Northeast passage voyages
Willem Barentsz · 1594 CE – 1597 CE · Earth
Find a northeast sea route to Asia.
Historical context
The Dutch Republic, hungry for a northern route to Asia, sent three expeditions into seas that European maps left blank. Their wintering was one of the earliest sustained survivals inside the Arctic Circle.
The voyage, step by step
Seeking a northeast passage
1594 CE
Barentsz sails north to find a sea route to Asia along the Russian coast.
Round the North Cape
1594 CE
The first voyage passes the top of Norway and turns east into the Barents Sea.
Bear Island
10 June 1596
On 10 June 1596 the ships raise an unknown island and spend two hours killing a swimming polar bear.
The pointed mountains
1596 CE
A week later a coast of sharp peaks rises to the north: Spitsbergen, unclaimed and unnamed.
Novaya Zemlya
August 1596
He charts the Arctic coast and discovers Spitsbergen.
Winter in the ice
1596 CE
His ship trapped, the crew builds a lodge and survives the polar night on coal and stored food.
Away in open boats
June 1597
In June the survivors leave in two open boats ; Barentsz dies at sea a week later.
Outcome
Charted the Arctic and wintered at Novaya Zemlya.
Willem Barentsz
Dutch navigator who searched for a northeast passage to Asia and charted the Arctic waters of Novaya Zemlya.
Sources
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