1.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
2.
Navigator
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A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigators primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times, responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the ships captain or aircraft commander of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. U. S. Coast Guard officers that are shipboard navigators are normally cutter qualified at an analogous to the USN officers previously mentioned. Quartermasters are the navigators enlisted assistants and perform most of the technical navigation duties, aboard ships in the Merchant Marine and Merchant Navy, the second mate is generally the navigator. Navigators are sometimes called air navigators or flight navigators. Modern electronic navigation systems made the civil aviation navigators redundant by the early 1980s, in military aviation, navigators are still actively trained and licensed in some present day air forces, as electronic navigation aids cannot be assumed to be operational during wartime. In the worlds air forces, modern navigators are frequently tasked with weapon systems employment and co-pilot type duties depending on the type, model, a naval ships navigator is responsible for buying and maintaining its nautical charts. A nautical chart, or simply chart, is a representation of a maritime or flight region. Nautical charts are essential tools for marine navigation, many countries require vessels, especially commercial ships, Nautical charting may take the form of charts printed on paper or computerised electronic navigational charts. The nature of a waterway depicted by a chart changes regularly, every producer of navigational charts also provides a system to inform mariners and aviators of changes that affect the chart. Radio broadcasts give advance notice of urgent corrections, a convenient way to keep track of corrections is with a chart and publication correction record card system. When the time comes to use the chart, he pulls the chart and charts card and this system ensures that every chart is properly corrected prior to use. British merchant vessels receive weekly Notices to Mariners issued by the Admiralty, when corrections are received all charts are corrected in the ships folio and recorded in NP133A. This system ensures that all charts are corrected and up to date, in a deep sea vessel with a folio of over three thousand charts this can be a laborious and time-consuming task for the. Various and diverse methods exist for the correction of electronic navigational charts, the nature of waterways described by any given nautical publication changes regularly, and a mariner navigating by use of an old or uncorrected publication is courting disaster. Every producer of nautical publications also provides a system to inform mariners of changes that affect the chart, radio broadcasts give advance notice of urgent corrections. For ensuring that all publications are fully up-to-date, similar methods are employed as for nautical charts, various and diverse methods exist for the correction of electronic nautical publications. The navigator focuses on creating the ships passage plans, before each voyage begins, the navigator should develop a detailed mental model of how the entire voyage will proceed
3.
Sea captain
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A sea captain is a high-grade licensed mariner in ultimate command of the merchant vessel. A ships captain commands and manages all ships personnel, and is typically in charge of the accounting, payrolls. The captain is responsible for responding to and reporting in case of accidents and incidents, the captain ensures that the ship complies with local and international laws and complies also with company policies. One of a particularly important duties is to ensure compliance with the vessels security plan. The security plan also covers such as refugees and asylum seekers, smuggling. On ships without a purser, the captain is in charge of the ships accounting and this includes ensuring an adequate amount of cash on board, coordinating the ships payroll, and managing the ships slop chest. On international voyages, the captain is responsible for satisfying requirements of the local immigration, customs requirements can include the master providing a cargo declaration, a ships stores declaration, a declaration of crewmembers personal effects, crew lists and passenger lists. The master acts as a liaison to local investigators and is responsible for providing complete and accurate logbooks, reports, statements, specific examples of the ship causing external damage include collisions with other ships or with fixed objects, grounding the vessel, and dragging anchor. Some common causes of damage include heavy weather, water damage, pilferage. There is a belief that ship captains have historically been. In most countries of ships registry, ship captains are not, the United States Navy defined a captain’s powers in its 1913 Code of Regulations, specifically stating, The commanding officer shall not perform a marriage ceremony on board his ship or aircraft. New Jerseys 1919 Bolmer v. Edsall said a shipboard marriage ceremony is governed by the laws of the nation where ownership of the vessel lies. In the United Kingdom, the captain of a merchant ship has never permitted to perform marriages. In other countries of ships registry, the situation varies. Most do not permit performance of a marriage by the master of a ship at sea, japan allows ship captains to perform a marriage ceremony at sea, but only for Japanese citizens. Malta and Bermuda permit captains of ships registered in their jurisdictions to perform marriages at sea, princess Cruises, whose ships are registered in Bermuda, has used this as a selling point for their cruises since 1998. In 2011, Cunard announced its intention to move the registration of “Queen Mary 2″, “Queen Victoria” and “Queen Elizabeth” from Southampton, in the United Kingdom, to Bermuda. Some captains obtain other credentials, which allow them to perform marriages in jurisdictions where they would otherwise not be permitted to do so
4.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
5.
Aleutian Islands
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The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones belonging to both the United States and Russia. Crossing longitude 180°, at which point east and west longitude end, the westernmost U. S. island in real terms, however, is Attu Island, west of which runs the International Date Line. The islands, with their 57 volcanoes, are in the part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Physiographically, they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province. These Islands are most known for the battles and skirmishes occurred there during the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II. It was one of two attacks on the United States during that war. The largest islands in the Aleutians are Attu, and Unalaska, Umnak, and Unimak in the Fox Islands. The largest of those is Unimak Island, with an area of 1,571.41 mi², followed by Unalaska Island, the axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska has a southwest trend, but near 179° its direction changes to the northwest. This change of direction corresponds to a curve in the line of fissures that have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kuril Islands, the Japanese chain, and in the Philippines. All these island arcs are at the edge of the Pacific Plate and experience much seismic activity, but are still habitable, the general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands and least in the western. The island chain is a continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn, and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous and these volcanic islands reach heights of 6,200 feet. Makushin Volcano located on Unalaska Island, is not quite visible from within the town of Unalaska, though the steam rising from its cone is visible on a clear day. Residents of Unalaska need only to one of the smaller hills in the area, such as Pyramid Peak or Mt. Newhall. The volcanic Bogoslof and Fire Islands, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, in 1906 a new volcanic cone rose between the islets of Bogoslof and Grewingk, near Unalaska, followed by another in 1907. These cones were demolished by an explosive eruption on September 1,1907. Newly found information in 2017, the volcanic cone erupted sending ash, the Aleutians seen from space The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall
6.
Vitus Bering
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Vitus Jonassen Bering, also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was a Danish cartographer and explorer in Russian service, and an officer in the Russian Navy. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier, taking to the seas at the age of 18, Bering travelled extensively over the next eight years, as well as taking naval training at Amsterdam. In 1704, he enrolled with the rapidly expanding Russian navy of Tsar Peter I, Bering was permitted to keep the rank as he rejoined the Russian navy later the same year. Bering departed from St. Petersburg in February 1725 as the head of a 34-man expedition, aided by the expertise of Lieutenants Martin Spangberg, the party took on men as it headed towards Okhotsk, encountering many difficulties before arriving at the settlement. From there, the men sailed to the Kamchatka peninsula, preparing new ships there, in August 1728, Bering decided that they had sufficient evidence that there was clear sea between Asia and America, which he did not sight during the trip. For the first expedition, Bering was rewarded with money, prestige, and he immediately started preparations for a second trip. Having returned to Okhotsk with a larger, better prepared. While doing so, the expedition spotted Mount Saint Elias, a storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at Kayak Island or in the vicinity. Adverse conditions forced Bering to return, but he documented some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back, one of the sailors died and was buried on one of these islands, and Bering named the island group Shumagin Islands after him. Bering himself became too ill to command his ship, which was at last driven to refuge on an uninhabited island in the Commander Islands group in the southwest Bering Sea. On 19 December 1741 Vitus Bering died on the island, which was given the name Bering Island after him, near the Kamchatka Peninsula, reportedly from scurvy, along with 28 men of his company. Vitus Bering was born in the town of Horsens in Denmark to Anne Pedderdatter and her husband Jonas Svendsen. He was named after a maternal great-uncle, Vitus Pedersen Bering, who had been a chronicler in the royal court, the family enjoyed reasonable financial security, with two of Vitus elder half-brothers both attending the University of Copenhagen. Vitus, however, did not, and instead signed on at age 15 as a ships boy, between 1696 and 1704, Bering travelled the seas, reaching India and the Dutch East Indies, whilst also finding time to complete naval officer training in Amsterdam. He would also later to have served on Danish whalers in the North Atlantic, visiting European colonies in the Caribbean. It was in Amsterdam, however, that in 1704 and under the guidance of Norwegian-born Russian admiral Cornelius Cruys, Bering enlisted with the Russian navy and he would be repeatedly promoted in Peter the Greats rapidly evolving navy, reaching the rank of second captain by 1720. His work in the stages of the Great Northern War. On 8 October 1713, Bering married Anna Christina Pülse, the took place in the Lutheran church at Vyborg
7.
Great Northern Expedition
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The endeavour was initially conceived by Russian Emperor Peter I the Great and implemented in practice by Russian Empresses Anna and Elizabeth. The main organiser and leader of the expedition was Vitus Bering, the Second Kamchatka expedition lasted roughly from 1733–1743 and later became called the Great Northern due to the immense scale of its achievements. The goal of the expedition was to find and map the eastern reaches of Siberia, Emperor Peter I had a vision for the 18th-century Russian Navy to map the entire Northern Sea Route. This far-reaching endeavour was sponsored by the Admiralty College in St. Petersburg, with over 3,000 people directly and indirectly involved, the Second Kamchatka expedition was one of the largest expedition projects in history. The total cost of the undertaking, completely financed by the Russian state, reached the sum of 1.5 million rubles. This corresponded to one sixth of the income of the Russian state for year 1724, the expedition also definitively refuted the legend of a land mass in the north Pacific. It also included ethnographic, historic, and scientific research into Siberia, when the expedition failed to round the north-east tip of Asia, the dream of finding an economically viable Northeast passage, alive since the 16th century, was definitively at an end. The start of the exploration and scientific discovery in the eastern part of Asia in the 18th century was due to the initiative of Tsar Peter the Great. In 1697 and 1698, he made a trip through a number of European nations. This plan came to fruition in 1723/24 when he decided to draw foreign scholars to Russia and he hoped to create an extension of the scientific culture of Europe in his own land, and eventually to educate native scholars. In December 1725, the institution was inaugurated with celebrations, young, mostly German speaking scholars formed the core of the Academys personnel in the first decades of its existence. One of their tasks consisted of organizing and eventually accompanying scientific expeditions to the unexplored parts of the Russian empire. During Peter’s lifetime, the German doctor Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt made a journey from 1720 to 1727 to western, messerschmidts Expedition was the first in a what proved to be series of scientific explorations of Siberia. Shortly before his death in February 1725, the Tsar signed an order authorizing a second expedition to the east. Over the course of his life, Peter had met many times with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and it was generally desired that the belief in the common origin of humans not be abandoned, which posed the problem of the origins of human settlements in the New World. The expedition was unsuccessful, as least in regard to the land question, and in 1724, Peter gave the same aim to another expedition. This undertaking, lasting from 1728 to 1730, was led by the Danish captain Vitus Jonassen Bering, Bering had been an officer in the Russian imperial navy since 1704. In both cases, he failed to reach the North American coastline due to adverse weather, the conditions for this gigantic project proved to very favourable
8.
