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A map of the Arctic. The Arctic region is circled by
the red line.
Arctic exploration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic
region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during
which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic
Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have
explored the northern extremes since 325 BC, when the
ancient Greek sailor Pytheas reached a frozen sea while
attempting to find a source of the ocean.
[1]
Dangerous
oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers
attempting to reach polar regions and journeying through
these perils by sight, boat, and foot has proven difficult.
[1]
Contents
1 First attempts
1.1 Ancient Greece
1.2 The Middle Ages
2 Age of Discovery
2.1 Renaissance advancements in
cartography
2.2 The Northwest Passage
2.3 The Northeast Passage
3 Modern exploration
3.1 The North Pole
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
First attempts
Ancient Greece
Some scholars believe that the first attempts to penetrate the Arctic Circle can be traced to ancient Greece and the
sailor Pytheas, a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, who, in c. 325 BC, attempted to find the
source of the tin that would sporadically reach the Greek colony of Massilia (now Marseille) on the Mediterranean
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Viking sailors reached the White Sea to the east and Greenland and
North America to the west.
coast.
[1]
Sailing past the Pillars of Hercules, he reached Brittany and even Cornwall, eventually circumnavigating the
British Isles. From the local population, he heard news of the mysterious land of Thule, even farther to the north.
After six days of sailing, he reached land at the edge of a frozen sea (described by him as "curdled"), and described
what is believed to be the aurora and the midnight sun. While some historians claim that this new land of Thule was
the Norwegian coast or the Shetland Islands, based on his descriptions and the trade routes of early British sailors,
it is possible that Pytheas reached as far as Iceland.
While no one knows exactly how far Pytheas sailed, he may have crossed the Arctic Circle. Nevertheless, his tales
were regarded as fantasy by later Greek and Roman authorities, such as the geographer Strabo. It was impossible,
according to their perception of the world, for man to survive in these 'uninhabitable reaches'.
The Middle Ages
The first Viking to sight Iceland was
Gardar Svavarsson, who went off course
due to harsh conditions when sailing from
Norway to the Faroe Islands. This quickly
led to a wave of colonization. Not all the
settlers were successful however in the
attempts to reach the island. In the 10th
century, Gunnbjrn Ulfsson got lost in a
storm and ended up within sight of the
Greenland coast. His report spurred Erik
the Red, an outlawed chieftain, to establish
a settlement there in 985. While they
flourished initially, these settlements
eventually foundered due to changing
climatic conditions (see Little Ice Age).
They are believed to have survived until
around 1450.
Greenland's early settlers sailed westward,
in search of better pasturage and hunting grounds. Modern scholars debate the precise location of the new lands of
Vinland, Markland, and Helluland that they discovered.
The Scandinavian peoples also pushed farther north into their own peninsula by land and by sea. As early as 880,
the Viking Ohthere of Hlogaland rounded the Scandinavian Peninsula and sailed to the Kola Peninsula and the
White Sea. The Pechenga Monastery on the north of Kola Peninsula was founded by Russian monks in 1533; from
their base at Kola, the Pomors explored the Barents Region, Spitsbergen, and Novaya Zemlyaall of which are in
the Arctic Circle. They also explored north by boat, discovering the Northern Sea Route, as well as penetrating to
the trans-Ural areas of northern Siberia. They then founded the settlement of Mangazeya east of the Yamal
Peninsula in the early 16th century. In 1648 the Cossack Semyon Dezhnyov opened the now famous Bering Strait
between America and Asia.
Russian settlers and traders on the coasts of the White Sea, the Pomors, had been exploring parts of the northeast
passage as early as the 11th century. By the 17th century they established a continuous sea route from Arkhangelsk
as far east as the mouth of Yenisey. This route, known as Mangazeya seaway, after its eastern terminus, the trade
depot of Mangazeya, was an early precursor to the Northern Sea Route.
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Patent from King Henry VII,
authorizing John Cabot and his sons
to explore new lands in the west.
Gerard Mercator's map of the North
Pole, 1606.
Northwest Passage routes
Age of Discovery
Exploration above the Arctic Circle in the Renaissance was driven by the rediscovery of Classical learning and the
national quests for commercial expansion. This exploration was hampered by limits in maritime technology of the
age, lack of shelf-stable food supplies, and insufficient insulation for ships' crew against extreme cold.
Renaissance advancements in cartography
A seminal event in Arctic exploration occurred in 1409, when Ptolemy's
Geographia was translated into Latin, thereby introducing the concepts
of latitude and longitude into Western Europe.
