Land of Wrangel Franz Joseph. Franz Josef Land. Franz Josef Land - islands. Franz Josef Land - tours. Joining Russia and further development

The famous Lomonosov predicted the existence of these islands, and after him Kropotkin spoke about it. Even in 1871, he proposed his own expedition project to the Russian Geographical Society, but the government did not provide him with the necessary funds. Therefore, the archipelago was discovered by chance during the Austrian expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht. This happened in 1872. Only two years later, scientists compiled a map of the vast archipelago. The newly discovered land was named by Austrian travelers after the Austrian emperor. Where is it located?

The Franz Josef Land region is part of a small natural zone, which is also called the polar desert zone, they have a small area. For example, on Hayes Island there is a meteorological station called the Krenkel Observatory; it is considered the northernmost on the planet. Franz Josef Land has a typically arctic climate. In summer, the average temperature reaches from 1.2 to 1.6 degrees. But in January, the average temperature drops to -24 degrees, although drops of up to -52 degrees occur.

Features of Franz Josef Land

The Franz Josef Land archipelago includes a total of 191 islands. The largest islands include: George Land, Alexandra Land, Graham Bell and Wilczek Land. It is believed that these islands began to form over 410 million years ago. Deep straits separate the islands from each other. They are characterized by constant strong currents; in a short time, algae clog the narrow passage between the ice and the islands. As a result, ships cannot pass through. Note that Franz Josef Land is approximately 85 percent glaciers. Therefore, there is almost no vegetation on the islands. You can only see lichens and mosses, although there are over 250 species of them here. What hotels in . Choose for yourself.

Since the archipelago is so lifeless, it is often called the lunar archipelago. As for the fauna, there are many animals here. The inhabitants of the islands include arctic foxes, polar bears and others. The local reservoirs are inhabited by: bearded seal, seal, beluga whale, narwhal, walrus, and Greenland walrus. According to eyewitnesses, polar bears calmly walk next to the side of the icebreaker, standing on their hind legs, they carefully examine people. It's an interesting sight. The feathered inhabitants of the islands of Franz Josef Land include: guillemots, kittiwakes, little auks, white gulls, guillemots and glaucous guillemots. On multi-meter rocks and cliffs, they gather in unique bird colonies.

After the first expedition of Austrian travelers, expeditions from other major countries of the world began to arrive on this land. Therefore, the feet of the British, Norwegians, Russians, Americans, Germans, Italians and Poles set foot on the islands. Over the decades, Franz Josef Land has become a place of interesting, sometimes tragic events. We are talking about the opening of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route. In this harsh region, many found their last refuge.

Franz Josef Land today

At the moment, no one lives permanently on the archipelago. There are also no settlements or municipalities here. The temporary population consists of: scientists working at research stations, as well as military personnel of the air defense unit and FSB border guards. These specialists are engaged in Russian missile defense. In 2005, a post office was established on Hayes Island, making it the northernmost of its kind. This post office is open for only one hour, four times a week.

When the International Geophysical Year began, scientists began to intensively study the glaciation of the archipelago. For two years, members of the Russian expedition carried out field work. They were able to obtain the first summary of the glaciology of the territory, which was published in the collective monographic work “Glaciation of Franz Joseph Land”. This publication describes the morphology of glacial complexes, ice formation zones, glacial climate, temperature regime, as well as tectonics and structure of glaciers.

Around that period, members of the expedition led by M.G. Grovald came to the conclusion that the glaciation of these islands is gradually decreasing. For example, over the past thirty years, the archipelago has lost an average of 3.3 square kilometers of ice every year. Before these works, the world scientific community believed that the glaciation of Franz Josef Land was increasing from time to time. Today, ice thickness varies between 100-500 meters. Due to the glaciers that descend into the sea, many icebergs are formed. Quite strong glaciation can be seen in the east and southeast of the archipelago. In this case, ice formation occurs only at the tops of glacier domes. Due to the shrinking glaciers of the archipelago, in about three hundred years the glaciation of the islands may come to a minimum or disappear altogether.

The Russian Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land lies east of Spitsbergen and northwest of the Novaya Zemlya Islands, far above the Arctic Circle and less than a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. Almost all of the 196 islands of the archipelago are located north of 80° N. w. The duration of the polar night in these places is 125 days, and the polar day is about 140.
The entire archipelago is divided into three groups. Eastern - the islands of Wilczek Land and Graham Bell - separated by the Austrian Strait. Central - many small islands, including Rudolf, Jackson, Salisbury and Hooker islands - lies between the Austrian Strait and the British Channel. Western - the largest islands of the archipelago George's Land with a height of 620 m and Alexandra Land - are separated by the British Channel.
The straits and channels 500-600 m deep, separating the islands, are wide crevices cut through the basalt mass by powerful glaciers. Glaciers appeared on Franz Josef Land about a million years ago, when a period of cooling began in the Northern Hemisphere.
The relief of the islands of Franz Josef Land is represented by hills that form clusters in the form of a basalt plateau and reach an average height of 400-500 m above sea level. The plateau is covered with ice domes with tongues of glaciers leading to a cliff on the seashore, where icebergs break off from the glacier. On average, the glaciers of the archipelago lose up to 3.3 km 3 of ice in the form of icebergs per year. Glaciers cover over 85% of the archipelago's surface, and the ice thickness reaches 100-500 m.
The small ice-free surface is represented by rocky “oases”, bare capes and nunataks - rocks protruding above the surface of the ice sheet. Where there is no ice, permafrost reigns, and numerous nameless lakes can be seen. There are more than a thousand lakes here, some of which are quite large: up to 2 km2 in area and up to 10 m deep. Most of the year the lakes are covered with ice.
The entire archipelago is located in a zone of typical Arctic climate. In winter, the temperature drops to -52°C, stormy winds blow continuously, and snowstorms rage. The temperature could drop even lower, but in winter the force of the frost is to a large extent mitigated by the warm waters of the current.

History of discovery

Flora and fauna

general information

Large islands: Wilczek Land, Graham Bell, George Land.
Distance: 900 km from the North Pole, 1220 km from the mainland.

Origin: tectonic.

Largest lakes: Cosmic, Ice, Shallow, Northern, Utinoe, Shirshova.

Numbers

An archipelago of 196 islands.

Length: 375 km from west to east, 234 km from south to north.

