Wrangel Island

46 • Russian Life www.russianlife.com

Located some 500 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in the icyChukchi Sea is the forlorn, enigmatic landmass of Wrangel Island.So remote and isolated is this frozen land that it was not properlymapped until the early 20th century, and then inadvertently, whenwildly over-optimistic explorers washed up, shipwrecked, on itsshores.

Trapped in the fringes of the permanent Arctic ice pack, born outof legend and maintained by tales of hardship, endurance andtragedy, Wrangel’s outwardly austere appearance hides not only atragic and mysterious history, but also a strangely self-containedisland ecosystem.

Wrangel an island of tragic beauty

Two summers ago, I set out aboard the giantRussian icebreaker, Kapitan Khlebnikov, to see what all thefuss was about.

Along for the ride as a guest lecturer was author JenniferNiven, whose two critically-acclaimed books, Ice Master andAda Blackjack zero in on Wrangel Island as an epicenter ofhopelessly misplaced optimism and tragedy. Her laborious-ly researched and superbly written books trace in detail thevain efforts of Canadian, British and American explorersand “scientific colonists” to extract some profit – monetary,political or intellectual – from this remote land.

As I stand on the deck, beneath me the mighty Kapitanslices through irregular slabs of sea ice with relative ease.Even with a fearsome “ice knife” in the bow and 25,000horsepower available to drive it home, we are occasionally

Story and photos by Roderick Eime

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forestalled by a particularly stubbornsheet. One, perhaps a meter thickand about the size of a city block,brings us to a noisy, shuddering halt.The Kapitan, unfazed, backs up andbody-slams the floating mass, creat-ing a fissure that gradually opens toadmit our 15,000 tons of diesel-elec-tric anger.

These ice floes are also thedomain of the many mother polarbears occasionally seen leading theirfirst season offspring across the packin search of seals. The denser the ice,the more the bears like it. Bears can-

not catch seals in the thinning floes,because the seals can easily escapeinto the water. I take my turn on bearwatch, camera primed for the elusiveshot.

In 1821, Baron FerdinandPetrovich von Wrangel had been withhis dogs on the ice for many monthsin search of fabled lands hundreds ofmiles north of Siberia’s Chukchicoastline. Von Wrangel saw giant,snow-capped mountains rising mag-nificently into the crisp polar air, per-haps thousands of feet high, while

shimmering lakes bordered by lushforests carpeted the land. Despite thisidyllic vista, all before him was frozensolid, an impenetrable carpet of seaice. The intrepid Baron was fooled byan intricate mirage – a fata morgana.He spent another three years lookingfor an island he knew was there (hehad seen migratory birds flyingnorth), but never found it.

The island did not “appear” againuntil 1849, when British NavalCaptain Henry Kellett thought hesaw a large land mass west of HeraldIsland, which he had just mapped. It

The KapitanKhlebnikovbuststhrougharctic floes.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 • 49www.russianlife.com

persisted on Admiralty maps as – forwant of a better name – Kellett Land,until 1867, when American whalerThomas Long dubbed it for theRussian explorer he felt was moredeserving. Since that day, WrangelIsland has been a point of con-tention between Russia, Britain,Canada and the U.S. Despite a seriesof flag-raisings over a period of 50years, it is only recently that theinternational community acquiescedto Russian sovereignty.

In 1911, the famous icebreakers,Taymyr and Vaygach, as part of the

Baron Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangel...was born in 1794 in Pskov, to a family of Germanheritage. He attended the Naval Cadets College and wenton to be one of Russia’s most accomplished explorers, anaval admiral, an Honorable Member of the RussianAcademy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, and one of thefounders of the Russian Geographic Society. He led anexpedition that charted much of Russia’s northerncoastline and, from 1829 to 1835, was Governor ofRussian lands in Alaska, where today there are manygeographic features named for him. He was navalminister from 1855–1857 and Wrangel Island wasnamed for him in 1867. He died in 1870 on the familyestate in Dorpat (now Tartu), Estonia.

