The journal was established in 1977 with the financial support of the National Science Foundation and in cooperation with the American Geographical Society "in an effort to fill part of the gap in the broad area of physical and human geography of the Arctic and Antarctic".

[1][2] Founders included Theodore Shabad (Columbia University), who also became the journal's first editor-in-chief for 11 years, until his death in 1987,[3][4] and Melvin G. Marcus (Arizona State University).

[7] The journal's aim was to make important Soviet, Japanese, and West European research on the polar regions available in English.

[1] Subsequently, the journal's focus shifted to the north circumpolar region with emphasis on the Russian Arctic, publishing articles dealing with human as well as physical dimensions of Arctic and Subarctic environments.

[8] The following persons have been editor-in-chief: The journal is abstracted and indexed in ProQuest.