Total area of ​​glaciation: 13.7 thousand km 2.

Highest point: Mount Wiener Stadt (Forbes Glacier. 620 m).

Climate and weather

Average January temperature:-24°C.

Average temperature in July: down to -1.4°C.

Average annual precipitation: 200 mm on coasts, up to 500 mm on ice domes.

Wind speed: up to 40 m/s.

Attractions

Curious facts

■ The most powerful glaciation can be traced in the southeast and east of each island and the entire Franz Josef Land archipelago. Ice forms only at the tops of ice domes. The glaciers of the archipelago are steadily shrinking. If the rate of glacier reduction continues, all glaciation on Franz Josef Land will disappear within 300 years.
■ Geophysical Polar Observatory named after Ernst Krenkel (formerly called “Druzhnaya”) on Hayes Island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago - the only observatory in Russia in the region of the geomagnetic polar cap.

■ Austria-Hungary, which fought on the side of Germany in the First World War, was too busy with problems in Europe and did not protest against the declaration of Franz Josef Land as Russian territory.
■ Freshwater Lake Cosmic on Hayes Island received its name on October 22, 1957, in connection with the first launch of weather rockets from the surface of the lake.
■ From the 1930s to the mid-1990s. The Franz Josef Land archipelago was a closed territory on which military installations of defense significance were located.
■ According to some reports, during the Second World War, in the western part of the island of Alexandra Land there was a German weather station and a base for laying and refueling submarines.
■ According to various sources, up to one million empty barrels of fuel and lubricants have accumulated on the islands of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, the removal of which may take at least eight years.

■ Since there are so many birds on the islands, they often get caught in helicopter blades. In this case, tourists have to return to the icebreaker using a boat.
■ In the late 1970s. Hydrographers from the Ministry of the Navy found a letter from one of the leaders of the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1873-1874 on the island of Lamon in Franz Josef Land. Karl Weyprecht. The letter, wrapped in wax paper and foil, lay in a wooden cylinder for more than a hundred years. It reported on the plight of the expedition. Kept in the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic in St. Petersburg.

■ In 1929, an expedition on the icebreaking steamer “Sedov” under the leadership of O.Yu. Schmidt, the future head of the Main Northern Sea Route and an academician, planted a Soviet flag made of iron on Hooker Island and declared the islands to be the territory of the USSR.

The administration of the Russian Arctic National Park is planning a “Living History of the Arctic” on the Franz Josef Land archipelago by 2020, the exhibition of which will feature the first Soviet polar station, cars, installations, wildlife objects, all-terrain vehicles and aircraft.

On the island of Alexandra Land, part of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, at the Nagurskoye border outpost, the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was erected - the northernmost Christian temple in the world. It was consecrated in 2012.

In the fall of 2014, on the Franz Josef Land archipelago to recreate military infrastructure. On the island of Alexandra Land there are objects of a technical position and administrative-residential, warehouse, utility and park areas, as well as the Nagurskoye airfield. The construction of the administrative and residential complex "Arctic Trefoil" is also underway here, which is the only capital construction project in the world being built at 80 degrees north latitude.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Where permafrost prevails, and the average annual temperature is −12 °C.

The Archipelago is located approximately a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. Most of Franz Josef Land is covered by glaciers.

Although, one should not confuse FJL with the North Pole. In summer, temperatures here can still reach +12 °C and the snow usually melts in July.

During this period, the ground is exposed, which in just a couple of weeks is covered with mosses and lichens, as well as flowering polar poppies, saxifrage, polar willow and other unpretentious plants.

There are not that many birds here, but they are there. These are little auks, guillemots, guillemots, kittiwakes, white gulls, glaucous gulls, terns, skuas, eiders, geese, etc.

Animals include polar bear and arctic fox. By the way, did you know that the polar bear is a marine mammal and even the Latin name for the polar bear - Ursus maritimus - translates as “sea bear”? In the sea there are also seals, bearded seals, harp seals, walruses, narwhals and beluga whales.

Franz Josef Land is a region that is part of a small natural zone known as the polar desert zone.

People have never lived in the FJL for obvious reasons - there is no firewood, no berries, no mushrooms, no deer that can be domesticated, or other animals that can be hunted. There is simply nothing to feed and keep warm here. Even driftwood (logs brought by the sea) does not burn here, unlike driftwood on the coast. This happens, apparently, because wet firewood simply does not have time to dry, so it is completely “saturated” with ice all year round.

However, in the twentieth century, during the development of the Arctic, weather stations and military camps were built on Franz Josef Land, so it turned out that with the complicity of civilization it was possible to live here. True, all this costs a lot of money, given the high cost of delivering food, fuel and building materials.

History of the emergence of Franz Josef Land (geological history)

In pre-Paleozoic times on the site of the modern Barents Sea there was a huge continent, extending west to the coast of Greenland. During the Paleozoic period, powerful mountain-building movements began to occur, after which most of the current Barents Sea began to represent a continent with difficult mountainous terrain.

However, erosion and denudation processes gradually cut off the mountainous terrain of the mainland, turned it into a flat country,which in Upper Devonian time was captured by the waters of the sea.

At the beginning of the Permian time it began to happen raising the bottom marine geosynclinal basins and their shallowing. Later, mountain-building movements appeared, accompanied by vigorous volcanic activity. Mountain-forming processes were powerful mountain ranges of Novaya Zemlya, the Urals, Kanin and individual parts of Spitsbergen were created. The rise of the shelf is accompanied by volcanic eruptions (basalt covers of Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land). According to Fridtjof Nansen, on the site of the Barents Sea in Tertiary times there was a mountainous country, elevated 500 m above modern sea level.

In Quaternary time there was placement of powerful ice sheets. During the maximum phase of glaciation, under the influence of glacial load, the islands and adjacent areas of the seabed sank by 300-400 m. In late and post-glacial times, dying ice sheets and complex fluctuations of the sea coastline. The process of raising the coastline of the Barents Sea continues today. The rate of general uplift of the archipelago over the past 7000 years is 1-5 mm/year.

By the way, on Franz Josef Land you can still find pieces of petrified trees, as well as deer antlers, which suggests that once upon a time a variety of flora and fauna could have actively grown and lived here.

Reindeer lived on Franz Josef Land in the Middle Holocene (8-2.5 thousand years ago). It follows that in the Middle Holocene the climate of the archipelago was warmer and the vegetation richer than at present.

