The Nordenskiöld Archipelago or Nordenskjold Archipelago (russian: Архипелаг Норденшельда, Arkhipelag Nordenshel'da) is a large and complex cluster of islands in the eastern region of the

Kara Sea The Kara Sea (russian: Ка́рское мо́ре, ''Karskoye more'') is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. ...

. Its eastern limit lies west of the

Taymyr Peninsula The Taymyr Peninsula (russian: Таймырский полуостров, Taymyrsky poluostrov) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administrati ...

. There are about 90 cold, windswept and desolate islands in this archipelago. These are mainly formed by

igneous rock Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main The three types of rocks, rock types, the others being Sedimentary rock, sedimentary and metamorphic rock, metamorphic. Igneous rock ...

s and are covered with

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...

vegetation. Except for two

polar station A number of governments maintain permanent research stations in the Arctic. Also known as Arctic bases, polar stations or ice stations, these bases are widely distributed across the northern polar region of Earth. Historically few research sta ...

s, one which was permanent in

Russky Island Russky Island (russian: Ру́сский о́стров, lit. ''Russian Island'') is an island in Peter the Great Gulf in the Sea of Japan, in Primorsky Krai, Russia. It is the largest island in the Eugénie Archipelago, separated from the M ...

between 1935 and 1999 and a temporary one in Tyrtov Island (Tyrtova) (1940-1975), there is no permanent human presence in any island of the archipelago.

Geography

The Nordenskiöld Archipelago stretches for almost from west to east and about from north to south in the

, off the

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

n shores, where there are large coastal islands around

Taymyr Island Taymyr Island () is a large island in the coast of the Kara Sea. Its length is and its average width about . This island is located west of the Taymyr Gulf in an area of skerries right off the western coast of the Taymyr Peninsula. The narrow stra ...

. The average elevation of the islands is relatively low. The highest point of the archipelago (107 m) is located in Chabak, one of the islands of the Vilkitsky subgroup. Some of the islands have

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

. The climate in the Nordenskiöld Archipelago is Arctic and severe. The sea surrounding the multitude of island groups is covered with fast ice in the winter and it is obstructed by pack ice even in the summer, which lasts only about two months in a normal year. This island group belongs to the

Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District (russian: Таймы́рский Долга́но-Не́нецкий райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #10-4765 and municipalLaw #2-54 district (raion), one of the forty-three in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia ...

of the

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai ( rus, Красноя́рский край, r=Krasnoyarskiy kray, p=krəsnɐˈjarskʲɪj ˈkraj) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai), with its administrative center in the city of Krasnoyarsk, the third-largest city in Siber ...

administrative division of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Islands

The Nordenskiöld Archipelago has been divided for geographical purposes into groups. The main ones are from west to east:

Tsivolko Islands

The Tsivolko Islands (острова Циволько; ''Ostrova Tsivolko'') is the westernmost group. * Krasin Island, named after icebreaker Krasin, the biggest island in the group. * Lenin Island * Yermak Island * Kuchum Island * Sadko Island * Schultz Island * Mametkul Island * Vitte Island (Lemeshok) * Kovalevsky Island * Ukromny Island * Brandwacht Island * Savvy Loshkin Island * Vasilyev Island * Gryada Island *

Kazak Island Kazak Island lies 1 km south of Hawker Island and 0.5 km west of the Mule Peninsula, in Prydz Bay on the Ingrid Christensen Coast of Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica. The nearest permanent research station is Australia's Davis Stati ...

* Ledokol Island * Makarov Island * Oktyabr Island

Vilkitsky Islands

The Vilkitsky Islands (острова Вилькицкого), also known as 'Dzhekman Islands' , located north of the Matisen Strait. * Novyy Island (New Island) * Strizhev Island * Chabak Island, the biggest and highest island in the group. * Tsentralny Island (Central Island) * Korsar Island * Opasnyye Islands, group of small islets * Grozny Island (Terrible Island) * Tugut Island * Pet Island * Smezhny Island * Shvetsov Island * Dzhekman Island * Kamenisty Island * Ovalny Island * Hovgaard Island (Khovgarda) * Herberstein Island (Gerbersteina)

Pakhtusov Islands

The Pakhtusov Islands (острова Пахтусова; ''Ostrova Pakhtusova'') , located south of the Lenin Strait. *

Alexandra Island Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "prot ...

* Pakhtusov Island * Shpanberg Island *

Truvor Island Sineus and Truvor were the brothers of Rurik, a chieftain of the Varangian Rus tribe considered to be the founder of the Rurik dynasty, which ruled the Kievan Rus'. Description According to the 12th-century Kievan '' Primary Chronicle'', a gr ...