Hierarchy
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A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being above, below, or at the same level as one another. A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly, and either vertically or diagonally, indirect hierarchical links can extend vertically upwards or downwards via multiple links in the same direction, following a path. This is akin to two co-workers or colleagues, each reports to a superior, but they have the same relative amount of authority. Organizational forms exist that are alternative and complementary to hierarchy. A hierarchy is a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority, Hierarchies have their own special vocabulary. Most hierarchies use a more specific vocabulary pertaining to their subject, for example, with data structures, objects are known as nodes, superiors are called parents and subordinates are called children. In a business setting, a superior is a supervisor/boss and a peer is a colleague, degree of branching refers to the number of direct subordinates or children an object has a node has). Hierarchies can be categorized based on the degree, the highest degree present in the system as a whole. Categorization in this way yields two broad classes, linear and branching, in a linear hierarchy, the maximum degree is 1. In other words, all of the objects can be visualized in a lineup, note that this is referring to the objects and not the levels, every hierarchy has this property with respect to levels, but normally each level can have an infinite number of objects. An example of a hierarchy is the hierarchy of life. In a branching hierarchy, one or more objects has a degree of 2 or more, for many people, the word hierarchy automatically evokes an image of a branching hierarchy. Branching hierarchies are present within numerous systems, including organizations and classification schemes, the broad category of branching hierarchies can be further subdivided based on the degree. A flat hierarchy is a hierarchy in which the maximum degree approaches infinity. Most often, systems intuitively regarded as hierarchical have at most a moderate span, therefore, a flat hierarchy is often not viewed as a hierarchy at all. For example, diamonds and graphite are flat hierarchies of numerous carbon atoms which can be decomposed into subatomic particles. An overlapping hierarchy is a hierarchy in which at least one object has two parent objects. Pseudo-Dionysius used the related Greek word both in reference to the hierarchy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy
9.
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
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Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is a city and the administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultural center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. The city is situated on hills and surrounded by volcanoes. The surrounding terrain is mountainous enough that the horizon cannot be seen clearly from any point in town, across Avacha Bay from the city in Vilyuchinsk is Russias largest submarine base, the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base, established during the Soviet regime and still used by the Russian Navy. The city is located 6,766 kilometers from Moscow and about 2,220 kilometers from Vladivostok, the city is considered to be founded by Danish navigator Vitus Bering in the service of the Russian Navy, although the foundation was laid by navigator Ivan Yelagin few months earlier. Bering reached Avacha Bay in late 1740 and as superior, named the new settlement Petropavlovsk after his two ships, the St. Peter and the St. Paul, built in Okhotsk for his second expedition. The towns location on the sheltered Avacha Bay and at the mouth of the Avacha River saw it develop to become the most important settlement in Kamchatka and it was granted town status on April 9,1812. During the 1854–1855 Crimean War, the city was put under siege by the Anglo-French forces, the city had been fortified under the command of Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky in the years prior, but only possessed a small garrison of a few hundred soldiers and sixty-seven cannons. After much exchange of fire,600 Anglo-French troops landed south of the city, one week later,900 Anglo-French troops landed east of the town, but were again repelled by the Russians. The allied ships then retreated from Russian waters, the total Russian losses were reported at around 100 men, those of the Anglo-French at least five times that number. Petropavlovsk was a source of fish, particularly salmon. Since the end of the Soviet era, fishing rights have also granted to foreign interests. Poaching of salmon for their caviar at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky remains a problem, unhampered by lax law enforcement, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the administrative center of the krai. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Under Krai Jurisdiction—an administrative unit with the equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Under Krai Jurisdiction is incorporated as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Urban Okrug, the city has developed a tourist infrastructure. About twenty large tourism companies offer a range of services from bear hunting to paragliding. No roads connect the Kamchatka Peninsula to the rest of the world, travel to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is expensive but is growing in popularity because of the remarkable scenery throughout the peninsula. The city is served by Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Airport, which is linked to the town, ethnic Russians make up the majority of the population, the city on its own has more inhabitants than the entire neighboring Chukotka Autonomous Okrug or Magadan Oblast. The population numbered 179,780 in 2010,179,800 in 2011,179,784 in 2012, and 181,618 in 2013
10.
Prince of Wales Island (Alaska)
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Prince of Wales Island is one of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle. It is the fourth-largest island in the United States and the 97th-largest island in the world. The island is 135 miles long,45 miles wide and has an area of 2,577 sq mi, about 1/10 the size of Ireland, approximately 4,000 people live on the island. Craig is the largest community, founded as a saltery in the early 20th century, some 750 people live in Klawock, a long-established village that grew with the fishing industry. Hollis was a boom and bust mining town from 1900 to about 1915, abandoned, it was re-established as a logging camp in the 50s. It now has a population of 100 and is the location of the ferry terminal, Mountain peaks, all but the tallest of which were buried by Pleistocene glaciation, reach over 3,000 feet. Fjords, steep-sided mountains, and dense forests characterize the island, extensive tracts of limestone include karst features such as El Capitan Pit, at 598.3 feet, possibly the deepest vertical shaft in the United States. Moist, maritime conditions dominate the weather, the Tongass National Forest covers most of the island. Within the forest and on the island are the Karta River Wilderness, many of its wildlife, such as the Prince of Wales flying squirrel, are found nowhere else. The island is in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Prince of Wales Island is the homeland of the Kaigani Haida people. Kaigani is a mispronunciation of the Tlingit word xaax aani which translates to crabapple country, the Tlingit name for the island is Taan, meaning sea lion. The island is traditional Tlingit territory with the Haida moving into the area in the late 18th century and it was not until 1774 that Juan Pérez led a Spanish expedition sailing in a 39-foot boat from La Paz, Mexico reached Sumez Island off of Prince of Wales west coast. A British expedition in 1779, under Captain James Cook, passed Prince of Wales Island, comte de La Perouse led a French expedition to the area in 1786. Karta Bay is the site of the first salmon saltery in Alaska, mining of gold, copper, and other metals on the island began in the late 19th century. Uranium was mined at Bokan Mountain in the 1950s and 1970s, historically, logging was the mainstay of the collective Prince of Wales economy, however, the recent decline in the industry leaves only a few small-scale sawmills operating. In 1975, the Point Baker Association and others sued the United States Forest Service to prevent logging 400,000 acres on the portion of the island. Zieske v. Butz,406 F. Supp, in March 1976, the United States Congress responded to the suit by passing the National Forest Management Act, which removed the injunction. Still, only half of the timber was cut on the north end of the island
11.
Southeast Alaska
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The majority of Southeast Alaskas area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United States largest national forest. In many places, the border runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The region is noted for its scenery and mild rainy climate, Southeast Alaska is the northern terminus of the Inside Passage, a protected waterway of convoluted passages between islands and fjords, beginning in Puget Sound in Washington state. This was an important travel corridor for Tlingit and Haida Native peoples, in modern times it is an important route for Alaska Marine Highway ferries as well as cruise ships. Southeast Alaska has an area of 35,138 square miles comprising seven entire boroughs. Although it has only 6.14 percent of Alaskas land area, it is larger than the state of Maine, the Southeast Alaskan coast is roughly as long as the west coast of Canada. The 2010 census population of Southeast was 71,616 inhabitants, the largest islands are, from North to South, Chichagof Island, Admiralty Island, Baranof Island, Kupreanof Island, Revillagigedo Island and Prince of Wales Island. Major bodies of water of Southeast Alaska include Glacier Bay, Lynn Canal, Icy Strait, Chatham Strait, Stephens Passage, Frederick Sound, Sumner Strait, and Clarence Strait. On August 20,1902, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Sitka National Historical Park Wrangell-St. The most common species are sitka spruce and western hemlock. Major cities are Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka, other towns are Petersburg, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Haines, Hoonah, Angoon, Kake, Craig, Klawock, Thorne Bay, Yakutat, Skagway, and Gustavus. This region is home to the easternmost town in Alaska. This area is the homeland of the Tlingit, and home of a historic settling of Haida as well as a modern settlement of Tsimshian. The region is connected to Seattle and the American Pacific Northwest economically and culturally. In modern times, southeastern Alaskans can often be identified by their choices, notably Xtratuf boots. Major industries in Southeast Alaska include commercial fishing and tourism and its members include Alcan Forest Products and Viking Lumber, which had been founded in Maine. Debates over whether to expand logging in the federally owned Tongass are not uncommon, mining remains important in the northern area with the Juneau mining district and Admiralty mining district hosting active mines as of 2015. Gold was discovered in 1880 and played an important part in the history of the region
12.
Mount St. Elias
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It lies about 40 kilometres southwest of Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada. The Canadian side is part of Kluane National Park and Reserve and its name in Tlingit is Yasʼéitʼaa Shaa, meaning mountain behind Icy Bay, and is occasionally called Shaa Tlein Big Mountain by the Yakutat Tlingit. It is one of the most important crests of the Kwaashkʼiḵwáan clan since they used it as a guide during their journey down the Copper River and their children, the mountains in between the two peaks, are called Tsalx̱aan Yátxʼi. The mountain was first sighted by European explorers on July 16,1741 by Vitus Bering of Denmark, while some historians contend that the mountain was named by Bering, others believe that eighteenth century mapmakers named it after Cape Saint Elias, when it was left unnamed by Bering. Mount Saint Elias is notable for its immense vertical relief and its summit rises 18,008 feet vertically in just 10 miles horizontal distance from the head of Taan Fjord, off of Icy Bay. In 2007, an Austrian documentary movie called Mount, the climbers ended up summiting on the second attempt and skiing down to 13,000 feet. Mt. St. Elias was first climbed on July 31,1897 by a led by famed explorer Prince Luigi Amadeo di Savoia. The second ascent was not until 1946, when a group from the Harvard Mountaineering Club including noted mountain historian Dee Molenaar climbed the Southwest Ridge route. The summit party comprised Molenaar, his brother Cornelius, Andrew and Betty Kauffman, Maynard Miller, William Latady, William Putnam was a member of the expedition but did not make the summit. They used eleven camps, eight of which were on the approach from Icy Bay and they were supported by multiple air drops of food. The first winter ascent was made on February 13,1996 by David Briggs, Gardner Heaton and Joe Reichert. After being flown in to 2,300 feet on the Tyndal Glacier, they climbed the southwest ridge, the team had originally planned to begin their ascent from the ocean and cross the Tyndal Glacier but the terrain was in very poor condition. Mount Saint Elias is infrequently climbed today, despite its height, because it has no route to the summit
13.
