Center for Northern Studies

The Center's unique remote location and highly qualified faculty with decades of experience in Northern research and education combine to provide a thoughtful and stimulating opportunity to investigate the environment, peoples, and processes of the Circumpolar North.

The Center is located in Wolcott, a short drive from Sterling’s main campus. The Center’s northern New England location is actually a few miles nearer the equator than to the North Pole; however, this setting just under the Canadian border is subject to a climate that is far colder, during both summer and winter, than is normal for these latitudes. The Center site provides a natural subarctic laboratory on the periphery of an exceptional example of boreal forest and muskeg in northern New England.

 The Center sits at the edge of Bear Swamp, a rare remnant of the glacial ages. Tucked in a shallow basin amidst stands of balsam fir, red spruce, sugar maple, and paper birch, the swamp (which is technically a boreal fen rather than a swamp) acts as a cold sink. As the boreal forest spread northward in the wake of the receding continental ice sheet some ten thousand years ago, Bear Swamp retained its subarctic character. Today, the swamp provides a glimpse of the far North. The sphagnum, heaths, and stunted black spruce trees found here are comparable to those of interior Alaska. Boreal chickadees and black-backed woodpeckers frequent the swamp, as do fishers, bears, coyotes, deer, and cold-hardy mice and voles. Bear Swamp's physical, biological, and climatological features compare to those found only much further north. Consequently, the Center's location provides an ideal and accessible environment for investigation of regions of Arctic geography and ecology.

Selection of Majors

Northern Studies Library
The library at Center for Northern Studies contains 4,000 volumes ranging in subject from sociology and anthropology to botany, zoology, and ornithology, and from native art to northern film/literature. Students have access to a valuable collection of maps, government reports, documents, and monographs relating to research and exploration of the circumpolar north. In addition, we have an uncommon collection of more than 70 polar journals and periodicals, some of which date back to the turn of the century, as well as an herbarium containing approximately 10,000 specimens from throughout the northern world.