* Silach Island * Petersen Island, largest island in the group. * Olyeg Island * Dobrynia Nikitich Island * Skudnye Island * Zverolovny Island * Granichny Island * Navarin Island * Yurt Island * Kotovsky Island

Litke Islands

The Litke Islands (острова Литке; ''Ostrova Litke''), . This group includes

(остров Русский; ''Ostrov Russkiy'') . Located at the archipelago's northern end, this is the largest island of the Nordenskiöld group. * Shileyko Island, close to Russky's southern coast * Torosny Island, with 42 m, the highest point in the subgroup * Sofii Island * Sikora Island * Unkovsky Island * Yermolov Island, large island, south of Shileyko * Pedashenko Island * Tribrata Island (Three Brothers Islands), a group of three small islands

Vostyochnyye Islands

The Vostyochnyye Islands (Восточные острова; ''Vostyochnyye Ostrova'', "Eastern Islands"), latitude 76° 38' N and longitude 97° 30' E. This group includes the Kolomeitsev Islands (острова Коломейцева; ''Ostrova Kolomeytseva'') . * Tyrtov Island, longest island of the group * Lovtsov Island * Zheleznyakov Island * Dezhnev Islands, small group of two islands * Matros Island, 54 m high rocky island * Salome Island * Volna Island (Wave Island) * Yevgeny Fyodorov Islands, group of two relatively large islands * Nord Island, named after ship ''Nord'' of the

Russian Hydrographic Department The Russian Hydrographic Service, full current official name Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation ( rus, Управление навигации и океанографии Министер ...

. *

Bianki Island Vitaly Valentinovich Bianki (russian: Вита́лий Валенти́нович Биа́нки; 11 February 1894, St. Petersburg — 10 June 1959, Leningrad) was a popular Russian children’s writer and a prolific author of books on nature. E ...

* Leskinen Island * Dalniy Island * Priemny Island, the easternmost island of the archipelago

Coastal islands

The southern extension of the wider archipelago, consisting of the islands located south of the Matisen Strait near and around Taymyr Island.

Kolchak Island Kolchak Island or Kolchaka Island (russian: остров Колчака, ''ostrov Kolchaka''), is an island in the Kara Sea located in a coastal area of skerries NE of the Shturmanov Peninsula. It is near the southern end of the Nordenskiöld Arc ...

, located further south, is not geographically part of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago in the strict sense. *

, the largest island of the coastal group * Bonevi Island *

Nansen Island Nansen Island or Isla Nansen Sur is the largest of the islands lying in Wilhelmina Bay off the west coast of Graham Land, lying east of Emma Island, Antarctica, Emma Island. Nansen Island was discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (18 ...

, a large island * Pravdy Island *

Vkhodnoy Island Vkhodnoy Island is a small island in the Haswell Islands, lying 0.5 nautical miles (0.9 km) southwest of Tokarev Island and 1.4 nautical miles (2.6 km) northwest of Mabus Point. History Plotted by G.D. Blodgett (1955) from aerial pho ...

* Nablyudeniy Island * Bliznetsy Islands * Rifovyy Island * Nizkiy Island * Moiseyev Island * Lafetnyye Islands * Ledyanyye Islands * Skalistyye Island * Rozmyslov Island * Malyy Island * Serp i Molot Island * Zvezda Island * Pilot Alexeyev Island * Pilot Makhotkin Island, a large island with a very indented coastline * Siversiy Island

History

This archipelago was first reported in 1740 by Nikifor Chekin, who accompanied

Semion Chelyuskin Semyon Ivanovich Chelyuskin (; c. 1700 – 1764) was a Russian polar explorer and naval officer. Chelyuskin graduated from the Navigation School in Moscow. He first became a deputy navigator while serving in the Baltic Fleet (1726) and later pr ...

in the

Great Northern Expedition The Great Northern Expedition (russian: Великая Северная экспедиция) or Second Kamchatka Expedition (russian: Вторая Камчатская экспедиция) was one of the largest exploration enterprises in hi ...

. Many years later it was named after arctic explorer

Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (18 November 183212 August 1901) was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the Fenno-Swedish Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friher ...

by Norwegian polar explorer

Fridtjof Nansen Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (; 10 October 186113 May 1930) was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, and humanitarian. He led the team t ...

in his maps of the northern coasts and seas of Siberia. In 1893, when

's ''

Fram Fram may refer to: Ships * ''Fram'' (ship), an arctic exploration vessel from Norway * MS ''Fram'', expedition cruise ship owned by Hurtigruten Group Places and geography * Fram, Paraguay, a town in Itapúa, Paraguay * Fram Formation, a se ...