Baranof Island
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Baranof Island, also sometimes called Baranov Island, Shee or Sitka Island, is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name Baranof was given in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski to honor Alexander Andreyevich Baranov and it was called Sheet’-ká Xáatl by the native Tlingit people. It is the smallest of the ABC islands of Alaska, the island has a land area of 1,607 square miles, which is slightly smaller than the State of Delaware. It measures 105 miles by 30 miles at its longest point and perpendicular widest point and it has a shoreline of 617 miles. Its center is near 57°0′N 135°0′W, most of the island lies within the limits of Tongass National Forest. A large part has been designated as the South Baranof Wilderness. A little bay called Ommaney Bay is located in the end of the island. The escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay bears its name, the population of the island was 8,532 at the 2000 census. Almost the entire area of the island is part of the City, the only part of Baranof that is not in Sitka is a tiny sliver of land at the extreme southeast corner, which is in the Petersburg Census Area, and includes the town of Port Alexander. This section had a 2000 census population of 81 persons, the towns of Baranof Warm Springs, Port Armstrong, and Port Walter are also located on the eastern side of the island. Goddard, a settlement about 16 miles south of Sitka, features a few private homes. The latter is accessible by road from Sitka. All of these communities, except for Port Alexander and Port Armstrong, are under the jurisdiction of the City and Borough of Sitka, of which, Sitka serves as the borough seat. Fishing, seafood processing, and tourism are important industries on the island, the island was the center of Russian activity in North America during the period from 1804 to 1867 and was the headquarters of the Russian fur-trading interest. Around 1900, Baranof Island was subject to many mining ventures, especially centered on Sitka. Canneries, whaling stations, and fox farms were established on Baranof Island and smaller islands around it, the remains of these outposts are still evident, though most exist in a dilapidated condition. In February 1924 the Alaska Territorial Game Commission hired Charlie Raatakainen to transplant mainland goats from near Juneau to Bear Mountain, Raatakainen hired a group of Finns aboard his boat the Pelican to complete the job, though one of the group died in the process. The 1939 Slattery Report on Alaskan development identified the island as one of the areas where new settlements would be established through immigration, louis LAmours novel Sitka describes conflict between the Russian fur trading empire and Yankee settlers
14.
Sitka, Alaska
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As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,881. In terms of area, it is the largest city-borough in the U. S. with a land area of 2,870.3 square miles. Urban Sitka, the part that is thought of as the city of Sitka, is on the west side of Baranof Island. The current name Sitka means People on the Outside of Baranof Island, Sitkas location was originally settled by the Tlingit people over 10,000 years ago. The Russians settled Old Sitka in 1799, calling it Redoubt Saint Michael, the governor of Russian America, Alexander Baranov, arrived under the auspices of the Russian-American Company, a colonial trading company chartered by Tsar Paul I. In June 1802, Tlingit warriors destroyed the settlement, killing many of the Russians. Baranov was forced to levy 10,000 rubles in ransom for the return of the surviving settlers. Baranov returned to Sitka in August 1804, with a large force, the ship bombarded the Tlingit fort on the 20th, but was not able to cause significant damage. The Russians then launched an attack on the fort and were repelled, however, after two days of bombardment, the Tlingit hung out a white flag on the 22nd, and then deserted the fort on the 26th. Following their victory at the Battle of Sitka, the Russians established New Archangel as a permanent settlement named after Arkhangelsk, the Tlingit re-established a fort on the Chatham Strait side of Peril Strait to enforce a trade embargo with the Russian establishment. In 1808, with Baranov still governor, Sitka was designated the capital of Russian America, bishop Innocent lived in Sitka after 1840. The Cathedral of Saint Michael was built in Sitka in 1848 and became the seat of the Russian Orthodox bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, and Alaska. Swedes, Finns and other Lutherans worked for the Russian-American Company, Sitka was the site of the transfer ceremony for the Alaska purchase on October 18,1867. Russia was going through economic and political turmoil after it lost the Crimean War to Britain, France, russia offered to sell it to the United States. Secretary of State William Seward had wanted to purchase Alaska for quite time as he saw it as an integral part of Manifest Destiny. While the agreement to purchase Alaska was made in April 1867, the cost to purchase Alaska was $7.2 million. Sitka served as the capital of the Alaska Territory until 1906, the Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded in Sitka in 1912 to address racism against Alaska Native people in Alaska. By 1914 the organization had constructed the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall on Katlian Street, in 1937, the United States Navy established the first seaplane base in Alaska on Japonski Island
15.
Kenai Peninsula
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The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the southern coast of Alaska. The name Kenai is derived from the word Kenaitze, the name of the Native Alaskan tribe that inhabited the area. The peninsula extends approximately 150 miles southwest from the Chugach Mountains and it is separated from the mainland on the west by Cook Inlet and on the east by Prince William Sound. Most of the peninsula is part of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, gerasim Izmailov was the first European man to explore and map the peninsula in 1789, though Athabaskan and Alutiiq Native groups have lived on the peninsula for thousands of years. The glacier-covered Kenai Mountains run along the southeast spine of the peninsula along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska, much of the range is within Kenai Fjords National Park. The northwest coast along the Cook Inlet is flatter and marshy, several larger lakes extend through the interior of the peninsula, including Skilak Lake and Tustumena Lake. Rivers include the Kenai River, famous for its population, as well as its tributary, the Russian River, the Kasilof River. Kachemak Bay, an inlet off the larger Cook Inlet, extends into the peninsulas southwest end. The Kenai Peninsula has many glaciers in its eastern and southern areas and it is home to both the Sargent Icefield and Harding Icefields and numerous glaciers that spawn off them. Homer famously marks the terminus of the highway system of North America and is a popular destination for travelers who have driven to Alaska from the lower 48 states. Seward is the terminus of the Alaska Railroad. There are airports with scheduled flights in Kenai and Homer as well as smaller general aviation airports in Soldotna. The Seward Highway connects Seward to Anchorage, and the Sterling Highway is the backbone of Kenai Peninsula connecting the towns to Anchorage. The peninsula has a climate that is relatively mild, with abundant rainfall. It is one of the few areas in Alaska that allows for agriculture, with a growing season adequate for producing hay, the peninsula also has natural gas, petroleum, and coal deposits, as well as abundant commercial and personal-use fisheries. Tourism is an industry, along with outfitting and guiding services for hunters and fishers. The Kenai Peninsula is known as Alaskas Playground
16.
Kodiak Island
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Kodiak Island is a large island on the south coast of the U. S. state of Alaska, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait. It is 160 km long and in width ranges from 16 to 97 kilometres, Kodiak Island is the namesake for Kodiak Seamount, which lies off the coast at the Aleutian Trench. The largest community on the island is the city of Kodiak, Kodiak Island is mountainous and heavily forested in the north and east, but fairly treeless in the south. The island has many deep, ice-free bays that provide sheltered anchorages for boats, the southwestern two-thirds of the island, like much of the Kodiak Archipelago, is part of Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. Kodiak Island is part of the Kodiak Island Borough and Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska, the town of Kodiak is one of seven communities on Kodiak Island and is the islands main city. All commercial transportation between the island and the world goes through this city either via ferryboat or airline. Other settlements include the villages of Akhiok, Old Harbor, Karluk, Larsen Bay, Port Lions, the village of Ouzinkie on nearby Spruce Island is also part of the island community. Kodiak is also home to the largest U. S. Coast Guard base, which includes Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Communications Station Kodiak, the Kodiak bear and the king crab are native to the island. The fishing industry is the most important economic activity on the island, fisheries include Pacific salmon, Pacific halibut, the Karluk River is famous for its salmon run. Logging, ranching, numerous canneries, and some mining are also prevalent. An antenna farm at the summit of Pillar Mountain above the city of Kodiak provides primary communications to, Kodiak is the ancestral land of the Sugpiaq, an Alutiiq nation of Alaska Natives. The original inhabitants subsisted by hunting, fishing, farming, Kodiak Island was explored in 1763 by Russian fur trader Stephan Glotov. In 1792 the settlement was moved to the site of present-day Kodiak, in Alutiiq, this sacred place is now known as Awauq, to become numb. Following the 1867 Alaska purchase by the United States, the became part of the United States. Gradually Americans settled there, also engaging in hunting and fishing, novarupta is a volcano 100 miles northwest of Kodiak Island that erupted from June 6 to June 8,1912, the largest eruption in the 20th century. Life on Kodiak Island was immobilized during the 60-hour eruption, darkness and suffocating conditions caused by the falling ash and sulfur dioxide gas rendered villagers helpless. Among Kodiaks 500 inhabitants, sore eyes and respiratory problems were widespread, radio communications were disrupted and visibility was nil. Roofs in the village collapsed under the weight of more than a foot of ash, buildings were destroyed as avalanches of ash rushed down from nearby hillsides
17.