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50 • Russian Life

Wrangel Island...lies off the Chukchi coast in the ArcticSea. It is some 7300 sq. kilometers insize, roughly equal to the size ofDelaware. Its unique ecosystem helpedmake it a final refuge for woollymammoths and today it has the largestdensity of polar bear dens in the world.The island hosts a wide range ofunique flora and fauna, including musk oxen (above). This diversity hasmake the island a UNESCO WorldHeritage site. Scientists are residentthere only in summer, which the bearsseem to have figured out (lower left).Some visitors have also left behindmore than footprints (lower right).

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Russian Arctic Ocean HydrographicExpedition (1910-15), briefly landeda party on Wrangel Island andclaimed it for Russia. In 1914, sur-vivors from the Vilhjalmur Stefans -son-led Canadian Arctic Expe -dition’s doomed Northern Partycamped on Wrangel Island for nineharrowing months. Their ever-con-troversial leader abandoned them inSeptember 1913, leaving them fordead aboard their ship, the CGSKarluk, stuck fast in the ice pack.

From this disaster, a heroemerged; Captain Bob Bartlett, whotrekked 700 miles with an Inuitacross Siberia to secure a rescueparty. He returned to find murderand mayhem, but managed to save16 of the original 22 who sailed withthe Karluk.

Not content with that fiasco,Stefansson landed an “occupation”party of five on Wrangel Island in1921 (he did not accompany them),apparently to assist Canada andBritain in the so-called “northwardcourse of empire.” This Stefanssonexperiment – recounted by JenniferNiven in her on-board lectures – alsoended in tragedy. When the resupplyship failed to arrive, three of the menset off walking to Siberia for help,while a brave young Inuit woman,Ada Blackjack, was left behind tonurse a scurvy-stricken American– Lorne Knight – who was too weakto accompany his three comrades.

The trio disappeared into a snow-storm and were never seen again.Knight, quickly failing, died someweeks later. Alone and scared, Adahad to learn to hunt ducks with anunfamiliar rifle, trap foxes and over-come her debilitating phobia ofpolar bears. Ada was rescued onAugust 20, 1923 by the boatDonaldson, again amid much con-troversy. She was returned to Alaskawhere she immediately came underthe unwelcome glare of an intenselycurious media. Continually doggedby poverty and misfortune, she diedin 1983.

In spite of this abject failure,another group of Inuit wereinstalled on Wrangel in 1923, butthese hapless souls were eventually

Polar Bears on Thin Ice Of the seven short-listed finalists in the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) poll for the

world’s cutest animal, half are endangered or under threat. The huge arctic polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is one such contender. And just

what is it about a giant, ferocious carnivore that can crush a seal’s skull with oneblow from its massive paw that engenders such affection in another mammal (us)that would otherwise be its prey?

Despite their fearsome reputation, polar bears are majestic, social, caring,intelligent beasts with an imploring, puppy-dog look that seems to say, “go on,give us a cuddle.” But that is the last thing you’d want to do to the world’s largestterrestrial carnivore.

Even though the hunting of polar bears is now greatly reduced, they face aneven tougher struggle against the effects of global warming. WWF studies indicatethat, with the present rate of global warming, polar bears will be extinct within 100years, even if hunting were to cease tomorrow.

“Polar bears are walking on thin ice,” said Samantha Smith, director of the WWFInternational Arctic Programme. “If we can secure their future by cutting carbondioxide emissions, we can secure the future of thousands of other species aroundthe world.”

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was produced by more than 250scientists for arctic governments. It provides incontrovertible proof that climatechange is happening in the Arctic and that it will get worse more quickly unlessemissions of carbon dioxide are cut.

“The big melt has begun,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of WWF’s global climatechange campaign. “Industrialized countries are carrying out an uncontrolledexperiment to study the effects of climate change and the Arctic is their first guineapig. This is unethical and wrong.”