[2]
Navigators were better
able to chart their positions, and the European race to China, sparked by
interest in the writings of Marco Polo, commenced. Just two years after
Columbus in 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Atlantic Ocean
between Spain and Portugal. Forced to seek other routes to the Orient,
rival countries like England, began considering the northern route over the
top of the globe.
The Inventio Fortunata, a lost book said to be a description of travels in
the North Atlantic by an unknown Friar, describes, in a summary written
by Jacobus Cnoyen but only found in a letter from Gerardus Mercator,
voyages as far as the North Pole.
[3]
One widely disputed claim is that
two brothers from Venice, Niccolo and Antonio Zeno, allegedly made a
map of their journeys to that region, which were published by their
descendants in 1558.
[4]
The Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage is a sea route connecting the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Ocean. Since the discovery of the
American continent was the product of the search for a route to Asia,
exploration around the northern edge of North America continued for the
Northwest Passage.
John Cabot's initial failure in 1497 to find a Northwest Passage across the Atlantic led the British to seek an
alternative route to the east.
Interest re-kindled in 1564 after Jacques Cartier's
discovery of the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. Martin
Frobisher had formed a resolution to undertake the
challenge of forging a trade route from England westward to
India. In 1576 - 1578, he took three trips to what is now
the Canadian Arctic in order to find the passage. Frobisher
Bay, which he discovered, is named after him. In July 1583,
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who had written a treatise on the
discovery of the passage and was a backer of Frobisher's,
claimed the territory of Newfoundland for the English crown. On August 8, 1585, under the employ of Elizabeth I
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Jan Jansson's map of the "Poli
Arctici" from 1644.
the English explorer John Davis entered Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island. Davis rounded Greenland before
dividing his four ships into separate expeditions to search for a passage westward. Though he was unable to pass
through the icy Arctic waters, he reported to his sponsors that the passage they sought is "a matter nothing doubtfull
[sic]," and secured support for two additional expeditions, reaching as far as Hudson Bay. Though England's efforts
were interrupted in 1587 because of Anglo-Spanish War, Davis's favorable reports on the region and its people
would inspire explorers in the coming century.
The Northeast Passage
The Northern Sea Route (capitalized) is a shipping lane from the Barent
Sea to the Bering Strait along the Russian northern coast as currently
officially defined by Russian Federation law; before the beginning of the
20th century it was known as the Northeast Passage.
The idea to explore this region was initially economic, and was first put
forward by Russian diplomat Dmitry Gerasimov in 1525. The vast
majority of the route lies in Arctic waters and parts are only free of ice
for two months per year, making it a very perilous journey.
In the mid-16th century, John Cabot's son Sebastian helped organize just
such an expedition, led by Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor.
Willoughby's crew was shipwrecked off the Kola Peninsula, where they
eventually died of scurvy. Chancellor and his crew made it to the mouth
of the Dvina River, where they were met by a delegation from the Tsar, Ivan the Terrible. Brought back to
Moscow, he launched the Muscovy Company, promoting trade between England and Russia. This diplomatic
course allowed British Ambassadors such as Sir Francis Cherry the opportunity to consolidate geographic
information developed by Russian merchants into maps for British exploration of the region. Some years later,
Steven Borough, the master of Chancellor's ship, made it as far as the Kara Sea, when he was forced to turn back
because of icy conditions.
[5]
Western parts of the passage were simultaneously being explored by Northern European countries like England, the
Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, looking for an alternative seaway to China and India. Although these
expeditions failed, new coasts and islands were discovered. Most notable is the 1596 expedition led by Dutch
navigator Willem Barentsz who discovered Spitsbergen and Bear Island.
Fearing English and Dutch penetration into Siberia, Russia closed the Mangazeya seaway in 1619. Pomor activity in
Northern Asia declined and the bulk of exploration in the 17th century was carried out by Siberian Cossacks,
sailing from one river mouth to another in their Arctic-worthy kochs. In 1648 the most famous of these expeditions,
led by Fedot Alekseev and Semyon Dezhnev, sailed east from the mouth of Kolyma to the Pacific and doubled the
Chukchi Peninsula, thus proving that there was no land connection between Asia and North America.
[6]
Eighty
years after Dezhnev, in 1728, another Russian explorer, Danish-born Vitus Bering on Sviatoy Gavriil made a
similar voyage in reverse, starting in Kamchatka and going north to the passage that now bears his name (Bering
Strait). It was Bering who gave their current names to Diomede Islands, discovered and first described by
Dezhnev.
