I found this narrative graphic to be really interesting. The story behind this is that of a secret mission by the US military to explore potential submarine routes in the Arctic during the Cold War. This NYTimes article reports that "the Arctic became a theater of military operations in which the Soviets tried to hide their missile-carrying subs under the fringes of the ice pack while American attack subs tried relentlessly to track them. The goal was to destroy the Soviet subs if the cold war turned hot, doing so quickly enough to keep them from launching their missiles and nuclear warheads at the United States." Beyond just the historical intrigue, the topic of navigating through ice ways is becoming increasingly relevant. "Today the issue is hot, because melting polar ice is opening up new shipping lanes and exposing potentially vast deposits of natural resources, including oil. A modern gold rush is getting under way."
As for the graphic, I like that it tells a story even if it's not a particularly clear one. For one thing, it takes a while for the viewer to decipher where the story "starts" since the beginning is not clearly marked and is off to one side of the graphic. Since the accompanying story talks about the boarder disputes between Russia and the US, it would have been useful to see some visual marker as to what Russia considered its boarder and the far smaller one the US government recognized.
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