The end of the "time of the deer" can be precisely dated. Deer antlers are not found below the 5-meter level. Consequently, climate deterioration, a major advance of glaciers and the extinction of deer on the islands of the archipelago occurred when its shores were 5 m lower, i.e. about 2.5 thousand years ago.

The extinction of deer and the major advance of glaciers on the archipelago coincides with the movement of the forest zone to the south and the revival of the tundra zone along the northern coast of Russia, as well as with the departure of heat-loving fauna from the coastal waters of Spitsbergen.

History of the discovery and development of Franz Josef Land

Theoretical discovery of ZFI

The first thoughts about the need to explore the northern territories appeared in the 18th century. Mikhail Lomonosov, in his work entitled “A Brief Description of Various Travels in the Northern Seas and an Indication of the Possible Passage of the Siberian Ocean to East India,” suggested finding islands east of Spitsbergen.

At the end of the sixties of the nineteenth century, the famous Russian meteorologist A.I. Voeikov raised the question of organizing a large expedition to explore the Russian polar seas. This idea was warmly supported by the famous geographer and revolutionary, anarchist theorist Prince P.A. Kropotkin.

Various considerations, and mainly observations of the ice of the Barents Sea, led Kropotkin to the conclusion that “between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya there is an as yet undiscovered land that extends north beyond Spitsbergen and holds the ice behind it... The possible existence of such an archipelago was indicated in his excellent, but little-known report on currents in the Arctic Ocean by Russian naval officer Baron Schilling.” In 1870, Kropotkin drew up a project for the expedition. However, the tsarist government refused funds, and the expedition did not take place.

Practical opening of the FFI

Franz Josef Land was discovered by the Austro-Hungarian expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht, and it was explored by everyone - the British, the Scots, and the Americans... But we still got it. In the photo are Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht. By the way, what kind of fur coat does one of them have? Not from the Red Book polar bear?)

In 1901, the archipelago was explored by the first Russian expedition on the icebreaker Ermak under the command of Vice Admiral Makarov. It is alleged that it was during this period that the Russian flag was first raised on the islands of the archipelago.

Some sources (even in the same notorious Wikipedia) write that it was Islyamov who declared ZFI as Russian territory. Although, Makarov had already raised the flag before him, so it seems that it was Makarov who was the first to claim Russia’s rights to Franz Josef Land?

Why such a wayfarer arose - I don’t know, but for the sake of fairness I will note both facts - and you decide for yourself who was first.

Islyamov, reporting the acquisition of a new territory for the country, proposed to immediately rename it from Franz Joseph Land to Romanov Land, but the proposal was stuck in the bureaucratic jungle. And there, first one empire went down into history, and immediately after it another. Iskhak Islyamov became a member of the Helsingfors Muslim Executive Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers, then fought as part of the White Army, emigrated, and headed the hydrographic part of the Russian naval base in Constantinople.

In 1926, the USSR Central Executive Committee adopted a decree according to which all Arctic islands adjacent to the land borders of the state were declared Soviet territory. Three years later, in the summer of 1929, Otto Schmidt, during a polar expedition on the icebreaking steamer Georgiy Sedov, hoisted the Soviet flag on the archipelago.

In 1929, the Soviet government decided to establish a research station to enhance scientific work in the Arctic. At the same time, the first Soviet research station opened in Tikhaya Bay on Hooker Island. In 1931, the archipelago was declared a territory of the Soviet Union, and from that time the exploration of the North Pole by Soviet researchers began. Since then, the archipelago has been visited annually by Soviet polar expeditions.

The Soviet government was going to change the name of Franz Joseph as politically inconvenient and rename the archipelago in honor of the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen or the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, but the decision was never understood.

In addition to scientists, military personnel have settled heavily in the FJL. In 1936, the first military air base of the USSR was established on Rudolf Island. And then off we went... However, in the 90s of the twentieth century, due to well-known economic and political reasons, the military left the archipelago, leaving only the Nagurskoye border post, located on the island of Alexandra Land, to function.

The town of the border line department of military unit 9794, which includes the northernmost airport and the border post, is still in operation. Not long ago, an excellent two-story building was built there with all the amenities: central heating, sewerage, cold and hot water, satellite TV. There is a “winter garden” inside the complex, although the plants and trees there are artificial. The border guards call this garden the “Atrium”. There is always a blue sky with cumulus clouds, a children's playground, a fountain, benches, billiards, an aquarium with live fish, a cinema hall, and table tennis.

Only officers and warrant officers serve in Nagurskoye. A third of the border guards live at the outpost with their wives. They fly here from Vorkuta and Arkhangelsk. Dense fogs, low clouds, precipitation and strong winds - this is the weather in Alexandra Land all year round. There were cases of unsuccessful landings, but an amazing thing: in the entire history, not a single person on the island died.

Although, there were victims on other islands. For example, on Graham Bell, where from the 50s to the 90s of the twentieth century there was a unique ice airfield, there were plane crashes with casualties a couple of times.

The crew of the 254th flight detachment took off from the Nagurskaya airfield at 08:20 Moscow time with the aim of reconnaissance of the ice conditions of the northern approaches to ensure the withdrawal of the icebreaker "Indigirka". The connection stopped after 3 hours 40 minutes. after takeoff. On October 23, an Il-14 aircraft was discovered on the northwestern slope of the glacier. Graham Bell destroyed and burned. During the fire at the disaster site, the ice partially melted and therefore the debris was found frozen into the glacier. Only 4 bodies were found.

In the last report, the crew reported their coordinates, true heading and flight altitude. From Fr. Hoffman's plane passed north of the island. Graham Bell and, having flown around it from the south, entered the Morgan Strait. During the flight, the crew repeatedly requested the actual weather of the Graham Bell and Sredniy airfields, but the data was not transmitted due to their absence. Despite the presence in the area of. Graham Bell weather was below the minimum for flights in the area of ​​islands and straits, the crew continued to carry out the mission and encountered severe weather conditions in the Morgan Strait.

