1820 – 4 September 1894) was a Royal Navy officer who led one of the searches for the missing Arctic explorer John Franklin during the 1850s. In doing so, his expedition charted previously unexplored areas along the northern Canadian coastline, including Baffin Bay, Smith Sound and Lancaster Sound.

He was also the inventor of the marine hydraulic steering gear and the anchor design that bears his name. HMS Inglefield bears his name, as do the Inglefield Land region and the Inglefield Gulf of Greenland. (Full article...)

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (UK: /ˈɑːmʊndsən/, US: /-məns-/; Norwegian: [ˈrùːɑɫ ˈɑ̂mʉnsən] ^ⓘ; 16 July 1872 – c. 18 June 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen began his career as a polar explorer as first mate on Adrien de Gerlache's Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899. From 1903 to 1906, he led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage on the sloop Gjøa. In 1909, Amundsen began planning for a South Pole expedition. He left Norway in June 1910 on the ship Fram and reached Antarctica in January 1911. His party established a camp at the Bay of Whales and a series of supply depots on the Barrier (now known as the Ross Ice Shelf) before setting out for the pole in October. The party of five, led by Amundsen, became the first to reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911. (Full article...)

A nuclear-powered icebreaker is an icebreaker with an onboard nuclear power plant that produces power for the vessel's propulsion system. Although more expensive to operate, nuclear-powered icebreakers provide a number of advantages over their diesel-powered counterparts, especially along the Northern Sea Route where heavy power demand associated with icebreaking, limited refueling infrastructure along the Siberian coast, and endurance required make diesel-powered icebreaker operations challenging. As of 2023, Russia is the only country that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers, having built a number of such vessels to aid shipping along the Northern Sea Route and Russian arctic outposts since the Soviet era. (Full article...)