'' was near the Nordenskjold Archipelago, it got stuck in dead water. This is a strange phenomenon that typically occurs in

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...

s, as glaciers melt and a form a shallow layer of freshwater ice over salty water. This is how Nansen described the phenomenon: In 1900 the islands of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago were explored and mapped with accuracy by Captain

Fyodor Andreyevich Matisen Fyodor Andreyevich Matisen (or Mathiesen) (russian: Фёдор Андреевич Матисен) (1 June ( O.S. 20 May) 1872, Saint Petersburg – 19 December 1921, Irkutsk) was an officer of the Russian Imperial Navy, hydrographer, and explore ...

during the

Russian polar expedition of 1900–1902 The Russian polar expedition of 1900–1902 was commissioned by the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences to study the Arctic Ocean north of New Siberian Islands and search for the legendary Sannikov Land. It was led by the Baltic German geologist ...

. This venture was led by

Baron Eduard Von Toll Eduard Gustav Freiherr von Toll (russian: Эдуа́рд Васи́льевич Толль, translit=Eduárd Vasíl'evič Toll'; 1902), better known in Russia as Eduard Vasilyevich Toll and often referred to as Baron von Toll, was a Russian ge ...

on behalf of the Imperial

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

aboard ship ''

Zarya Zarya may refer to: *Zorya, personification of dawn in Slavic mythology * Zarya (antenna), a type of medium-wave broadcasting antenna used in former Soviet Union *Zarya (ISS module) is a module of the International Space Station. * ''Zarya'' (magazi ...

''. Toll sent Matisen to make a survey of the archipelago in the early spring while the ''Zarya'' was wintering close to

. Most islands of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago were charted and named during this effort. Matisen crisscrossed the whole vast frozen area on

dogsled A dog sled or dog sleigh is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing. Traditionally in Greenland and the e ...

twice. He divided the archipelago into four of the five main groups mentioned above and named more than forty islands. Like Nansen, Eduard Toll observed that it was difficult to navigate through the archipelago on account of the ice.

William Barr William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the 77th and 85th United States attorney general in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump. Born and raised in New York City, Barr ...

, ''Baron Eduard Von Toll's Last Expedition.'', ARCTIC Sept 1980 After the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...

, the archipelago was explored in the 1930s by a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

expedition on the icebreaker ''

Sedov Sedov may refer to: * STS Sedov, a sail training ship * Sedov (surname) * Georgiy Sedov (icebreaker) * 2785 Sedov, an asteroid * Cape Sedov, an Antarctic ice cape {{Disambiguation ...

''. In 1937 the Arctic Institute of the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

organized an expedition on ship ''Toros''. The purpose of this expedition was to explore the Nordenskiöld Archipelago and to thoroughly investigate the

Northern Sea Route The Northern Sea Route (NSR) (russian: Се́верный морско́й путь, ''Severnyy morskoy put'', shortened to Севморпуть, ''Sevmorput'') is a shipping route officially defined by Russian legislation as lying east of Nov ...

in the

. The ''Toros'' overwintered in Ledyanaya Bay on Bonevi Island west of

and sailed back to

Archangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near i ...

during the summer thaw after having explored many Kara Sea islands. On 25 August 1942, during

Operation Wunderland Operation Wunderland ("Wonderland") comprised a large-scale operation undertaken in summer 1942 by the German ''Kriegsmarine'' in the waters of the Northern Sea Route close to the Arctic Ocean. The Germans knew that many ships of the Soviet Navy ...

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

cruiser ''Admiral Scheer'' fell upon the Russian icebreaker '' Sibiryakov'' (under the command of Captain Kacharev) off the northwest coast of

at the northern end of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago. The ''Sibiryakov'' resisted but was sunk by the German warship. Then ''Admiral Scheer'' headed southwest in order to attack the

military installations at Dikson. Since May 1993 the Nordenskiöld Archipelago is part of the

Great Arctic State Nature Reserve The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve (russian: Большой Арктический государственный природный заповедник) is a nature reserve in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. With an area of , it is the largest res ...

, the largest

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

of Russia.Nature Reserve
The Arctic station at Russky Island was closed in 1999.

References

Bibliography

Valerian Albanov Valerian Ivanovich Albanov (russian: Валериа́н Ива́нович Альбанов; 26 May 1881 – 1919) was a Russian navigator, best known for being one of two survivors of the Brusilov expedition of 1912, which killed 22. Ea ...

, ''In the Land of the White Death'', 2001. Contains pictures of Fridtjof Nansen's early Arctic maps.

External links

*
The Nordenskiöld Archipelago; Ousland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nordenskiold Archipelago Archipelagoes of the Arctic Ocean Archipelagoes of the Kara Sea Archipelagoes of Krasnoyarsk Krai Uninhabited islands of Russia