At 11:50 the crew inquired whether the Graham Bell airfield drive was operating. Having received a negative answer, the crew requested a press on the communication transmitter to determine the bearing. Having determined the bearing, the crew considered that they had already passed the dangerous bottleneck of the strait. Heading for Graham Bell airfield, the crew believed that the flight was passing over the fast ice of the strait. Due to design flaws, neither the radio altimeter nor the radar provided true indications of the flight altitude and the actual picture of the terrain flown when flying over glacial massifs. In fact, the flight took place over the rising slope of a glacier. At an altitude of 150 m in horizontal flight, the plane collided with the slope of a glacier. Having separated, it flew 750 m, once again collided with the slope of the glacier at an altitude of 200 m, collapsed and burned. In memory of the victims, the westernmost cape of the island was named Cape of the Seven.

During the day, in normal weather conditions, while landing at the Ice Base airfield, 53 km from Graham Bell Island, an accident occurred with An-12 aircraft No. 12962 of the Krasnoyarsk Civil Aviation Administration. The crew of the Norilsk OJSC consisting of the ship's commander A.D. Ulagashev, co-pilot A.I. Menzhulin, crew navigator V.P. Chikhachev, flight mechanic E.A. and flight radio operator A.A. Kalachev carried out a transport flight to service the high-latitude expedition “North-86”.

On the pre-landing straight, due to the general whiteness from the freshly fallen snow, the ship's commander was unable to determine the distance to the snow-covered ice surface, but continued the approach, allowing the vertical rate of descent to be exceeded. Before reaching the start of the runway, the plane collided with a snow parapet and suffered a breakdown. The cause of the accident was the ship's commander's error in calculating the landing and in determining the moment of leveling due to his incomplete preparation for flights for this type of work, as well as the violation by the flight command staff of the standards for crew admission to flights to service high-latitude expeditions. As a result of movement and hummocking of the ice, on May 12, 1986, the fuselage of the aircraft, prepared for evacuation, sank.

And finally, near the airfield lies AN-12 No. 11994, but no information about him could be found.

On one of the forums I found information that it was just an unsuccessful landing - the plane landed on the runway too early. But there were no casualties - everything ended well.

If we talk about casualties, then I suspect that the main danger on the Franz Josef Land Archipelago arises from polar bears. Although, on the other hand, given the huge number of bears in the Polar Region, there were not many deaths due to them. It is believed that Franz Josef Land is a maternity hospital for polar bears, so it can be assumed that the servicemen encountered predators constantly. This means that the percentage of accidents is actually not high at all.

Well, again, if people died at the Polar Field, it was solely because of their own stupidity and negligence. Everything is the same as everywhere else. Here's an example story:

“The next day we flew to Naguria and back, it’s about two and a half thousand kilometers. And then an urgent medical flight to Osir Grem-Bell, to ZFI. There's some kind of communications company there. The soldier took a sip of alcohol, got it somewhere, and he felt very bad. We took him, and while we were going to Dixon, he died in the arms of our nurse.

We arrived, and they told us: guys, we need to fly there again, urgently. It turns out that when they found out there, a whole line lined up to see the doctor: and we tried it! We went there again, and it was already the second day that we went, what kind of scientific and technical establishment is there? Let's go to the soldiers: brothers, we say, whoever tried at least a little, don't hide it, we're flying with us, we won't be able to do it a third time! In the air, two of them became very ill, one of them died in the hospital. It turned out that there was another one there, but we couldn’t, it was the third day. An ice scout was resting on Dikson, he was urgently picked up and flew off. And like this for a whole month. We flew one hundred and eighty hours.

Memoirs of polar aviation navigator Mark Solomonovich Edelshtein.”

Although, enough about the sad things. There are also many good things in Franz Josef Land. And few tourists have the opportunity to verify this.

Franz Josef Land in our time - photos, descriptions, maps

FJL is the northernmost territory of Russia, located approximately nine hundred kilometers from the North Pole. Administratively, the archipelago belongs to the Arkhangelsk region. Frankz Josef Land coordinates: 80.666667, 54.833333.

Wikipedia says that FJL consists of 192 islands. But it turns out that there were still certain doubts about this, and the 192nd island has not yet been officially “registered” and does not have a separate name.

The bottom line is that Northbrook Island in the southwest of the archipelago is two pieces of land separated by a strait. Moreover, initially it was considered a single island, but consisting of two parts connected by a narrow isthmus. However, due to the intensification of coastal processes, the retreat of sea ice in summer and the thawing of permafrost, the isthmus was eroded, and a strait formed between the two sections of the island.

In the summer of 2007, the Norwegian Borge Ousland, together with a fellow athlete from Switzerland, Thomas Ullrich, made a memorial expedition - they followed in the footsteps of Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen and, in the process of exploring Northbrook Island, discovered the strait. They did not keep silent about their find, and sent a letter to the Russian Embassy in Norway with a statement about the discovery of a new island in the FJL. The letter was transmitted through the Russian Embassy in Norway to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and from there they sent an order to the Navigation and Oceanography Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense to figure out how many islands there actually are in the archipelago.

At the same time, after public statements about the “appearance of a new island in Russia,” deputies of the Arkhangelsk Regional Assembly named the island after the famous polar captain Yuri Kuchiev. And under this name it already appears on Wikipedia, although the decision of the regional assembly on this issue is not legitimate. So now all that remains is to complete the discovery - to officially recognize and name the new geographical features, which will have to be done by the Office of Navigation and Oceanography and the Commission on Geographical Names.

Sights of Franz Josef Land

The northernmost branch of the Russian Post, weather station - Hayes Island

On August 25, 2005, Russian Post announced that it was opening the northernmost post office in the world, Arkhangelsk 163100. It is located on Hayes Island. The post office is open one day a week: Wednesday from 10 to 11 am. And what is important - without interruption.

Since the summer of 1957, the Krenkel Observatory has been located on the island.

Interesting information:

• On Hayes Island, Vladimir Sanin wrote one of his most famous books, “Don’t Say Goodbye to the Arctic.”
• On February 12, 1981, an Il-14 plane carrying equipment and scientists for the observatory crashed while landing on Hayes Island. The crashed plane can still be seen today.

Gallya Island, Cape Tegethoff

Cape Tegethoff of Gallya Island is an iconic place. The Franz Josef Land archipelago was discovered here. On August 30, 1873, the ship Admiral Tegetthoff arrived here with the expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weiprecht.

The remains of the winter quarters of Wellman's expedition are also located here.

Also famous are the cliffs at the tip of the island, which rise out of the sea itself.

