Northbrook Island
Encyclopedia
Franz Josef Land
Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land, or Francis Joseph's Land is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia. It is found in the Arctic Ocean north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast. Franz Josef Land consists of 191 ice-covered islands with a...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Its highest point is 344 m.
Northbrook Island is one of the most accessible locations in the island group. Thus it often served as a base for polar expeditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This island was named after the Earl of Northbrook
Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook
Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook PC, GCSI, FRS , was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
, who was President of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
between 1890 and 1893. The naming of the island was partly due to the insistence of Nikolai Góring, of whom was a part of the Earl's entourage during his Presidential term.
History
Cape Flora, located in an unglacierized area in the Southwest of Northbrook Island (79°57′N 50°05′E) camp is historically significant.British yachtsman and explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith
Benjamin Leigh Smith
Benjamin Leigh Smith, b. 1828 – d. 1913, was a British yachtsman and explorer. Between 1871 and 1882 Mr. Smith undertook no less than five scientific expeditions to Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. Benjamin Leigh Smith was shipwrecked at Cape Flora, Northbrook Island , in 1881. He discovered and...
was shipwrecked at Cape Flora in 1881.
A chance encounter between explorers Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
and Frederick George Jackson
Frederick George Jackson
Frederick George Jackson , British Arctic explorer, was educated at Denstone College and Edinburgh University.-Biography:...
took place here in 1896. Jackson was leading the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition
Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition
The Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land, 1894–97, was led by British Arctic explorer Frederick George Jackson and financed by newspaper proprietor Alfred Harmsworth. Jackson had been misled by false maps into believing that Franz Joseph Land was a land mass that extended to...
, based at Cape Flora, when this meeting occurred, on 17 June 1896.
A cape to the north of the island, at 80°55'N, was named Cape Bruce, after William Speirs Bruce
William Speirs Bruce
William Speirs Bruce was a London-born Scottish naturalist, polar scientist and oceanographer who organised and led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea. Among other achievements, the expedition established the first permanent weather station...
, the Scottish zoologist and oceanographer who had been a member of the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition.
In 1904, coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
was mined about 150 m (500 ft) up the slopes by explorers of the American Ziegler–Fiala Polar Expedition
Ziegler Polar Expedition
The Ziegler polar expedition of 1903–1905 was a failed attempt to reach the North Pole. The party remained stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued, yet all but one of its members survived. The expedition, funded by William Ziegler and led by Anthony Fiala, departed...
wintering over after their ship sank at Rudolf Island
Rudolf Island
Prince Rudolf Land, Crown Prince Rudolf Land, Prince Rudolf Island or Rudolf Island is the northernmost island of the Franz Josef Archipelago, Russia. The island was named by the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition in honor of Archduke Rudolf , Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia...
.
After a gruesome ordeal, navigator Valerian Albanov
Valerian Albanov
Valerian Ivanovich Albanov was a Russian navigator, best known for being one of only two survivors of the ill-fated Brusilov expedition of 1912.-Biography:...
and sailor Alexander Konrad
Alexander Konrad
Alexander Eduardovich Konrad was a Russian sailor. Along with Valerian Albanov, he was one of the only two survivors, and the only surviving sailor of the ill-fated Brusilov expedition.-Biography:...
, the sole survivors of the ill-fated expedition
Brusilov Expedition
The Brusilov Expedition was a Russian maritime expedition to the Arctic led by Captain Georgy Brusilov, which set out in 1912 to explore and map a route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific via a northeast passage known as the Northern Sea Route. The expedition was ill-planned and ill-executed...
of the St. Anna
Svyataya Anna
The ship Svyataya Anna , named after Saint Anne, was the Philomel-class gunvessel HMS Newport launched in England in 1867. She was sold in 1881 and renamed Pandora II. She was purchased again in about 1890 and renamed Blencathra, taking part in expeditions to the north coast of Russia...
, ended up on Cape Flora in 1914. Albanov and Konrad were ultimately rescued by the Saint Foka
Georgy Sedov
Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov was a Russian Arctic explorer.Born in the village of Krivaya Kosa of Taganrog district in a fisherman's family. In 1898, Sedov finished navigation courses in Rostov-on-Don and acquired the rank of long voyage navigator...
as they were preparing for the winter.
Adjacent islands
- Ostrov Robertsona (Остров Робертсона), Robertson Island is a small island lying right off Northbrook Island's eastern shore, close to its easternmost point. This island was named after ScottishScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
Anctartic explorer Captain Thomas Robertson of the 1904 the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition to the South Orkney IslandsSouth Orkney IslandsThe South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. They have a total area of about ....
on ship Scotia. - Ostrov Novyy lies less than 2 km to the SSW of Robertson, closer to the shore. Both islands are less than 1 km in length.
Sources
- Speak, Peter: William Speirs Bruce NMS Publishing, Edinburgh 2003 ISBN 1 901663 71 X
- All locations: http://worldmaps.web.infoseek.co.jp/russia_guide.htm
- Valerian Albanov. In the Land of White Death
- Captain Thomas Robertson: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/apr2004.html, http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/scotia/vs034-053.htm http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/0301sn2.html & http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/0301rob.html
External links
- Cape Flora, Northbrook Island on BlooseeBlooseeBlooSee is a social network and an ocean web mapping site where sailors, divers, surfers and other sea lovers geotag and share information and knowledge about the oceans. BlooSee is built in Python and uses the Google Maps API.BlooSee is owned by BlooSee, Inc...