Ryke Yseøyane is a group of several small islands off the east coast of the island of
Edgeøya
Edgeøya (), anglicised as Edge Island, is a Norway, Norwegian island located in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; with an area of , it is the third-largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the Søraust-Svalbard ...
in
Svalbard
Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...
, Norway. The islands are named after the Dutch whaler Ryke Yse of
Vlieland
(; ) is a municipality and island in the northern Netherlands. The municipality of Vlieland is the second most sparsely populated municipality in the Netherlands, after Schiermonnikoog.
Vlieland is one of the West Frisian Islands, lying in t ...
, who discovered them about 1640–1645. The group was first marked by Hendrick Doncker, of Amsterdam, in 1663. Two Norwegian polar bear hunters wintered on Ryke Yseøyane for two subsequent winters in 1967–1969. During the second winter, one of them was lost in drifting ice. They are part of the
Southeast Svalbard Nature Reserve.
References
* Conway, W. M. 1906. ''No Man’s Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Norwegian Polar Institut
Place names in Norwegian polar areas
External links
Islands of Svalbard
Uninhabited islands of Norway
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