Vilcek Island

Another island associated with the tragic events of the expedition of the discoverers of the archipelago is Vilcek Island. On the high island there is the grave of one of the expedition members on the ship Admiral Tegethoff, Otto Krisch, who was a mechanic on the ship and died in 1873 from scurvy.

Champa Island, Cape Trieste

On Cape Trieste there are unique stone formations of a perfectly round shape - spherulites, or concretions. Marcasite nodules are found everywhere on the cape, and their sizes range from a few centimeters to several meters in diameter.

The word “concretions” comes from the Latin concretio – “accretion”. These are nodules, rounded mineral formations in sedimentary rocks. Its composition is sandstone. At the very center of the concretion is an organic core, around which loose material of continental origin has accumulated.

Strait of Negri

A narrow strait between Gall Island and McClintock Island. Some of the largest glaciers in the archipelago are located here. The strait is often literally clogged with icebergs.

Apollonov and Stolichka Islands

These islands do not stand out in any way, and even on nautical maps only the larger island, Stolichka, is usually indicated, but, as often happens, all the most interesting things are located on the island nearby, very small and inconspicuous. In this case, it is Apollo Island. The island is famous for the fact that it is home to one of the largest rookeries of Atlantic walruses, listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation.

Hooker Island

On Hooker Island there is an abandoned Soviet polar station "Tikhaya". The station was opened in 1929 and closed in 1959, but at that time it was the largest Arctic research station in the USSR. Until today, the station has retained its appearance - you can see with your own eyes how polar explorers lived in those days.

Rubini Rock

The largest bird market, where more than 50 thousand birds nest. Among them are kittiwakes, guillemots, guillemots, glaucous guillemots and little auks. Guillemots nest directly on ledges. They do not build nests, but lay eggs on bare stone surfaces. Kittiwake gulls build nests from grasses, lichens and other vegetation, holding it together with their own droppings.

Alger Island

Here in 1901 the base camp of the expedition was located, which arrived in the archipelago on the steam yacht America. The expedition was financed by millionaire William Ziegler.

Wilczek Land, Cape Heller

The island contains the remains of the Fort McKinley winter quarters and the grave of Bernt Bentsen, who was unable to survive the winter of 1898-99. He was part of Walter Wellman's expedition, the main goal of which was to conquer the North Pole. The main camp of the expedition was located at Cape Tegetthoff on the island of Hall. A temporary food warehouse was organized at Cape Geller. It was built from large flat stones and covered with the skins of killed walruses and bears. The temperature inside it in winter remained below 10 degrees. In January 1899, Bernt Bentsen died. However, he was buried only in the spring. Before his death, he asked not to bury him until spring, as he feared that his body would become easy prey for arctic foxes and polar bears.

Rudolf Island, Cape Fligeli

The northernmost cape of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the extreme island point of the Russian Federation and Eurasia.

Rudolf Island, Teplitz Bay

In Teplitz Bay there is an abandoned meteorological station, which was built in 1931–1932. This was the second station on the archipelago and it operated until 1995.

Jackson Island

Jackson Island and Cape Norway are famous for the fact that Fridtjof Nansen and Jamar Johansen spent the winter here (1895–96). They were returning after an attempt to conquer the North Pole, as they thought, to Spitsbergen, but they came to Franz Josef Land. They had time to prepare for winter. They shot walruses and polar bears and built a dwelling in which they spent the winter, mostly lying down in one sleeping bag. On Christmas Day they turned their shirts inside out, and on New Year's Day Nansen told Johansen that after everything they had been through together he could just call him Fridtjof and not Mr. Nansen, and shook his hand. But they remained on “you”. There is a memorial sign on the cape and the remains of a winter hut.

Northbrook Island, Cape Flora

A distinctive feature of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the presence of a large number of historical sites - the remains of wintering camps of expeditions that planned to use the archipelago as a launching pad to reach the North Pole, and some expeditions ended up in the archipelago after unsuccessful attempts to conquer the top of the planet. Almost all expeditions to Franz Josef Land stopped at Cape Flora of Northbrook Island.

The island was discovered by Benjamin Lee-Smith's expedition in 1880. His second expedition of 1881–1182 wintered here. Wintering was forced. Lee-Smith originally planned to spend the winter on Bell Island. In 1894, Briton Frederick Jackson built the first settlement on Cape Flora, Elmwood. The remains of the expedition's buildings can still be seen today.

In 1896, the historic meeting of Fridtjof Nansen and Frederick Jackson took place at Cape Flora. On June 17, two people approached the cape. No one was waiting for them or meeting them, and they themselves did not expect to meet anyone here. These were the famous polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Frederik Jamar Johansen. They were covered from head to toe with soot and dirt, and they had two kayaks and sleds with them. For three years, on the Fram ship, specially built for navigation in ice and wintering, Nansen and his 12 companions planned to conquer the North Pole. In 1893, the Fram froze into the islands north of the New Siberian Islands archipelago. The ship passed much further south. After two years in the ice, the Fram reached its northernmost geographical position. 700 kilometers from the North Pole, Nansen and Johansen left the ship and set off to conquer the Pole on dog sleds and kayaks. On April 8, they reached a record latitude of 86 degrees 14 minutes north and were forced to turn south towards the Franz Josef Land archipelago. After wintering on Jackson Island at Cape Norway, they moved south and reached Cape Flora, where they met Jackson's expedition. This meeting actually saved their lives. At one time, Nansen did not take Frederick Jackson with him on the Fram, because he believed that the North Pole should be conquered by the Norwegians. Jackson was from Great Britain.

The Franz Josef Land archipelago is a group of islands located in the high latitude Arctic - where permafrost prevails and the average annual temperature is −12 °C.

The Archipelago is located approximately a thousand kilometers from the North Pole.

Most of Franz Josef Land is covered by glaciers.

Although, one should not confuse FJL with the North Pole. In summer, temperatures here can still reach +12 °C and the snow usually melts in July.

During this period, the ground is exposed, which in just a couple of weeks is covered with mosses and lichens, as well as flowering polar poppies, saxifrage, polar willow and other unpretentious plants.

There are not that many birds here, but they are there. These are little auks, guillemots, guillemots, kittiwakes, white gulls, glaucous gulls, terns, skuas, eiders, geese, etc.

Animals include polar bear and arctic fox. By the way, did you know that the polar bear is a marine mammal and even the Latin name for the polar bear is Ursus maritimus, which translates as “sea bear”? In the sea there are also seals, bearded seals, harp seals, walruses, narwhals and beluga whales.

