n 1900-1902, Eduard Baron von Toll, a Baltic German geologist and Arctic explorer, headed an expedition of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences to the New Siberian Islands, the Russian Polar Expedition on Zarya. Zarya was a Norwegian schooner with…
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Easter Island or Rapa Nui in Polynesian, or Isla de Pascua in Spanish, is one of the most isolated places in the world, with its closest landmass about 4000 kilometers away. The island’s topography is characterized by windswept rolling hills, punctured by the occasional volcanic…
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The first USS Jeannette, a bark-rigged wooden steamship, was originally HMS Pandora, a Philomel-class gun-vessel of the Royal Naval force. The ship was built in 1861 at Pembroke Dockyard and was acquired in 1875 by Sir Allen Young for his arctic voyages in 1875-1876. The vessel was…
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Despite its name, Greenland in fact is almost 80 square meters covered with snow. It was Erik Thorvaldsson or better known as Erik the Red — a Viking leader – who coined the name Greenland, according to The Saga of Erik the Red, because he thought that «people would be attracted to go…
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“The sea is our field” is a popular old saying among a group of northern Russians who became known as Pomors. This saying captures the identity expressed in this far northern extreme of Russian settlement. Russian identity is traditionally linked to cereal agriculture and to steppe landscapes. The term Pomors …
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Sannikov Land was one of the greatest myths of Arctic geography and remaining fascinating to this day. Yakov Sannikov was the first one to report the island’s existence in 1810. Sannikov was …
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Long ago, the ocean was prohibited territory. Freediving puts public into a state where all of a sudden people realize how important and crucial it is to save it, be a part of it and not destroy it. That was the elemental message the movie “Dolphin Man” was trying to deliver. Nearly three years …
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Pete Willcox was shocked beyond measure; he heard a loud bang while he was fast asleep on the deck of his ship. Everything was suddenly pitch black and metal fragments were scattered everywhere. Willcox immediately got up to find the cause of the loud sound. He assumed the sound…
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Over a century ago in Fairhaven, Joshua Slocum set sail for the first time from the American city of Boston, Massachusetts, and succeeded in what many before and after him dreamed of, sailing around the…
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It has been 400 years since English explorer Henry Hudson mapped the northeast coast of North America, contributing significantly to our understanding of the northeastern waterways geography. In his honor, several bodies of water that he navigated now bear his name: Hudson Bay, the Hudson River, and Hudson Strait, yet what…
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A COMMANDER DESTINED FOR NAVAL SERVICE.
John Franklin was born in Spilsby, a village in the English county of Lincolnshire, in 1786. By marriage, he was a step-cousin of Royal Navy captain Matthew Flinders, who inspired Franklin to join its ranks when he was only 14. Franklin circumnavigated Australia with Flinders in …