Adak Island
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Adak Island is an island near the western extent of the Andreanof Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Alaskas southernmost town, Adak, is located on the island, the island has a land area of 274.59 square miles, measuring 33.9 miles on length and 22 miles on width, making it the 25th largest island in the United States. Due to harsh winds, frequent cloud cover, and cold temperatures, the highest point is Mt. Moffett, near the northwest end of the island, at an elevation of 3,924 feet. It is snow covered the part of the year. Adak, Alaska is its largest and principal city, the word Adak is from the Aleut word adaq, which means father. Adak Island has been the home to Aleut peoples since ancient times, russian explorers in the 18th century also visited the island but made no permanent settlements. During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army took control of two of the westernmost Aleutian Islands - Attu and Kiska, the Japanese also attacked the American base at Dutch Harbor by air. The Japanese campaign coincided with the more well-known Battle of Midway, in response, the United States military began a campaign to oust the invaders. Since the nearest U. S. military presence was in Cold Bay, Alaska, Adak Island was chosen as the site of an airfield, and flight operations began in September 1942. Expecting a similar battle for Kiska Island, U. S. soldiers landing there August 15,1943 found the occupiers had been evacuated by Japanese naval forces since the end of May,1943. Even so, over 313 American soldiers died from friendly fire, mines, in 1953, remains of 236 Japanese dead who had been buried in Adak Cemetery were reburied in Japans Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery. Adak Naval Air Station continued to be a base during the Cold War but was designated a Base Realignment and Closure site in 1995. Shortly thereafter, the town of Adak was incorporated at the site of the former base. Down from a population of 6,000, the island recorded a 2010 census population of 326 residents, all in the city of Adak. In 1980, the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge was created, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game introduced approximately 200 caribou to the island to help prevent emergency famine. The now large caribou herd is a popular hunting destination, Adak lies in the maritime climate zone, characterized by persistently overcast skies, moderated temperatures, high winds, and frequent cyclonic storms. At Adak, overcast conditions average nearly 75% of the time during June and July, Adak averages 173 days per year with fog. The foggiest months are July and August when an average of 26 of the 31 days have fog and this number drops dramatically toward the winter season where the months of December through March have, on average, fewer than ten days with fog during any one month
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Attu Island
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The island became uninhabited in 2010. The island was the site of the only World War II land battle fought on a territory of the United States. Attu Station, a former Coast Guard LORAN station, is located at 52°51′N 173°11′E, in the chain of the Aleuts, the next island to the west of Attu are the Russian Commander Islands just 208 miles away. Attu is nearly 1,100 miles from the Alaskan mainland and 750 miles northeast of the northernmost of the Kurile Islands of Russia, and it is 4,800 miles from the capital city, Washington, D. C. Attu is about 20 by 35 miles in size with an area of 344.7 square miles. The population in the 2010 census was 20 people, all at the Attu Station, as of 1982, the only significant trees on the island were those planted by American soldiers at a chapel constructed after the 1943 battle when the Japanese occupation was over. Although Attu Island is the westernmost body of land east of the International Date Line its time zone is UTC-10, the name Attu is a transliteration of the Aleut name of the island. It was called Saint Theodore by the explorer Aleksei Chirikov in 1742, Attu, being the nearest to Kamchatka, was the first of the Aleutian Islands exploited by Russian traders. The first population estimate by the Russians put at most 175 Aleuts on Attu, however, the large number and size of archeological sites on Attu have led to estimates of 2, 000–5,000 inhabitants during the centuries preceding European contact. Russians would stay multiple years on the island hunting sea otters, after the initial wave of traders, Attu was largely overlooked by ships heading further east. The Aleuts were the inhabitants of the island prior to World War II. Earlier, in response to Japanese aggression in the Pacific, American territorial authorities conducted an evacuation of about 880 Aleuts from villages elsewhere in the Aleutian Islands. These people were interned in camps in the Alaska Panhandle. However, Attu Village had not yet been evacuated when the Japanese attacked, the village consisted of several houses around Chichagof Harbor. The 42 Attu inhabitants who survived the Japanese invasion were taken to a camp near Otaru. Sixteen of them died while they were imprisoned, before the Attu villagers were returned to the U. S. the American government stated publicly that it was not aware of their status. To place a barrier between the U. S. and Russia in case Russia decided to join the war against Japan, to make preparation for air bases for future offensive action. In late September 1942, the Japanese garrison on Attu was transferred to Kiska, and then Attu was essentially left unoccupied, on October 29,1942, the Japanese reestablished a base on Attu at Holtz Bay under the command of Lt. Col. Hiroshi Yanekawa
19.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
20.
Headlands and bays
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Headlands and bays are two related coastal features. Headlands and bays are found on the same coastline. A bay is a body of water, either seawater or fresh water, headlands are characterized by high, breaking waves, rocky shores, intense erosion, and steep sea cliffs. Bays generally have less activity, and often less wind activity than the areas of water outside the bay. Headlands and bays form on discordant coastlines, where the land consists of bands of rock of alternating resistance run perpendicular to the coast. Refraction of waves occurs on headlands concentrating wave energy on them, so many other landforms, such as caves, natural arches, and stacks, form on headlands. Wave energy is directed at angles to the wave crest. Orthogonals converge on headlands and diverge in bays, which concentrates wave energy on the headlands, in the formation of sea cliffs, wave erosion undercuts the slopes at the shoreline, which retreat landward. This increases the stress in the cliff-forming material and accelerates mass movement. The debris from these landslides collects at the base of the cliff and is removed by the waves, usually during storms. This debris provides sediment, which is transported through longshore current for the nearby bay, joints in the headlands are eroded back to form caves, which erode further to form arches. These gaps eventually collapse and leave tall stacks at the ends of the headlands, eventually these too are eroded by the waves. Wave refraction disperses wave energy through the bay, and along with the effect of the headlands this protects bays from storms. This effect means that the waves reaching the shore in a bay are weaker than the waves reaching the headland, through the deposition of sediment within the bay and the erosion of the headlands, coastlines eventually straighten out. But then the process starts all over again. Beaches are dynamic geologic features that can fluctuate between advancement and retreat of sediment, the natural agents of fluctuation include waves, tides, currents, and winds. Man-made elements such as the interruption of sediment supply, such as a dam, a headland bay beach can be classified as being in three different states of sedimentation. Static equilibrium refers to a beach that is stable and does not experience littoral drift or sediment deposition or erosion, waves generally diffract around the headland and near the beach when the beach is in a state of static equilibrium
21.
Kyushu
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Kyushu is the third biggest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternative ancient names include Kyūkoku, Chinzei, and Tsukushi-no-shima, the historical regional name Saikaidō referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands. In the 8th century Taihō Code reforms, Dazaifu was established as an administrative term for the region. As of 2016, Kyushu has a population of 12,970,479, the island is mountainous, and Japans most active volcano, Mt Aso at 1,591 metres, is on Kyushu. There are many signs of tectonic activity, including numerous areas of hot springs. The most famous of these are in Beppu, on the east shore, the island is separated from Honshu by the Kanmon Straits. The name Kyūshū comes from the nine ancient provinces of Saikaidō situated on the island, Chikuzen, Chikugo, Hizen, Higo, Buzen, Bungo, Hyūga, Osumi, excepting Oita and Miyazaki cities, the eastern seaboard shows a general decline in population. Designated cities Fukuoka Kitakyushu Kumamoto Core cities Kagoshima Ōita Nagasaki Miyazaki Naha Kurume Parts of Kyushu have a climate, particularly Miyazaki. Major agricultural products are rice, tea, tobacco, sweet potatoes, the island is noted for various types of porcelain, including Arita, Imari, Satsuma, and Karatsu. Heavy industry is concentrated in the north around Fukuoka, Kitakyushu, Nagasaki, and Oita and includes chemicals, automobiles, semiconductors, in 2010, the graduate employment rate in the region was the lowest nationwide, at 88. 9%. Besides the volcanic area of the south, there are significant mud hot springs in the part of the island, around Beppu. These springs are the site of occurrence of certain extremophile micro-organisms, the Kanmon Bridge also connects the island with Honshu. Railways on the island are operated by the Kyushu Railway Company, and Nishitetsu Railway
22.
Chirikof Island
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Chirikof Island is located in the Gulf of Alaska approximately 80 miles southwest of Kodiak Island. Chirikof Island consists of 33,000 acres of grasses and sedges, treeless, it lies west of the western tree line in Alaska. The island is shaped like a webbed duck foot with the heel to the north, the seas around Chirikof are treacherous and the island has a history of shipwrecks. The south shore has a beach suitable for aircraft landings. The island is open to public access. Commercial carriers need a permit to visit, personal planes or boats need no permit, there has generally been continuous human habitation of Chirikof, relieved by short periods of abandoment. In 1980, the became part of the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge. The only inhabitants now are a herd of perhaps 700-800 feral cattle, Cattle have been present on the island since the late 19th century. In the 21st century, the herd has become the subject of a controversy between a small group of Kodiak ranchers and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge. Vitus Bering, captain of the St. Peter, and Alexei Chirikov, captain of the St. Paul, sailed from Kamchatka in 1741 with charts that called the island Tummenoi, a Russian word meaning foggy. The log of the St. Peter recorded a sighting of the island on August 2,1741, for this reason, Bering renamed the island St. Stephen Island. Berings ship and Chirikofs had become separated early in the voyage, alutiiqs of the area still call the island Ukamok for the ground squirrels common there. In 1799 the Russian-American Company was given a charter by Tsar Paul I to govern the territory of Alaska, the company had already established a permanent colony for European settlers on Kodiak Island. Supported at first by the fur trade, the Kodiak colonists later pursued cattle ranching. During the Russian period a population of 60-100 villagers lived a life on nearby Chirikof. The villagers were Alutiiq, Tlingit, Russian and western Europeans, some were creoles, the Alaskan word for mixed race. They worshiped in a small Russian orthodox church, the village was abandoned soon after the Russian church called the only priest on the island back to Kodiak in 1870. Alaska Commercial Company acquired the assets of the Russian-American Company in 1867 when Russia sold the territory to America, in 1887, an ACC subsidiary was formed to breed blue foxes on Chirikof
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History of Alaska
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The history of Alaska dates back to the Upper Paleolithic period, when wanderer groups crossed the Bering land bridge into what is now western Alaska. At the time of European contact by the Russian explorers, the area was populated by Alaska Native groups, the name Alaska derives from the Aleut word Alaxsxaq, meaning mainland. In the 1890s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska, Alaska was granted territorial status in 1912 by the United States of America. In 1942, two of the outer Aleutian Islands—Attu and Kiska—were occupied by the Japanese and their recovery for the U. S. became a matter of national pride, the construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities. Alaska was granted U. S. statehood on January 3,1959, in 1964, the massive Good Friday earthquake killed 131 people and leveled several villages. The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline led to an oil boom. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound, today, the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Paleolithic families moved into northwestern North America sometime between 16,000 and 10,000 BC across the Bering land bridge in Alaska, Alaska became populated by the Inuit and a variety of Native American groups. Today, early Alaskans are divided into several groups, the Southeastern Coastal Indians, the Athabascans, the Aleut. The coastal migrants from Asia were probably the first wave of humans to cross the Bering Land Bridge in western Alaska, the southern portion of Prince of Wales Island was settled by the Haidas fleeing persecution by other Haidas from the Queen Charlotte Islands. The Aleuts settled the islands of the Aleutian chain approximately 10,000 years ago, cultural and subsistence practices varied widely among native groups, who were spread across vast geographical distances. On some islands and parts of the Alaskan peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants, other groups could not manage the tensions and perpetrated exactions. Hostages were taken, individuals were enslaved, families were split up, in addition, eighty percent of the Aleut population was destroyed by Old World diseases, against which they had no immunity, during the first two generations of Russian contact. In 1784, Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island, Shelikhov and his men killed hundreds of indigenous Koniag, then founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska on the islands Three Saints Bay. By 1788 a number of Russian settlements had been established by Shelikhov and others over a large region, the Russians had gained control of the habitats of the most valuable sea otters, the Kurilian-Kamchatkan and Aleutian sea otters. Their fur was thicker, glossier, and blacker than those of sea otters on the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Russians, therefore, advanced to the Northwest Coast only after the superior varieties of sea otters were depleted, around 1788. The Russian entry to the Northwest Coast was slow, however, due to a shortage of ships, yakutat Bay was reached in 1794 and the settlement of Slavorossiya was built there in 1795. Reconnaissance of the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands was carried out by James Shields, in 1795 Alexandr Baranov, who had been hired in 1790 to manage Shelikhovs fur enterprise, sailed into Sitka Sound, claiming it for Russia
24.