- a region included in a small natural zone known as the polar desert zone. You can read about the Arctic desert here.

People have never lived in the FJL for obvious reasons - there is no firewood, no berries, no mushrooms, no deer that can be domesticated, or other animals that can be hunted. There is simply nothing to feed and keep warm here. Even driftwood (logs brought by the sea) does not burn here, unlike driftwood on the coast. This happens, apparently, because wet firewood simply does not have time to dry, so it is completely “saturated” with ice all year round.

However, in the twentieth century, during the development of the Arctic, weather stations and military camps were built on Franz Josef Land, so it turned out that with the assistance of civilization it was possible to live here. True, all this costs a lot of money, given the high cost of delivering food, fuel and building materials.

HISTORY OF THE EMERGENCE OF FRANZ JOSEPH LAND (GEOLOGICAL HISTORY)

In pre-Paleozoic times on the site of the modern Barents Sea there was a huge continent, extending west to the coast of Greenland. During the Paleozoic period, powerful

mountain-building movements, after which most of the current Barents Sea began to represent a continent with difficult mountainous terrain.

However, erosion and denudation processes gradually cut off the mountainous terrain of the mainland, turned it into a flat country,which in Upper Devonian time was captured by the waters of the sea.

At the beginning of the Permian time it began to happen raising the bottom marine geosynclinal basins and their shallowing. Later, mountain-building movements appeared, accompanied by vigorous volcanic activity. Mountain-forming processes were powerful mountain ranges of Novaya Zemlya, the Urals, Kanin and individual parts of Spitsbergen were created. The rise of the shelf is accompanied by volcanic eruptions (basalt covers of Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land). According to Fridtjof Nansen, on the site of the Barents Sea in Tertiary times there was a mountainous country, elevated 500 m above modern sea level.

In Quaternary time there was placement of powerful ice sheets. During the maximum phase of glaciation, under the influence of glacial load, the islands and adjacent areas of the seabed sank by 300-400 m. In late and post-glacial times, dying ice sheets and complex fluctuations of the sea coastline. The process of raising the coastline of the Barents Sea continues today. The rate of general uplift of the archipelago over the past 7000 years is 1-5 mm/year.

By the way, on Franz Josef Land you can still find pieces of petrified trees, as well as deer antlers, which suggests that once upon a time a variety of flora and fauna could have actively grown and lived here.

Reindeer lived on Franz Josef Land in the Middle Holocene (8-2.5 thousand years ago). It follows that in the Middle Holocene the climate of the archipelago was warmer and the vegetation richer than at present.

The end of the "time of the deer" can be precisely dated. Deer antlers are not found below the 5-meter level. Consequently, climate deterioration, a major advance of glaciers and the extinction of deer on the islands of the archipelago occurred when its shores were 5 m lower, i.e. about 2.5 thousand years ago.

The extinction of deer and the major advance of glaciers on the archipelago coincides with the movement of the forest zone to the south and the revival of the tundra zone along the northern coast of Russia, as well as with the departure of heat-loving fauna from the coastal waters of Spitsbergen.

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FRANZ JOSEPH LAND

Theoretical discovery of Franz Josef Land

The first thoughts about the need to explore the northern territories appeared in the 18th century. Mikhail Lomonosov, in his work entitled “A Brief Description of Various Travels in the Northern Seas and an Indication of the Possible Passage of the Siberian Ocean to East India,” suggested finding islands east of Spitsbergen.

At the end of the sixties of the nineteenth century, the famous Russian meteorologist A.I. Voeikov raised the question of organizing a large expedition to explore the Russian polar seas. This idea was warmly supported by the famous geographer and revolutionary, anarchist theorist Prince P.A. Kropotkin. Various considerations, but mainly observations of the ice of the Barents Sea, led Kropotkin to the conclusion that “between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya there is an as yet undiscovered land that extends to the north beyond Spitsbergen and holds the ice behind it... The possible existence of such an archipelago was indicated in his excellent but little-known report on currents in the Arctic Ocean by the Russian naval officer Baron Schilling”. In 1870, Kropotkin drew up a project for the expedition. However, the tsarist government refused funds, and the expedition did not take place.

Practical discovery of Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land was discovered by the Austro-Hungarian expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht, and was explored by everyone - the British, the Scots, and the Americans... But we still got it.

In the photo are Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht. By the way, what kind of fur coat does one of them have? Not from the Red Book polar bear?)

In 1901, the archipelago was explored by the first Russian expedition on the icebreaker Ermak under the command of Vice Admiral Makarov. It is alleged that it was during this period that the Russian flag was first raised on the islands of the archipelago.

In 1914, in search of G. Ya. Sedov, Ishak Islyamov visited the archipelago. He declared ZFI Russian territory and raised the Russian flag over it.

Some sources (even in the same notorious Wikipedia) write that it was Islyamov who declared ZFI as Russian territory. Although, Makarov had already raised the flag before him, so it seems that it was Makarov who was the first to claim Russia’s rights to Franz Josef Land?

Why such a wayfarer arose - I don’t know, but for the sake of fairness I will note both facts - and you decide for yourself who was first.

Islyamov, reporting the acquisition of a new territory for the country, proposed to immediately rename it from Franz Joseph Land to Romanov Land, but the proposal was stuck in the bureaucratic jungle. And there, first one empire went down into history, and immediately after it another. Iskhak Islyamov became a member of the Helsingfors Muslim Executive Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers, then fought as part of the White Army, emigrated, and headed the hydrographic part of the Russian naval base in Constantinople.

In 1926, the USSR Central Executive Committee adopted a decree according to which all Arctic islands adjacent to the land borders of the state were declared Soviet territory. Three years later, in the summer of 1929, Otto Schmidt, during a polar expedition on the icebreaking steamer Georgiy Sedov, hoisted the Soviet flag on the archipelago.

In 1929, the Soviet government decided to establish a research station to enhance scientific work in the Arctic. At the same time, the first Soviet research station opened in Tikhaya Bay on Hooker Island. In 1931, the archipelago was declared a territory of the Soviet Union, and from that time the exploration of the North Pole by Soviet researchers began. Since then, the archipelago has been visited annually by Soviet polar expeditions.

The Soviet government was going to change the name of Franz Joseph as politically inconvenient and rename the archipelago in honor of the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen or the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, but the decision was never understood.

