- Ship
- 5 Breakfasts, 5 Lunches, 5 Dinners
It is likely that the early Pomors or Norwegian sealers knew of Franz Josef Land, but the first recorded landing among the 192 islands making up the archipelago was made in 1873 by the Admiral Tegetthoff sailing vessel. They found wide beaches, steep cliffs with nesting seabirds attended by Arctic foxes, polar bears, and walrus.
Find much of the same. The exact sequence and choice of our landings will be decided by the captain and expedition leader, who will take advantage of the ice and weather conditions as we find them.
Possible landing sites include:
Bell Island is mostly ice-free in the summer months and we may be able to undertake a beach clean-up here to help remove some of the discarded fishing equipment and other garbage that poses a threat to the wildlife of the island. At Bell Island, we find the remains of the oldest building on Franz Josef Land, left by a British expedition in 1880. In return, the same expedition took a polar bear back to the London Zoo!
Cape Flora on Northbrook Island earns its name from the copious fertilization provided by thousands of seabirds that nest on the cliffs. We hope to see Brünnich’s guillemots and black-legged kittiwakes. It was here that Fridtjof Nansen, having survived an unexpected winter in a tent, met by chance – and was rescued – by Fredrick Jackson, in June of 1896.
Tikhaya Buchta, or ‘Calm Bay’, is the location where a team of meteorologists from the Russian Sedov station were marooned at the beginning of the Second World War. They were not rescued until 1945! We hope to stay for the day to discover a little of the history here, and listen to the laughter-like calls of the little auks as they fly to and from their burrows in the scree slopes.
The Rubini Rock bird cliff lies just off Calm Bay and is perfect for cruising around. The cylindrical island is a volcanic plug, the remains of conical volcano. Its sheer sides of red basalt rise 242 feet from the sea and form the best birds cliffs in the archipelago.
Cape Norvegia on Jackson Island holds special significance for us as this was the spot where in September of 1895 Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen arrived and prepared to overwinter. Using just a few stones and his tent he made a crude hut, and he successfully survived until the following summer, with Hjalmar Johansen, when they resumed their journey southward.
The ‘Devil’s Marbles’ are found at Cape Triest on Champ Island. Officially called ‘geodes’, these spherical rock formations are created by accumulation of chemicals within the rock strata – and they can be up to 6 feet in diameter! Keep an eye open for walrus in the water or hauled out on the beach as we head ashore in our small, sturdy explorer boats.
Alexandra Land is the westermost island (not counting the tiny, far flung Victoria Island), and home to the headquarters of the Russian Arctic National Park, which includes Franz Josef Land. During the Second World War, the Germans tried – and failed – to establish a weather station here.