Arctic
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The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska, Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost-containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places, the Arctic region is a unique area among Earths ecosystems. For example, the cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold, in recent years, Arctic sea ice decline has been caused by global warming. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice, zooplankton and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals, plants, Arctic land is bordered by the subarctic. The word Arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός, near the Bear, northern, there are a number of definitions of what area is contained within the Arctic. The area can be defined as north of the Arctic Circle, the southern limit of the midnight sun. The Arctics climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers and its precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow and is low, with most of the area receiving less than 50 cm. High winds often stir up snow, creating the illusion of continuous snowfall, average winter temperatures can be as low as −40 °C, and the coldest recorded temperature is approximately −68 °C. Coastal Arctic climates are moderated by oceanic influences, having generally warmer temperatures, the Arctic is affected by current global warming, leading to Arctic sea ice shrinkage, diminished ice in the Greenland ice sheet, and Arctic methane release as the permafrost thaws. Due to the migration of the planets isotherms, the Arctic region is currently shrinking. Perhaps the most spectacular result of Arctic shrinkage is sea ice loss, there is a large variance in predictions of Arctic sea ice loss, with models showing near-complete to complete loss in September from 2040 to some time well beyond 2100. About half of the models show near-complete to complete sea ice loss in September by the year 2100. Arctic life is characterized by adaptation to short growing seasons with long periods of sunlight, Arctic vegetation is composed of plants such as dwarf shrubs, graminoids, herbs, lichens and mosses, which all grow relatively close to the ground, forming tundra. As one moves northward, the amount of available for plant growth decreases considerably. Colder summer temperatures cause the size, abundance, productivity and variety of plants to decrease, trees cannot grow in the Arctic, but in its warmest parts, shrubs are common and can reach 2 m in height, sedges, mosses and lichens can form thick layers. In the coldest parts of the Arctic, much of the ground is bare, non-vascular plants such as lichens and mosses predominate, along with a few scattered grasses, herbivores on the tundra include the Arctic hare, lemming, muskox, and caribou. They are preyed on by the owl, Arctic fox, Grizzly bear
25.
Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the worlds five major oceans. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean, located mostly in the Arctic north polar region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America. It is partly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter, the summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center uses satellite data to provide a record of Arctic sea ice cover. The Arctic may become ice free for the first time in human history within a few years or by 2040, for much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as growlers or bergy bits, his Thule was probably Norway, early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land or water. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank and this lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an Open Polar Sea was persistent, john Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane, even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea. Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean, scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested, the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2, almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km long and it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea, countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours around the Arctic Ocean In Alaska, in Canada, ships may anchor at Churchill in Manitoba, Nanisivik in Nunavut, Tuktoyaktuk or Inuvik in the Northwest territories
26.
Arctic exploration
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Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, 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 land of Thule. After six days of sailing, he reached land at the edge of a sea, and described what is believed to be the aurora. 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, 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, Gunnbjörn Ulfsson got lost in a storm and 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 and they are believed to have survived until around 1450. Greenlands early settlers sailed westward, in search of better pasturage, modern scholars debate the precise location of the new lands of Vinland, Markland, and Helluland that they discovered. The Scandinavian peoples also pushed north into their own peninsula by land. As early as 880, the Viking Ohthere of Hålogaland rounded the Scandinavian Peninsula and sailed to the Kola Peninsula and 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, 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, 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 food supplies. A seminal event in Arctic exploration occurred in 1409, when Ptolemys Geographia was translated into Latin, navigators were better able to chart their positions, and the European race to China, sparked by interest in the writings of Marco Polo, commenced
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Farthest North
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Farthest North describes the most northerly latitude reached by explorers before the conquest of the North Pole rendered the expression obsolete. The northern polar regions are more accessible than those of the south, as continental land masses extend to high latitudes. A Dutch expedition led by Willem Barentz reached 79°49’ N on 16 June 1596 to register the first recorded Farthest North, in 1607 Henry Hudson probably reached Hakluyts Headland, but could not proceed further as ice lay packed along Spitsbergens north coast. In 1612 an explorer from Hull, Thomas Marmaduke, claimed to have reached 82°N, none of these claims have any basis in fact, with the second claim, made by Joris Carolus, impossible knowing ice conditions that season, although Marmaduke did at least reach Gråhuken. English whalers reached Svalbards Nordkapp in or before 1622, as shown on the Muscovy Companys Map, the Seven Islands, north of Nordaustlandet, were first marked on a Dutch map of 1663, but were allegedly reached by a ship of Enkhuizen as early as 1618. In 1707 the Dutch whaler Cornelis Cornelisz Giles rounded the northernmost point of Nordaustlandet in Svalbard, in 1806 the Resolution of Whitby, under William Scoresby, Sr. was said to have sailed north of the Seven Islands and reached 81°50 N. One of the first expeditions with the purpose of reaching the North Pole was that of William Edward Parry in 1827, who reached 82°45′ N. Albert Hastings Markham, a member of the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-76 was the one to get closer to the pole 48 years later. Adolphus Greelys Lady Franklin Bay Expedition bested Markham by a few miles, in 1895, Norwegians Fridtjof Nansen and Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen reached latitude 86°14′ N. Two American explorers claimed to reach the North Pole in 1908 and 1909, cooks claim was soon judged to be fraudulent, and Peary was credited as the discoverer of the North Pole for much of the 20th century. In recent decades, however, Pearys claim has become the subject of controversy, with Pearys claim accepted at the time, overland expeditions to the North Pole came to an end. Roald Amundsen of Norway redirected his planned Arctic expedition and instead aimed for the South Pole, which he achieved in 1911. In 1931 an expedition, led by Hubert Wilkins and Lincoln Ellsworth and partly financed by William Randolph Hearst, the Nautilus was modified for under ice operations by submarine designer Simon Lake so it could detect openings in the ice pack and surface to recharge her batteries. While the expedition was a failure, the Nautilus did reach a latitude of 82 degrees north - the farthest north a vessel had ever been, in accordance with the lease agreement, the Nautilus was scuttled after the expedition to prevent her reuse as a warship. On 9 May 1926, Richard Evelyn Byrd attempted to fly over the North Pole in an airplane and he was widely credited with achieving this, but his claim subsequently became subject to doubt. The first man definitely to set foot on the Pole was the Russian Alexander Kuznetsov, on 3 August 1958 the United States submarine USS Nautilus was the first to sail under the ice pack to reach the North Pole. On 17 March 1959 the United States submarine Skate became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole, in 1968–69 the British explorer Wally Herbert became the first person to indubitably reach the Pole on foot, having sledged from Alaska. His expedition was supported by air drops, Arctic exploration List of Arctic expeditions Farthest South Fleming, Fergus
28.
North Pole
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The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is defined as the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earths axis of rotation meets its surface. The North Pole is the northernmost point on the Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole and it defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south, all lines of longitude converge there, along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere, while the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole, however, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, the Russians have also established a base, Barneo. This operates for a few weeks during early spring, studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later. The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4,261 m by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m by USS Nautilus in 1958. The nearest land is said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km away. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent variation of latitude, as determined for a fixed point on Earth from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole across the Earths surface, the wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component. The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the eight-month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer and it is desirable to tie the system of Earth coordinates to fixed landforms. Of course, given plate tectonics and isostasy, there is no system in all geographic features are fixed. Yet the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the International Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System. As early as the 16th century, many eminent people correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea and it was therefore hoped that passage could be found through ice floes at favorable times of the year. Several expeditions set out to find the way, generally with whaling ships, one of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. In 1871 the Polaris expedition, a US attempt on the Pole led by Charles Francis Hall, another British Royal Navy attempt on the pole, part of the British Arctic Expedition, by Commander Albert H. Markham reached a then-record 83°2026 North in May 1876 before turning back. An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer George W. DeLong ended tragically when their ship, over half the crew, including DeLong, were lost
29.
Willem Barentsz
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Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. He went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage, during his third expedition, the crew was stranded on Novaya Zemlya for almost a year. Barentsz died on the voyage in 1597. In the 19th century, the Barents Sea was named after him, Willem Barentsz was born around 1550 on the island Terschelling in the Seventeen Provinces, present-day Netherlands. Barentsz was not his surname but rather his name, short for Barentszoon Barents son. A cartographer by trade, Barentsz sailed to Spain and the Mediterranean to complete an atlas of the Mediterranean region, between 23 and 29 June, Barentsz stayed at Kildin Island. On 9 July, the crew encountered a bear for the first time. After shooting it with a musket when it tried to climb aboard the ship, once leashed and brought aboard the ship however, the bear rampaged and had to be killed. This occurred in Bear Creek, Williams Island, upon discovering the Orange Islands, the crew came across a herd of approximately 200 walruses and tried to kill them with hatchets and pikes. Finding the task more difficult than imagined, they left with only a few ivory tusks. Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and followed it northward before being forced to back in the face of large icebergs. Although they did not reach their goal, the trip was considered a success. Setting out on 2 June 1595, the voyage went between the Siberian coast and Vaygach Island, on 30 August, the party came across approximately 20 Samoyed wild men with whom they were able to speak, due to a crewmember speaking their language. 4 September saw a crew sent to States Island to search for a type of crystal that had been noticed earlier. The party was attacked by a bear, and two sailors were killed. Eventually, the turned back upon discovering that unexpected weather had left the Kara Sea frozen. This expedition was considered to be a failure. The Town Council of Amsterdam purchased and outfitted two small ships, captained by Jan Rijp and Jacob van Heemskerk, to search for the channel under the command of Barentsz
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Henry Hudson
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Henry Hudson, born circa 1565-1570, dead 1611, was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northwest Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle. Hudson explored the region around modern New York metropolitan area while looking for a route to Asia while in the employment of the Dutch East India Company. He explored the Hudson River, and laid thereby the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region, Hudson discovered the Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay on his final expedition. While searching for the Northwest Passage, Hudson and his son would lose their lives. In 1611, after wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, the mutineers cast Hudson, his son and seven others adrift, the Hudsons, and those cast off at their side, were never seen again. His name also lives on with the Hudsons Bay Company that explored and worked in the vast Hudson Bay watershed and this large company, and one of the longest lasting, was very successful with fur trading all across North America. Canada acquired a portion of land from the purchase of Hudsons Bay Company lands. Details of Hudsons birth and early life are mostly unknown, some sources have identified Hudson as having been born in about 1565, but others date his birth to around 1570. Other historians assert even less certainty, Mancall, for instance, states that was born in the 1560s. Hudson is thought to have spent many years at sea, beginning as a cabin boy, in 1607, the Muscovy Company of England hired Hudson to find a northerly route to the Pacific coast of Asia. The English were battling the Dutch for northwest routes and it was thought at the time that, because the sun shone for three months in the northern latitudes in the summer, the ice would melt and a ship could make it across the top of the world. Hudson sailed on 1 May with a crew of ten men and they reached the east coast of Greenland on 14 June, coasting it northward until the 22nd. Here they named a headland Youngs Cape, a high mount, like a round castle near it Mount of Gods Mercy. After turning east, they sighted Newland on the 27th, near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later simply named the Great Indraught. On 13 July Hudson and his crew thought they had sailed as far north as 80°23 N, the following day they entered what Hudson later in the voyage named Whales Bay, naming its northwestern point Collins Cape after his boatswain, William Collins. They sailed north the following two days, on the 16th they reached as far north as Hakluyts Headland at 79°49 N, thinking they saw the land continue to 82° N when really it trended to the east. Encountering ice packed along the north coast, they were forced to turn back south, Hudson wanted to make his return by the north of Greenland to Davis his Streights, and so for Kingdom of England, but ice conditions would have made this impossible
31.