In addition to scientists, military personnel have settled heavily in the FJL. In 1936, the first military air base of the USSR was established on Rudolf Island. And then off we went... However, in the 90s of the twentieth century, due to well-known economic and political reasons, the military left the archipelago, leaving only the Nagurskoye border post, located on the island of Alexandra Land, to function.

The town of the border line department of military unit 9794, which includes the northernmost airport and the border post, is still in operation. Not long ago, an excellent two-story building was built there with all the amenities: central heating, sewerage, cold and hot water, satellite TV. There is a “winter garden” inside the complex, although the plants and trees there are artificial. The border guards call this garden the “Atrium”. There is always a blue sky with cumulus clouds, a children's playground, a fountain, benches, billiards, an aquarium with live fish, a cinema hall, and table tennis.

Only officers and warrant officers serve in Nagurskoye. A third of the border guards live at the outpost with their wives. They fly here from Vorkuta and Arkhangelsk. Dense fogs, low clouds, precipitation and strong winds - this is the weather in Alexandra Land all year round. There were cases of unsuccessful landings, but an amazing thing: in the entire history, not a single person on the island died.

Although, there were victims on other islands. For example, on Graham Bell, where from the 50s to the 90s of the twentieth century there was a unique ice airfield, there were plane crashes with casualties a couple of times.

The crew of the 254th flight detachment took off from the Nagurskaya airfield at 08:20 Moscow time with the aim of reconnaissance of the ice conditions of the northern approaches to ensure the withdrawal of the icebreaker "Indigirka". The connection stopped after 3 hours 40 minutes. after takeoff. On October 23, an Il-14 aircraft was discovered on the northwestern slope of the glacier. Graham Bell destroyed and burned. During the fire at the disaster site, the ice partially melted and therefore the debris was found frozen into the glacier. Only 4 bodies were found.

In the last report, the crew reported their coordinates, true heading and flight altitude. From Fr. Hoffman's plane passed north of the island. Graham Bell and, having flown around it from the south, entered the Morgan Strait. During the flight, the crew repeatedly requested the actual weather of the Graham Bell and Sredniy airfields, but the data was not transmitted due to their absence. Despite the presence in the area of. Graham Bell weather was below the minimum for flights in the area of ​​islands and straits, the crew continued to carry out the mission and encountered severe weather conditions in the Morgan Strait.

At 11:50 the crew inquired whether the Graham Bell airfield drive was operating. Having received a negative answer, the crew requested a press on the communication transmitter to determine the bearing. Having determined the bearing, the crew considered that they had already passed the dangerous bottleneck of the strait. Heading for Graham Bell airfield, the crew believed that the flight was passing over the fast ice of the strait. Due to design flaws, neither the radio altimeter nor the radar provided true indications of the flight altitude and the actual picture of the terrain flown when flying over glacial massifs. In fact, the flight took place over the rising slope of a glacier. At an altitude of 150 m in horizontal flight, the plane collided with the slope of a glacier. Having separated, it flew 750 m, once again collided with the slope of the glacier at an altitude of 200 m, collapsed and burned. In memory of the victims, the westernmost cape of the island was named Cape of the Seven.

During the day, in normal weather conditions, while landing at the Ice Base airfield, 53 km from Graham Bell Island, an accident occurred with An-12 aircraft No. 12962 of the Krasnoyarsk Civil Aviation Administration. The crew of the Norilsk OJSC consisting of the ship's commander A.D. Ulagashev, co-pilot A.I. Menzhulin, crew navigator V.P. Chikhachev, flight mechanic E.A. and flight radio operator A.A. Kalachev carried out a transport flight to service the high-latitude expedition “North-86”.

On the pre-landing straight, due to the general whiteness from the freshly fallen snow, the ship's commander was unable to determine the distance to the snow-covered ice surface, but continued the approach, allowing the vertical rate of descent to be exceeded. Before reaching the start of the runway, the plane collided with a snow parapet and suffered a breakdown. The cause of the accident was the ship's commander's error in calculating the landing and in determining the moment of leveling due to his incomplete preparation for flights for this type of work, as well as the violation by the flight command staff of the standards for crew admission to flights to service high-latitude expeditions. As a result of movement and hummocking of the ice, on May 12, 1986, the fuselage of the aircraft, prepared for evacuation, sank.

And finally, near the airfield lies AN-12 No. 11994, but no information about him could be found.

On one of the forums I found information that it was just an unsuccessful landing - the plane landed on the runway too early. But there were no casualties - everything ended well.

If we talk about casualties, then I suspect that the main danger on the Franz Josef Land Archipelago arises from polar bears.

Although, on the other hand, given the huge number of bears in the Polar Region, there were not many deaths due to them. It is believed that Franz Josef Land is a maternity hospital for polar bears, so it can be assumed that the servicemen encountered predators constantly. This means that the percentage of accidents is actually not high at all.

Well, again, if people died at the Polar Field, it was solely because of their own stupidity and negligence. Everything is the same as everywhere else. Here's an example story:

“The next day we flew to Naguria and back, it’s about two and a half thousand kilometers. And then an urgent medical flight to Osir Grem-Bell, to ZFI. There's some kind of communications company there. The soldier took a sip of alcohol, got it somewhere, and he felt very bad. We took him, and while we were going to Dixon, he died in the arms of our nurse.

We arrived, and they told us: guys, we need to fly there again, urgently. It turns out that when they found out there, a whole line lined up to see the doctor: and we tried it! We went there again, and it was already the second day that we went, what kind of scientific and technical establishment is there? Let's go to the soldiers: brothers, we say, whoever tried at least a little, don't hide it, we're flying with us, we won't be able to do it a third time! In the air, two of them became very ill, one of them died in the hospital. It turned out that there was another one there, but we couldn’t, it was the third day. An ice scout was resting on Dikson, he was urgently picked up and flew off. And like this for a whole month. We flew one hundred and eighty hours.

Memoirs of polar aviation navigator Mark Solomonovich Edelshtein.”

Although, enough about the sad things. There are also many good things in Franz Josef Land. And few tourists have the opportunity to verify this.

FRANZ JOSEPH LAND IN OUR TIMES - PHOTOS, DESCRIPTIONS, MAPS

FJL is the northernmost territory of Russia, located approximately nine hundred kilometers from the North Pole. Administratively, the archipelago belongs to the Arkhangelsk region. Frankz Josef Land coordinates: 80.666667, 54.833333.