[7]
It was not until in 1878 that Finnish-Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskild made the first complete passage of
the North East Passage from west to east, in the Vega expedition. The ship's captain on this expedition was
Lieutenant Louis Palander of the Swedish Royal Navy.
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Roald Amundsen led the first
expedition to reach the South Pole,
was the first person to reach both
poles, and was the first person to
traverse the Northwest Passage.
Modern exploration
In the first half of the 19th century, parts of the Northwest Passage were
explored separately by a number of different expeditions, including those
by John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross; and overland
expeditions led by John Franklin, George Back, Peter Warren Dease,
Thomas Simpson, and John Rae. Sir Robert McClure was credited with
the discovery of the Northwest Passage by sea in 1851
[8]
when he
looked across M'Clure Strait from Banks Island and viewed Melville
Island. However, the strait was blocked by young ice at this point in the
season, and not navigable to ships.
[9]
The only usable route, linking the
entrances of Lancaster Sound and Dolphin and Union Strait was first
used by John Rae in 1851. Rae used a pragmatic approach of traveling
by land on foot and dog sled, and typically employed less than ten people
in his exploration parties.
[10]
The Northwest Passage was not completely conquered by sea until
1906, when the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had sailed
just in time to escape creditors seeking to stop the expedition, completed
a three-year voyage in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gja. At the
end of this trip, he walked into the city of Eagle, Alaska, and sent a
telegram announcing his success. His route was not commercially
practical; in addition to the time taken, some of the waterways were
extremely shallow.
[11]
The North Pole
On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary claimed to be the first person in recorded history to reach the North Pole
[8]
(although whether he actually reached the Pole is doubted by some).
[1][12]
He traveled with the aid of dogsleds and
three separate support crews who turned back at successive intervals before reaching the Pole. Many modern
explorers, including Olympic skiers using modern equipment, contend that Peary could not have reached the pole
on foot in the time he claimed. In 2005 British explorer Tom Avery, with four colleagues, completed a trek to the
pole in 36 days, 22 hours and 11 minutes using 16 husky dogs, and pulling two sledges which were replicas of
those used by Peary. Some believe Avery's expedition has vindicated Peary, showing that Peary's speeds were not
so impossible after all, since Avery's time was some four hours faster than Peary's claim. However a close
examination of Avery's speeds only casts more doubt on Peary's claim: while Peary claimed to have made good an
incredible 135 nautical miles (250 km; 155 mi) in his final five days, Avery managed only 71. Indeed, Avery never
exceeded 90 nautical miles (170 km) made good in any five-day stretch. Further, Avery had the luxury of an airlift
back to shore, and so had lightly loaded sledges in his final five days, while Peary was loaded down with all food
and supplies needed for his return. Avery was able to equal Peary's 37-day total time only because Peary spent five
days encamped by a big lead, making no progress at all.
A number of previous expeditions set out with the intention of reaching the North Pole but did not succeed; that of
British naval officer William Edward Parry, in 1827, the American Polaris expedition in 1871, the ill-fated Jeannette
Expedition in 1879 commanded by US Navy Lt Cmdr George W. DeLong, and Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen in
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Robert Peary and sledge party with
flags at North Pole. Peary has been
claimed to be the first person to reach
the north pole.
1895. American Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North
Pole in 1908, but this has not been widely accepted.
[13]
The crew of the airship Norge (including Roald Amundsen and the
American sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth) observed the Pole on May 12,
1926. This is the first undisputed sighting of the Pole. Norge was
designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile, who overflew the
Pole a second time on May 24, 1928.
The first people to have without doubt walked on the North Pole were
the Soviet party of 1948 under the command of Alexander Kuznetsov,
who landed their aircraft nearby and walked to the pole.
[14]
On August 3, 1958, the US submarine Nautilus reached the North Pole
without surfacing. It then proceeded to travel under the entire Polar ice
cap. On March 17, 1959 the USS Skate surfaced on the North Pole and
dispersed the ashes of explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. These journeys were
part of military explorations stimulated by the Cold War context.
On April 19, 1968, Ralph Plaisted reached the North Pole via
snowmobile, the first surface traveler known with certainty to have done
so. His position was verified independently by a US Air Force
meteorological overflight. In 1969 Wally Herbert, on foot and by dog sled, became the first man to reach the North
Pole on muscle power alone, on the 60th anniversary of Robert Peary's famous but disputed expedition.