William Parry (explorer)
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His 1819 voyage through the Parry Channel was probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Passage. In 1827 he attempted one of the earliest expeditions to the North Pole, Parry was born in Bath, the son of Dr. Caleb Hillier Parry and Sarah Rigby. He was educated at King Edwards School, Bath, from 1813–1817 he served on the North American station. In 1818 he received command of the brig Alexander in the Arctic expedition under Captain John Ross and this expedition followed the coast of Baffin Bay without making any new discoveries. Parry and many thought that Ross was wrong to turn back after entering Lancaster Sound at the north end of Baffin Island. Partly as a result Parry was given command of a new expedition in the HMS Hecla accompanied by the slower HMS Griper under Matthew Liddon, others on the expedition were Edward Sabine, science officer and Frederick William Beechy. For protection from ice the ships were clad with 3-inch oak, had plates on their bows. They also carried food in tin cans, an invention so new that there were as yet no can openers, instead of taking Rosss easy route anti-clockwise around Baffin Bay he headed straight for Lancaster Sound. Fighting his way through ice he reached clear water on 28 July and he passed Rosss farthest west and kept going. Blocked by heavy ice, they went south for more than 100 miles into Prince Regent Inlet before turning back, continuing west they passed 110°W which entitled them to a £5,000 award offered by Parliament. Finally blocked by ice they turned back to a place Parry called Winter Harbour on the shore of Melville Island. Cutting their way through new ice the ships reached anchorage on 26 September, here they were frozen in for the next 10 months. There were three months of total darkness and in the new year the temperature reached −54 °F, the men were kept busy with regular exercise while the officers put on plays and produced a newspaper. The first case of scurvy was reported in January and by March fourteen men were on the sick list, there was some excitement in early March when the first melt water appeared, but by the end of the month the ice was still 6 feet thick. In June Parry led a group of men dragging a wooden cart to the shore of the island which he named Hecla. It was the first of August before the ships were able to out of the harbor. They got as far west as 113°46W before turning back and it was too late in the season and new ice was already beginning to form. They reached England in October 1820 having lost only one man,1819 was unusually ice-free and no ship was able to travel so far west until Edward Belchers expedition in 1850
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North Magnetic Pole
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Magnetic declination or variation is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north and true north. This angle varies depending on position on the Earths surface, and changes over time. The angle between magnetic and grid meridians is called grid magnetic angle, grid variation, or grivation. ”By convention, declination is positive when magnetic north is east of true north, and negative when it is to the west. Isogonic lines are lines on the Earths surface along which the declination has the constant value. The lowercase Greek letter δ is frequently used as the symbol for magnetic declination, Magnetic declination varies both from place to place and with the passage of time. As a traveller cruises the east coast of the United States, for example, the declination at London, UK is one degree 7 minutes west, and as the country is quite small that figure is fairly good for the whole of the country. It is reducing, and scientists predict that in about 2050 it will be zero, similarly, secular changes to these flows result in slow changes to the field strength and direction at the same point on the Earth. The magnetic declination in an area may change slowly over time, possibly as little as 2–2.5 degrees every hundred years or so. For a location closer to the pole like Ivujivik, the declination may change by 1 degree every three years and this may be insignificant to most travellers, but can be important if using magnetic bearings from old charts or metes in old deeds for locating places with any precision. As an example of how variation changes over time, see the two charts of the area, below, surveyed 124 years apart. The 1884 chart shows a variation of 8 degrees,20 minutes West, the 2008 chart shows 13 degrees,15 minutes West. The instrument used to perform this measurement is known as a declinometer, the approximate position of the north celestial pole is indicated by Polaris. In the northern hemisphere, declination can therefore be determined as the difference between the magnetic bearing and a visual bearing on Polaris. Polaris currently traces a circle 0. 75° in radius around the celestial pole. At high latitudes a plumb-bob is helpful to sight Polaris against an object close to the horizon. A rough estimate of the local declination can be determined from a general isogonic chart of the world or a continent, isogonic lines are also shown on aeronautical and nautical charts. Larger-scale local maps may indicate current local declination, often with the aid of a schematic diagram, unless the area depicted is very small, declination may vary measurably over the extent of the map, so the data may be referred to a specific location on the map. The current rate and direction of change may also be shown, the same diagram may show the angle of grid north, which may differ from true north
33.
John Ross (Royal Navy officer)
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Admiral Sir John Ross, CB, RN was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer. Ross was the son of the Rev. Andrew Ross of Balsarroch, minister of Inch in Wigtownshire, and Elizabeth Corsane, daughter of Robert Corsane, in 1786, aged only nine, he joined the Royal Navy as an apprentice. He served in the Mediterranean until 1789 and then in the English Channel, in 1808, he acted as a captain of the Swedish Navy and in 1812 became a Commander. Sir John was the uncle of Captain Sir James Clark Ross, RN who explored the Arctic with him and this entailed going around the extreme northeast coast of America and sailing to the Bering Strait. He was also to note the currents, tides, the state of ice and magnetism and he left London in April 1818 in the Isabella accompanied by the Alexander under Lieutenant William Edward Parry. He sailed counter-clockwise around Baffin Bay repeating the observations made by William Baffin two hundred years before, in August he reached Lancaster Sound at the north end of Baffin Island and entered Lancaster Sound which later proved to be the eastern gate of the Northwest Passage. He sailed a number of miles west but went no further and he named the apparent mountains Croker Mountains, in honor of John Wilson Croker, then First Secretary of the Admiralty. He then returned to England despite the protests of several of his officers, including Parry, the account of his voyage, published a year later, brought to light their disagreement, and the ensuing controversy over the existence of Croker Mountains ruined his reputation. This expedition failed to discover much that was new and its main effect was to open a route for whale ships to northern Baffin Bay and provoke William Edward Parry to re-explore Lancaster Sound and find a major portion of the northwest passage. Ross attained the rank of captain on his return to Scotland and about this time built the house North West Castle, in Stranraer, partly to redeem his reputation Ross proposed to use a shallow-draft steam ship to break through the ice. The Admiralty was not interested, but he was able to convince the gin-magnate Felix Booth to finance a second expedition and his ship was the Victory, a side-wheel steamer with paddles that could be lifted away from the ice and an experimental high-pressure boiler built by John Ericsson. It carried four officers and 19 men, the goal was Prince Regent Inlet at the west end of Baffin Island where Parry had lost his ship in 1825. He left the Thames on 23 May 1829, Baffin Bay was unusually ice free and on 6 August 1829 he passed the point where he had turned back 10 years before. On 11 August 1829 he turned south into Prince Regent Inlet, the hulk was gone but there were heaps of stores on the beach, some of which he took. Continuing south he became the first European in the Gulf of Boothia and he took winter quarters at Felix Harbour at the eastern tip of the Boothia Peninsula. In January 1830 a group of Netsilik Inuit arrived and provided food, for one of them the ships carpenter made a wooden leg. In the spring of 1830 James Clark Ross made several trips west into the interior. On 9 April 1830 he reached the west side of the Boothia Peninsula and in May 1830 crossed over ice to the northwest shore of King William Island and it was mid-September 1830 before the ice broke part of its grip
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James Clark Ross
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Ross was born in London, the nephew of Sir John Ross, under whom he entered the navy in 1812, accompanying him on Sir Johns first Arctic voyage in search of a Northwest Passage in 1818. Between 1819 and 1827, Ross took part in four Arctic expeditions under Sir William Parry and it was during this trip that they located the position of the North Magnetic Pole on 1 June 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in the far north of Canada. It was on this trip, too, that Ross charted the Beaufort Islands, in 1834, Ross was promoted to Captain. In December 1835, he offered his services to the Admiralty to resupply 11 whaling ships which had trapped in Baffin Bay. They accepted his offer, and he set sail in HMS Cove in January 1836, the crossing was difficult, and by the time he had reached the last known position of the whalers in June, all but one had managed to return home. Ross found no trace of this last vessel, the William Torr and he returned to Hull in September 1836 with all his crew in good health. From 1835–39, except for his voyage with the Cove, he conducted a survey of Great Britain with Edward Sabine. Between 1839 and 1843, Ross commanded an Antarctic expedition comprising the vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, Francis Crozier was second-in-command of the expedition and commanded HMS Terror. Support for the expedition had been arranged by Francis Beaufort, hydrographer of the Navy, on the expedition was Joseph Dalton Hooker, who had been invited along as assistant surgeon. In 1841, James Ross discovered the Ross Sea, Victoria Land, and the volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, which were named for the expeditions vessels. They sailed for 250 nautical miles along the edge of the low, Ross reported that Admiralty Sound appeared to Ross to have been blocked by glaciers at its southern end. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Société de Géographie in 1843, elected to the Royal Society in 1848, in 1848, Ross was sent on one of three expeditions to find Sir John Franklin. In the spring he and Francis McClintock explored the west coast of the island by sledge and he recognized Peel Sound but thought it too ice-choked for Franklin to have used it. The next summer he tried to reach Wellington Channel but was blocked by ice and he was married to Lady Ann Ross. He died at Aylesbury in 1862, five years after his wife, a blue plaque marks Rosss home in Eliot Place, Blackheath, London. His closest friend was Crozier, with whom he sailed many times, Crozier is known to have become leader of the Franklin Expedition after the death of Sir John Franklin, but he disappeared thereafter along with the other members of the expedition. He also lived in the ancient country house of the Abbots of St. Albans, later known as The Abbey and he is buried with his wife in the local churchyard of St. James the Great, Aston Abbotts. In the gardens of the Abbey there is a lake with two islands, named after the ships Terror and Erebus
35.
