Arctic exploration

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A map of the Arctic. The Arctic region is circled by the red line.


First attempts[edit]

Ancient Greece[edit]

Some scholars believe that the first attempts to penetrate the Arctic Circle can be traced to ancient Greece and the sailor Pytheas, a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, who, in c. 325 BC, attempted to find the source of the tin that would sporadically reach the Greek colony of Massilia (now Marseille) on the Mediterranean coast.[1] Sailing past the Pillars of Hercules, he reached Brittany and even Cornwall, eventually circumnavigating the British Isles. From the local population, he heard news of the mysterious land of Thule, even farther to the north. After six days of sailing, he reached land at the edge of a frozen sea (described by him as "curdled"), and described what is believed to be the aurora and the midnight sun. While some historians claim that this new land of Thule was the Norwegian coast or the Shetland Islands, based on his descriptions and the trade routes of early British sailors, it is possible that Pytheas reached as far as Iceland.

While no one knows exactly how far Pytheas sailed, he may have crossed the Arctic Circle. Nevertheless, his tales were regarded as fantasy by later Greek and Roman authorities,[citation needed] such as the geographer Strabo. It was impossible, according to their perception of the world, for man to survive in these 'uninhabitable reaches'.[citation needed]

The Middle Ages[edit]

Viking sailors reached the White Sea to the east and Greenland and North America to the west.





Age of Discovery[edit]

Exploration above the Arctic Circle in the Renaissance was driven by the rediscovery of Classical learning and the national quests for commercial expansion. This exploration was hampered by limits in maritime technology of the age, lack of shelf-stable food supplies, and insufficient insulation for ships' crew against extreme cold.

Renaissance advancements in cartography[edit]


A seminal event in Arctic exploration occurred in 1409, when Ptolemy's Geographia was translated into Latin, thereby introducing the concepts of latitude and longitude into Western Europe.[2] Navigators were better able to chart their positions, and the European race to China, sparked by interest in the writings of Marco Polo, commenced.[citation needed] Just two years after Columbus in 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Atlantic Ocean between Spain and Portugal. Forced to seek other routes to the Orient, rival countries like England, began considering the northern route over the top of the globe.

Gerard Mercator's map of the North Pole, 1606.

The Inventio Fortunata, a lost book said to be a description of travels in the North Atlantic by an unknown Friar, describes, in a summary written by Jacobus Cnoyen but only found in a letter from Gerardus Mercator, voyages as far as the North Pole.[3] One widely disputed claim is that two brothers from Venice, Niccolo and Antonio Zeno, allegedly made a map of their journeys to that region, which were published by their descendants in 1558.[4]

The Northwest Passage[edit]

Main article: Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Ocean. Since the discovery of the American continent was the product of the search for a route to Asia, exploration around the northern edge of North America continued for the Northwest Passage.


Northwest Passage routes


The Northeast Passage[edit]

Main article: Northern Sea Route
Jan Jansson's map of the "Poli Arctici" from 1644.

The Northern Sea Route (capitalized) is a shipping lane from the Barent Sea to the Bering Strait along the Russian northern coast as currently officially defined by Russian Federation law; before the beginning of the 20th century it was known as the Northeast Passage.

The idea to explore this region was initially economic, and was first put forward by Russian diplomat Dmitry Gerasimov in 1525. The vast majority of the route lies in Arctic waters and parts are only free of ice for two months per year, making it a very perilous journey.[citation needed]





Modern exploration[edit]




The North Pole[edit]

Robert Peary and sledge party with flags at North Pole. Peary has been claimed to be the first person to reach the north pole.

On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary claimed to be the first person in recorded history to reach the North Pole[8] (although whether he actually reached the Pole is doubted by some).[1][12] He traveled with the aid of dogsleds and three separate support crews who turned back at successive intervals before reaching the Pole. Many modern explorers, including Olympic skiers using modern equipment, contend that Peary could not have reached the pole on foot in the time he claimed. In 2005 British explorer Tom Avery, with four colleagues, completed a trek to the pole in 36 days, 22 hours and 11 minutes using 16 husky dogs, and pulling two sledges which were replicas of those used by Peary. Some believe Avery's expedition has vindicated Peary, showing that Peary's speeds were not so impossible after all, since Avery's time was some four hours faster than Peary's claim. However a close examination of Avery's speeds only casts more doubt on Peary's claim: while Peary claimed to have made good an incredible 135 nautical miles (250 km; 155 mi) in his final five days, Avery managed only 71. Indeed, Avery never exceeded 90 nautical miles (170 km) made good in any five-day stretch. Further, Avery had the luxury of an airlift back to shore, and so had lightly loaded sledges in his final five days, while Peary was loaded down with all food and supplies needed for his return. Avery was able to equal Peary's 37-day total time only because Peary spent five days encamped by a big lead, making no progress at all.

A number of previous expeditions set out with the intention of reaching the North Pole but did not succeed; that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, in 1827, the American Polaris expedition in 1871, the ill-fated Jeannette Expedition in 1879 commanded by US Navy Lt Cmdr George W. DeLong, and Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen in 1895. American Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1908, but this has not been widely accepted.[13]

The crew of the airship Norge (including Roald Amundsen and the American sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth) observed the Pole on May 12, 1926. This is the first undisputed sighting of the Pole. Norge was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile, who overflew the Pole a second time on May 24, 1928.


On August 3, 1958, the US submarine Nautilus reached the North Pole without surfacing. It then proceeded to travel under the entire Polar ice cap. On March 17, 1959 the USS Skate surfaced on the North Pole and dispersed the ashes of explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. These journeys were part of military explorations stimulated by the Cold War context.





On 2 August 2007 Arktika 2007 went to the sea-bed below the pole.


See also[edit]


  3. ^ Taylor, E.G.R. (1956), "A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee", Imago Mundi 13: 56–68, doi:10.1080/03085695608592127 
  9. ^ Burton, p. 219.
  11. ^ "Northwest Passage". The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-20. 
  13. ^ See references on Frederick Cook for more information.


External links[edit]