The first persons to reach the North Pole on foot (or skis) and return with no outside help, no dogs, air planes, or
re-supplies were Richard Weber (Canada) and Misha Malakhov (Russia) in 1995. No one has completed this
journey since.
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict landed a plane at
the Pole on May 3, 1952, accompanied by the scientist Albert P. Crary.
On 2 May 2007, BBC's Top Gear got to the 1996 position of the magnetic north pole ( ) in
modified Toyota Hilux.
On 2 August 2007 Arktika 2007 went to the sea-bed below the pole.
On April 26, 2009, Vassily Elagin, Afanassi Makovnev, Vladimir Obikhod, Sergey Larin, Alexey Ushakov, Alexey
Shkrabkin and Nikolay Nikulshin after 38 days and over 2,000 km (1,200 mi) (starting from Sredniy Island,
Severnaya Zemlya) drove two Russian built cars "Yemelya-1" and "Yemelya-2" to the North Pole.
See also
Farthest North
List of polar explorers
List of Arctic expeditions
List of Arctic exploration vessels
7835.7N 10411.9W
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List of firsts in the Geographic North Pole
Great Northern Expedition
List of Antarctic expeditions
Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
History of Antarctica
History of research ships
List of Russian explorers
Timeline of European exploration
Drifting ice station
Notes
1. ^
a

b

c

d
"ARCTIC, THE" (http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/arctic_the.jsp). Columbia Encyclopedia,
Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. 2004. Retrieved 2006-10-19.
2. ^ Online Exhibit Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture
(http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/d-mathematics/Ptolemy_geo.html)
3. ^ Taylor, E.G.R. (1956), "A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee", Imago Mundi 13: 5668,
doi:10.1080/03085695608592127 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F03085695608592127)
4. ^ "Zeno, Nicolo and Antonio" at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (http://www.biographi.ca/009004-
119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=592)
5. ^ Wright, Helen Saunders (1910). The great white North: the story of polar exploration from the earliest times to
the discovery of the Pole (http://books.google.com/books?
id=ieG_CFj7OLIC&dq=helen+wright+great+white+north&source=gbs_navlinks_s). The Macmillan co. p. 7.
6. ^ Fisher, Raymond H (1981). The Voyage of Semen Dezhnev in 1648. The Hakluyt Society.
7. ^ Natasha Okhotina Lind; Peter Ulf Mller, eds. (2002). Under Vitus Bering's Command: New Perspectives on the
Russian Kamchatka Expeditions (Beringiana, 1). Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. ISBN 87-7288-932-2.
8. ^
a

b
"ARCTIC EXPLORATION - CHRONOLOGY"
(http://web.archive.org/web/20060911074922/http://www.quarkexpeditions.com/arctic/exploration.shtml). Quark
Expeditions. 2004. Archived from the original (http://www.quarkexpeditions.com/arctic/exploration.shtml) on
2006-09-11. Retrieved 2006-10-19.
9. ^ Burton, p. 219.
10. ^ Richards, R. L. (2000). "John Rae" (http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6386). Dictionary
of Canadian Biography Online. Retrieved 2006-10-20.
11. ^ "Northwest Passage" (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?
PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005816). The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-20.
12. ^ "North Pole" (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=J1ARTJ0005796).
The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-20.
13. ^ See references on Frederick Cook for more information.
14. ^ Concise chronology of approach to the poles, Scott Polar Research Institute. retrieved 2010-06-04.
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References
Berton, Pierre (1988). The Arctic Grail. Anchor Canada edition [2001], ISBN 0-385-65845-1
Michael Robinson (historian) (2006). The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture.
University of Chicago Press
Richard Sale (2002). To the ends of the earth London.
External links
To the North Pole (http://www.life.com/gallery/54461/to-the-north-pole#index/0) - slideshow by Life
magazine
Freeze Frame (http://www.freezeframe.ac.uk/home/home) - collection of historic polar images at the Scott
Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Represents the history of British exploration and science
in the Arctic and Antarctic during the period 1845-1960. Also covers early European and international
collaborative ventures in the polar regions, portraiture, shipping and aerial reconnaissance.
"Why Go To The Arctic?", January 1931, Popular Mechanics (http://books.google.com/books?
id=reMDAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA1-
PA26&dq=Popular+Mechanics+1931+curtiss&hl=en&ei=n0b5TOKXGoG6ngebzLz3CA&sa=X&oi=boo
k_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=true)
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