Elisha Kane
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Elisha Kent Kane was an American explorer, and a medical officer in the United States Navy during the first half of the 19th century. He was a member of two Arctic expeditions to rescue the explorer Sir John Franklin and he was present at the discovery of Franklins first winter camp, but he did not find out what had happened to the fatal expedition. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kane was the son of John Kintzing Kane, a U. S. district judge and his brother was attorney, diplomat, abolitionist, and American Civil War general Thomas L. Kane. Kane graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1842, on September 14,1843, he became Assistant Surgeon in the Navy. He served in the China Commercial Treaty mission under Caleb Cushing, in the Africa Squadron, one battle that Kane fought in was at Nopalucan on January 6,1848. At Napoluca, he captured, befriended and saved the life of Mexican General Antonio Gaona, during this expedition, the crew discovered Sir John Franklins first winter camp. Kane then organized and headed the Second Grinnell expedition which sailed from New York on May 31,1853, in 1852, Kane met the Fox sisters, famous for their spirit rapping séances, and he became enamored with the middle sister, Margaret. Kane was convinced that the sisters were frauds, and sought to reform Margaret and she would later claim that they were secretly married in 1856—she changed her name to Margaret Fox Kane—and engaged the family in lawsuits over his will. Kane finally abandoned the icebound brig Advance on May 20,1855, the party, carrying the invalids, lost only one man. Kane and his men were saved by a sailing ship, Kane returned to New York on October 11,1855 and the following year published his two-volume Arctic Explorations. He died there on February 16,1857, Dr. Kane received medals from Congress, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Société de Géographie. Elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1855, the destroyer USS Kane was named for him, as was a later oceanographic research ship, the USNS Kane. Kane was a member of Holland Lodge No.8 F&AM, a prominent Masonic lodge in New York City was renamed the Kane Lodge. The crater Kane on the Moon was also named for him, on May 28,1986, the United States Postal Service issued a 22 cent postage stamp in his honor, depicting his route to the Arctic. The Anoatok historic home at Kane, Pennsylvania was named to allude to his Arctic adventures, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia created the Elisha Kent Kane Medal in his honor. The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, A personal narrative, Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson,1856, at the Making of America Project. Arctic explorations, The second Grinnell expedition in search of Sir John Franklin,1853,54,55, Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson,1857, attribution Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Kane, Elisha Kent. The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration from Franklin to Scott, E C Coleman 2006 Corner, George W. Doctor Kane of the Arctic Seas Edinger, love and Ice, The Tragic Obsessions of Dr. Elijah Kent Kane, Arctic Explorer
36.
Isaac Israel Hayes
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Isaac Israel Hayes was an Arctic explorer, physician and politician. Hayes was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, after completing his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Hayes signed on as ships surgeon for an 1853-5 expedition led by Elisha Kent Kane to search for John Franklin. His 1854 exploration of the east coast of Ellesmere Island north of 79° North resulted in new, Hayes was apparently the first non-aboriginal explorer of Ellesmere. Hayes led his own expedition 1860-1 which claimed to have reached the farthest north land ever, on the Ellesmere Island coast at 81°35 North, 70°30 West. It is hard to explain how else he could have produced a latitude too high by one, hayess 1861 farthest was at Cape Collinson, less than 10 miles north of 80° north, longitude 70°30′ west. Hayes returned to the United States in 1861 claiming also to have seen the fictional Open Polar Sea reported by Elisha Kent Kane in 1855, the Civil War, however, had come to preoccupy Americans and diminished public interest in Hayes reports of discovery. Hayess expedition was memorialized in Frederic Edwin Churchs painting Aurora Borealis, during the American Civil War, Hayes commanded Satterlee Hospital, a sprawling Union army 4, 500-bed hospital in Philadelphia. Hayes was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly in 1876,1877,1878,1879,1880 and 1881, the United States Range on Canadas Ellesmere Island is named after his ship. Ostrov Kheysa, an island in Franz Josef Land is named after Isaac I, robert E. Johnson, HAYES, ISAAC ISRAEL in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 16,2015, http, michael Robinson, The Coldest Crucible, Arctic Exploration and American Culture Douglas W. Wamsley, Polar Hayes, The Life and Contributions of Isaac Israel Hayes, M. I
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Polaris expedition
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The Polaris expedition was led by the American Charles Francis Hall, who intended it to be the first expedition to reach the North Pole. Sponsored by the United States government, it was one of the first serious attempts at the Pole, after that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, the expedition failed at its main objective, having been troubled throughout by insubordination, incompetence, and poor leadership. Under Halls command, the Polaris departed from New York City in June 1871, by October, the men were wintering on the shore of northern Greenland, making preparations for the trip to the Pole. Hall returned to the ship from an exploratory sledging journey, before he died, he accused members of the crew of poisoning him. An exhumation of his body in 1968 revealed that he had ingested a large quantity of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life, the expeditions notable achievement was reaching 82°29N latitude by ship, a record at the time. On the way southward, nineteen members of the expedition became separated from the ship, the damaged Polaris was run aground and wrecked near Etah, Greenland, in October 1872. The remaining men were able to survive the winter, and were rescued the following summer, a naval board of inquiry investigated Halls death, but no charges were ever laid. In 1827, William Edward Parry led a British Royal Navy expedition with the aim to be the first men to reach the North Pole, Hall had no special academic background or sailing experience, but he was a voracious reader with an obsession for the Arctic. After John Franklins 1845 expedition was lost, Halls focus was directed toward the Arctic and he was able to launch two expeditions in search of Franklin and his crew, one in 1860–63, and a second in 1864–69. These experiences established him as a seasoned Arctic explorer, and gave him valuable contacts among the Inuit people, the renown he gained eventually allowed him to convince the United States government to fund his third expedition, an attempt on the North Pole. In 1870, a bill was introduced in the Senate called the Arctic Resolution and he secured the U. S. Navy tugboat Periwinkle, a 387-ton screw-propelled steamer. At the Washington Navy Yard the ship was fitted as a topsail schooner. She was prepared for Arctic service by the addition of oak timber all over her hull. A new engine was added, and one of the boilers was retrofitted to burn seal or whale oil, the ship was also outfitted with four whaleboats,20 feet long and 4 feet wide, and a flat-bottomed scow. During his previous Arctic expeditions, Hall came to admire the Inuit umiak, food packed on board consisted of tinned ham, salted beef, bread and sailors biscuit. The men intended to supplement their diet with fresh muskox, seal and polar bear, in the spring of 1871, U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant had named Hall as overall commander of the expedition, and he was being referred to as Captain. Though Hall had abundant Arctic experience, he had no sailing experience, in selecting the officers and seamen, Hall relied heavily on whalers with experience in the Arctic. This was markedly different from the expeditions of the British Admiralty
38.
USS Periwinkle (1864)
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USS Periwinkle was a steamer procured by the Union Navy during the final months of the American Civil War. She served the Union Navy’s struggle against the Confederate States of America as a patrol gunship, the two-masted, schooner-rigged, white oak tug joined the Potomac Flotilla 15 January 1865 as a gunboat, and operated primarily in the Rappahannock River. The Flotilla also interrupted contraband business between lower Maryland and Virginia, and cleared the rivers of mines, and fought guerillas ashore, after the Civil War ended, Periwinkle continued to serve with the flotilla until June 1865. Next, ordered to Norfolk, Virginia, she operated out of the Norfolk Navy Yard until placed in ordinary during 1867, late in 1870, she was selected for service with Charles Francis Halls North Polar Expedition, and was sent to the Washington Navy Yard for repairs. Renamed Polaris early in 1871, she arrived at New York Navy Yard 9 June 1871 to complete loading of stores and she sailed from the New York Navy Yard in July 1871, Charles F. Hall in command. Aiming for the North Pole, she reached 82’1 11’ N. latitude, Polaris was caught in the ice on the homeward voyage in October 1872, and carried for some distance before being crushed. Her crew was rescued, including a party of 18 men led by William F. C. Nindemann, who had debarked to land provisions after the hull of the Polaris had begun to leak, the lost party floated for 196 days and were subsequently rescued separately from the vessel. Union Blockade United States Navy List of United States Navy ships William F. C, nindemann, a seaman on the voyage of the Polaris. This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, the entry can be found here
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Charles Francis Hall
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Charles Francis Hall was an American Arctic explorer. Little is known of Halls early life and he was born in the state of Vermont, but while he was still a child his family moved to Rochester, New Hampshire, where, as a boy, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith. In the 1840s he married and drifted westward, arriving in Cincinnati, Ohio, there he went into business making seals and engraving plates, and later began to publish two small newspapers, The Cincinnati Occasional and The Daily Press. He got as far as Baffin Island, where the George Henry was forced to winter over, the Inuit told Hall of surviving relics from Martin Frobishers mining venture at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island. Hall soon travelled there to see them first-hand, drawing upon the assistance of his newly found Inuit guides Ebierbing. Hall also learned what he interpreted as evidence that members of Franklins lost expedition might still be alive. On his return to New York, Hall arranged for Harper Brothers to publish his account of the expedition Arctic Researches and it was edited by a British mariner and writer William Parker Snow, who was also obsessed with the fate of Franklin. The two men fell out, and amongst other things Parker Snow later claimed Hall had used his ideas for the search for Franklin without giving him due credit. During 1863 Hall planned an expedition to seek more clues on the fate of Franklin. Finally, in July 1864 a very much smaller expedition departed in the whaler Monticello, during this second expedition to King William Island, he found remains and artifacts from the Franklin expedition, and made more inquiries about their fate from natives living there. Hall eventually realized that the stories of survivors had become garbled and unreliable and he also became disillusioned with the Inuit by the discovery that the remnants of Franklins expedition had deliberately been left to starve. He failed to consider that it would have impossible for the local population to support such a large group of supernumeraries. Halls third expedition was of a different character. He received a grant of $50,000 from the U. S. Congress to command an expedition to the North Pole in the ship Polaris. The party of 25 also included Halls old friend Budington as sailing master, George Tyson as navigator, and Dr. Emil Bessels, the expedition was troubled from the start as the party split into rival factions. Halls authority over the expedition was resented by a portion of the party. Polaris sailed into Thank God Harbor on September 10,1871 and that fall, upon returning to the ship from a sledging expedition with an Inuit guide, Hall suddenly fell ill after drinking a cup of coffee. He collapsed in what was described as a fit, for the next week he suffered from vomiting and delirium, then seemed to improve for a few days
