Photo: Hob-nobbing at the pole

Here’s the drifting polar research camp called Barneo off Russia’s Arctic Ocean coast, 110 kilometres from the North Pole, where Russian researchers, and their colleagues from Norway and the United States, are spending April. This week, the station will also become “a palace for politics for the first time in its 13-year history,” RIA Novosti recently reported. Before Barneo closes on April 25, it will host talks with the Arctic Council’s top envoys for the first time. (FILE PHOTO)