Wikipedia says that FJL consists of 192 islands. But it turns out that there were still certain doubts about this, and the 192nd island has not yet been officially “registered” and does not have a separate name.

The letter was transmitted through the Russian Embassy in Norway to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and from there the order was sent toDirectorate of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation - to figure out how many islands there actually are in the archipelago.

At the same time, after public statements about the “appearance of a new island in Russia,” deputies of the Arkhangelsk Regional Assembly named the island after the famous polar captain Yuri Kuchiev. And under this name it already appears on Wikipedia, although the decision of the regional assembly on this issue is not legitimate. So now all that remains is to complete the discovery - to officially recognize and name the new geographical features, which will have to be done by the Office of Navigation and Oceanography and the Commission on Geographical Names. On Hayes Island, Vladimir Sanin wrote one of his most famous books, “Don’t Say Goodbye to the Arctic.”

Gallya Island, Cape Tegethoff

Also famous are the cliffs at the tip of the island, which rise out of the sea itself.

Vilcek Island

Another island associated with the tragic events of the expedition of the discoverers of the archipelago is Vilcek Island. On the high island there is the grave of one of the expedition members on the ship Admiral Tegethoff, Otto Krisch, who was a mechanic on the ship and died in 1873 from scurvy.

Champa Island, Cape Trieste

On Cape Trieste there are unique stone formations of a perfectly round shape - spherulites, or concretions. Marcasite nodules are found everywhere on the cape, and their sizes range from a few centimeters to several meters in diameter.

The word “concretions” comes from the Latin concretio – “accretion”. These are nodules, rounded mineral formations in sedimentary rocks. Its composition is sandstone. At the very center of the concretion is an organic core, around which loose material of continental origin has accumulated.

Strait of Negri

Apollonov and Stolichka Islands

These islands do not stand out in any way, and even on nautical maps only the larger island, Stolichka, is usually indicated, but, as often happens, all the most interesting things are located on the island nearby, very small and inconspicuous. In this case, it is Apollo Island. The island is famous for the fact that it is home to one of the largest rookeries of Atlantic walruses, listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation.

Hooker Island

On Hooker Island there is an abandoned Soviet polar station "Tikhaya". The station was opened in 1929 and closed in 1959, but at that time it was the largest Arctic research station in the USSR. Until today, the station has retained its appearance - you can see with your own eyes how polar explorers lived in those days.

Rubini Rock

The largest bird market, where more than 50 thousand birds nest. Among them are kittiwakes, guillemots, guillemots, glaucous guillemots and little auks. Guillemots nest directly on ledges. They do not build nests, but lay eggs on bare stone surfaces. Kittiwake gulls build nests from grasses, lichens and other vegetation, holding it together with their own droppings.

Alger Island

Wilczek Land, Cape Heller

The island contains the remains of the Fort McKinley winter quarters and the grave of Bernt Bentsen, who was unable to survive the winter of 1898-99. He was part of Walter Wellman's expedition, the main goal of which was to conquer the North Pole. The main camp of the expedition was located at Cape Tegetthoff on the island of Hall. A temporary food warehouse was organized at Cape Geller. It was built from large flat stones and covered with the skins of killed walruses and bears. The temperature inside it in winter remained below 10 degrees. In January 1899, Bernt Bentsen died. However, he was buried only in the spring. Before his death, he asked not to bury him until spring, as he feared that his body would become easy prey for arctic foxes and polar bears.

Rudolf Island, Cape Fligeli

The northernmost cape of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the extreme island point of the Russian Federation and Eurasia.

Rudolf Island, Teplitz Bay

In Teplitz Bay there is an abandoned meteorological station, which was built in 1931–1932. This was the second station on the archipelago and it operated until 1995.

Jackson Island

Jackson Island and Cape Norway are famous for the fact that Fridtjof Nansen and Jamar Johansen spent the winter here (1895–96). They were returning after an attempt to conquer the North Pole, as they thought, to Spitsbergen, but they came to Franz Josef Land. They had time to prepare for winter. They shot walruses and polar bears and built a dwelling in which they spent the winter, mostly lying down in one sleeping bag. On Christmas Day they turned their shirts inside out, and on New Year's Day Nansen told Johansen that after everything they had been through together he could just call him Fridtjof and not Mr. Nansen, and shook his hand. But they remained on “you”. There is a memorial sign on the cape and the remains of a winter hut.

Northbrook Island, Cape Flora

A distinctive feature of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the presence of a large number of historical sites - the remains of wintering camps of expeditions that planned to use the archipelago as a launching pad to reach the North Pole, and some expeditions ended up in the archipelago after unsuccessful attempts to conquer the top of the planet. Almost all expeditions to Franz Josef Land stopped at Cape Flora of Northbrook Island.

The island was discovered by Benjamin Lee-Smith's expedition in 1880. His second expedition of 1881–1182 wintered here. Wintering was forced. Lee-Smith originally planned to spend the winter on Bell Island. In 1894, Briton Frederick Jackson built the first settlement on Cape Flora, Elmwood. The remains of the expedition's buildings can still be seen today.

In 1896, the historic meeting of Fridtjof Nansen and Frederick Jackson took place at Cape Flora. On June 17, two people approached the cape. No one was waiting for them or meeting them, and they themselves did not expect to meet anyone here. These were the famous polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Frederik Jamar Johansen. They were covered from head to toe with soot and dirt, and they had two kayaks and sleds with them. For three years, on the Fram ship, specially built for navigation in ice and wintering, Nansen and his 12 companions planned to conquer the North Pole.

In 1893, the Fram froze into the islands north of the New Siberian Islands archipelago. The ship passed much further south. After two years in the ice, the Fram reached its northernmost geographical position. 700 kilometers from the North Pole, Nansen and Johansen left the ship and set off to conquer the Pole on dog sleds and kayaks. On April 8, they reached a record latitude of 86 degrees 14 minutes north and were forced to turn south towards the Franz Josef Land archipelago. After wintering on Jackson Island at Cape Norway, they moved south and reached Cape Flora, where they met Jackson's expedition. This meeting actually saved their lives. At one time, Nansen did not take Frederick Jackson with him on the Fram, because he believed that the North Pole should be conquered by the Norwegians. Jackson was from Great Britain.