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British Arctic Expedition
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The British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876, led by Sir George Strong Nares, was sent by the British Admiralty to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound. Two ships, HMS Alert and HMS Discovery, sailed from Portsmouth on 29 May 1875, although the expedition failed to reach the North Pole, the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island were extensively explored and large amounts of scientific data were collected. On this expedition, Nares became the first explorer to take his ships all the way north through the channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island to the Lincoln Sea. Up to this time, it had been a theory that this route would lead to the supposed Open Polar Sea, an ice-free region surrounding the pole. A sledging party under Commander Albert Hastings Markham set a new record Farthest North of 83°20 26N, the men suffered badly from scurvy and were hampered by inappropriate clothing and equipment. Realising that his men could not survive another winter in the ice, the expedition included Petty Officer Adam Ayles, after whom both the Ayles Ice Shelf and Mount Ayles are named. Other features named after the expedition include the Markham Ice Shelf, Nares Strait and Alert, Nunavut, pelham Aldrich was a lieutenant on the expedition and commanded the Western Sledge Party to Ellesmere Island, where Cape Aldrich was named in his honour. Archives are held at Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, the RGS and the British Arctic Expedition, 1875-76. The Geographical Journal 143, pp. 200–210, project Naming, the identification of Inuit portrayed in photographic collections at Library and Archives Canada
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HMS Alert (1856)
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HMS Alert was a 17-gun wooden screw sloop of the Cruizer class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1894. She was the ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. Alert briefly served with the United States Navy, and ended her career with the Canadian Marine Service as a lighthouse tender, ordered together with her sister-ship Falcon on 2 April 1853, she was laid down at the Royal Dockyard, Pembroke in January 1855.8 knots. The class was given a barque-rig sail plan, All the ships of the class were provided with one 32-pounder long gun on a pivot mount and sixteen 32-pounder carriage guns in a broadside arrangement. When converted for Arctic exploration in 1874, her armament was reduced to an outfit of four Armstrong breech-loaders. Alert spent the first 11 years of her life on the Pacific Station, based at Esquimalt at the tip of Vancouver Island. During this period she returned to Plymouth between October 1861 and May 1863 for a refit and her service on the Pacific station was the type of work for which her class had been designed—the policing of Britains far-flung maritime empire. In 1874, Alert was taken in hand for conversion to the role of arctic exploration, above the waterline she was sheathed with teak, and below it, Canadian elm and pitch-pine. The modifications caused her displacement to increase to 1,240 tons, the British Arctic Expedition was commanded by Captain George Strong Nares, and comprised Alert and Discovery. The expedition aimed to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound, contemporary geographers proposed that there could be an Open Polar Sea, and that if the thick layer of ice surrounding it were overcome, access to the North Pole by sea might be possible. Ever since Edward Augustus Inglefield had penetrated Smith Sound in 1852, despite finding heavier-than-expected ice, the expedition pressed on. Leaving Discovery to winter at Lady Franklin Bay, Alert pressed on a further 50 nautical miles through the Robeson Channel, establishing her winter quarters at Floeberg Beach. Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, on 3 April the second-in-command of Alert, Albert Hastings Markham, took a party north to attempt the Pole. By 11 May, having made progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83°20 26N. Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back, the expedition was rewarded on its return, Nares was knighted, Markham was promoted to captain. The geography of northern Canada and Greenland is dotted with the names of those connected with the expedition, Nares Strait, Nares Lake, Markham Ice Shelf, Ayles Ice Shelf, and Mount Ayles. The northernmost permanently inhabited place on earth, the settlement of Alert at the point of Ellesmere Island, was named for the ship. Alert recommissioned at Chatham on 20 August 1878 under the command of Captain Sir George Strong Nares for a survey of the Strait of Magellan, on 12 March 1879 Captain John Fiot Lee Pearse Maclear took command, and under him she went to Australia Station and the Pacific
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George Nares
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Vice-Admiral Sir George Strong Nares KCB FRS was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer. He commanded the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal, the Challenger Expedition and he was highly thought of as a leader and scientific explorer. In later life he worked for the Board of Trade and as Acting Conservator of the River Mersey, and died in 1915 aged 83. He was born on 24 April 1831, the son and sixth child of Commander William Henry Nares, a British naval officer. He was baptised at the church of St Bridget, Llansanffraid on 22 May and he married Mary Grant, the eldest daughter of a Portsmouth banker, on 22 June 1858. They had four sons and six daughters and his two youngest sons, George Edward Nares and John Dodd Nares entered the Royal Navy. He was educated at the Royal Naval School in New Cross, and in 1845 joined the Royal Navy aboard Canopus, an old battleship captured from the French. Following a posting to Havannah on the Australian station in 1848 during which he served as midshipman and mate, he returned in 1851 and passed his lieutenants exam in 1852. Nares was accepted as the mate of Resolute, and thus gained valuable early experience of the Arctic during the 1852-1854 expedition. In 1854 Nares received his promotion to lieutenant and specialised as a gunnery officer and he joined the new battleship Conqueror in 1854, including service in the Mediterranean during the Crimean War. During this time he was loaned to the Aetna-class ironclad floating battery Glatton under the command of Captain Arthur Cumming, Glatton arrived in the Black Sea too late to see action. He served as a lieutenant in charge of training cadets in Illustrious, during this time he wrote the best-selling book The Naval Cadets Guide, which was also republished under the title Seamanship, and was regarded as the best manual of its day. He was promoted to commander in 1862 and took command of the training ship Boscawen in September 1863 and his next ship was the ageing 4-gun wooden paddle sloop Salamander, which he commanded from 1865. His duties involved keeping the communications between Sydney and Cape York in the furthest north point of Queensland open, on the long journeys between he conducted surveys of the Great Barrier Reef. The county of Nares in Queensland was named after him, on the night before the canal was due to open, Nares navigated his vessel, in total darkness and without lights, through the mass of waiting ships until it was in front of LAigle. When dawn broke the French were horrified to find that the Royal Navy was now first in line, Nares received both an official reprimand and an unofficial vote of thanks from the Admiralty for his actions in promoting British interests and for demonstrating such superb seamanship. In recognition of his work in the Gulf of Suez, Nares was promoted to the rank of captain in 1869, Charles Wyville Thomson and the Royal Society of London obtained the corvette Challenger from the Royal Navy for a 3-year expedition of scientific discovery. Although much of the world was well charted, this only to the coastlines
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HMS Discovery (1874)
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HMS Discovery was a wooden screw storeship, formerly the whaling ship Bloodhound. She was purchased in 1874 for the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876 and was sold in 1902, built in Dundee by Stephens & Sons as the whaler Bloodhound in 1873, she was ideally suited to Arctic exploration. She was purchased by the Admiralty on 5 December 1874 and converted for exploration and she carried a barque-rig and her Greenock Foundry Company steam engine generated an indicated 312 horsepower. Contemporary geographers proposed that there could be an Open Polar Sea, ever since Edward Augustus Inglefield had penetrated Smith Sound in 1852, it had been a likely route to the North. Nares commanded the converted sloop HMS Alert, and with him went Discovery, HMS Valorous carried extra stores and accompanied the expedition as far as Godhavn. Despite finding heavier-than-expected ice, the expedition pressed on, leaving Discovery to winter at Lady Franklin Bay, Alert carried on a further 50 nautical miles through the Robeson Channel, establishing her winter quarters at Floeberg Beach. Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, on 3 April the second-in-command of Alert, Albert Hastings Markham, took a party north to attempt the Pole. By 11 May, having made progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83°20 26N. Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back, the expedition returned to the UK in Autumn 1876 and was well rewarded, Nares was knighted, Markham was promoted to Captain. The geography of northern Canada and Greenland is littered with the names of those connected with the expedition, the Discovery saw no further seagoing service after her return from the Arctic. She was employed as a storeship in Portsmouth Harbour from 1880, Discovery was sold to D Murray in February 1902. The 1901 research vessel, built for the British National Antarctic Expedition, incorporated many of the features of Discovery, RRS Discovery was commanded by Robert Falcon Scott and took part in the Discovery Investigations from 1924 to 1931. She is now on permanent display at Dundee, subsequent Royal Research Ships, launched in 1929 and 1962, have also borne the name, as has Space Shuttle Discovery. Narrative of a voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875–76 in H. M. ships ‘Alert’ and ‘Discovery’, by Captain George Strong Nares, in two volumes, London 1878, online book Volume 1 & Volume 2
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Henry Frederick Stephenson
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Admiral Sir Henry Frederick Stephenson GCVO KCB was a Royal Navy officer, courtier, and Arctic explorer. Stephenson was the son of Henry Frederick Stephenson MP and Lady Mary Keppel and his eldest brother, Sir Augustus Keppel Stephenson, was a Treasury Solicitor, and the second person to hold the office of Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales. On 18 December 1855 Stephenson joined the Royal Navy, becoming a Naval Cadet in HMS St Jean dAcre, commanded by his uncle Henry Keppel, and serving in the Black Sea during the Crimean War. In June 1857 he served as a Midshipman in HMS Pearl, serving with Pearls Naval Brigade during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, in June 1861 he was promoted lieutenant in HMS Emerald, serving in the Channel Squadron. From 18 January 1867 to 26 April 1868 he served as a lieutenant in HMS Rodney, commanded by Algernon C. F. Heneage, the flagship of Vice-Admiral Henry Keppel, serving in China. Following the death of Commander John T. Swann, Keppel promoted Stephenson to commander on 26 April 1868, the promotion was confirmed by the Admiralty on 7 July 1868. He was appointed Equerry-in-waiting to the Prince of Wales on 5 July 1878 he held this post from time to time until 4 April 1893, on 15 September 1880 he became captain of HMS Carysfort. He participated in the recapture of Ismaïlia, and was awarded the 3rd Class Order of Osmanieh by the Khedive of Egypt in 1883 and he was appointed Aide-de-camp to the Queen on 1 January 1888. He was additionally appointed CB in the division on 23 May 1889. On 4 August 1890 Stephenson was promoted rear admiral, serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Station from 4 May 1893 to 19 June 1896 and he was promoted vice admiral on 10 October 1896, serving from 7 June 1897 to 20 December 1898 as Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Squadron. He retired on 16 September 1904 with the rank of admiral, Stephenson was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order on 9 November 1902. On 24 July 1904 Stephenson was appointed Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod and he was appointed an Extra Equerry to George V of the United Kingdom on 10 June 1910. He married the Hon. Charlotte Elizabeth Eleanor Fraser on 5 December 1903 and she died in 1923 and Stephenson died at home in London on 16 December 1919 aged 77