The world’s population of polar bears is estimated at around 22,000 animals, andalthough this number does not appear to be falling, Canadian Wildlife Servicestudies in Hudson Bay indicate that the physical condition and breeding success ofbears is definitely declining.

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evicted in August 1924 by RussianMarines. They were taken intoservile custody before eventuallybeing returned to Alaska. To dis-suade future “invasions,” Russiainstalled their own ten Inuit familieson the island and they and theirdescendants remained there untilthe end of the 20th century.

In the 1930s, a despotic Russianbureaucrat, Konstantin Semenchuk,reigned over the island, starving andpunishing residents with his psycho-pathic rule. He was eventuallyremoved, tried and executed in 1936.

During the Second World Warand quite likely for some time there-after, the island became a horrificgulag for German SS POWs and themost dangerous political dissidents.Apparently, none who were broughtto the gulag on Wrangel Island everreturned (it is rumored that theSwedish hero of Budapest, RaoulWallenberg was among the manythousands who died there). Thegulags – located near Rodgers Harborin the southeast – are mentioned inthe 1982 book, The First Guidebook toPrisons and Concentration Camps of theSoviet Union, by Avraham Shifrin. Init, he suggests that radiation experi-ments were conducted on live sub-jects there as recently as the 1960s.

Interestingly, no mention was evermade of these camps in our other-wise comprehensive lectures.

Today Wrangel Island – about thesize of Delaware – is only occupied inthe summer, by a small team of

Russian scientists and their support-ing community, who maintain ameteorological and research base atUshakovskoye on the southern coast.The seasonal settlement nonethelessconfirms Russia’s on-going territorialclaim – one that was not properlyresolved until 1974.

Much of Wrangel Island’s attrac-tion to explorers stemmed from itsabundance of wildlife. Polar bears,walrus, arctic foxes, snow geese,migratory birds and seals populate itin relatively large numbers. Iron -ically, Wrangel also escaped glacia-tion in the last Ice Age, leaving sever-al unique species of vascular plants. Itwas also probably the last place onEarth to support a woolly mammothpopulation, perhaps as late as 1700BC. Although many of the bones andtusks have been removed, it is stillpossible to see skeletal remains ofthese extinct giants scattered acrossthe island’s landscape, with globalwarming releasing still more archaeo-logical bounty from beneath the per-mafrost. In 2004, the UNESCOWorld Heritage committee includedWrangel Island on their list of globalecological hotspots, describing it as a

“self-contained island ecosystem”with “the highest level of biodiversityin the high Arctic.”

It is five days from the port of Anadyr in Chukotka Provincebefore we get our first glimpse ofWrangel Island, dull and forebodingthrough thick, wet arctic mist. This,apparently, is one of the “jewels”described by the imaginative Stefan -sson as a paradise teaming with gameand resources. We are told thatWrangel Island boasts the world’slargest population of denning polarbears, a few reintroduced reindeer aswell as musk oxen, arctic fox, walrusand seals. Birds are abundant too,especially the over-protected LesserSnow Geese (Anser caerulescens),which, our Russian hosts assure us,flock in large numbers in the west ofthe island. Regrettably, due to conser-vation considerations, we are not per-mitted to visit them.

Baron Wrangel might well havebeen a bit disappointed with hisnamesake, had he actually made itthorough the tortuous miles of packice. Stefansson too may have moder-ated his enthusiasm if he had actual-ly seen the land for himself. But thereis no mistaking the impact of thejourney – one of the most difficultand unpredictable of our age. Thereis a palpable sense of satisfactionamong the passengers and crew, espe-cially Jennifer, who appears to bealmost channeling Ada Blackjack.

We observe the featureless land-scape from both outboard zodiacsand the Kapitan’s mighty MI-2 jethelicopters. Our first landing is to seea herd of musk oxen, gathered on thewindy tundra and enjoying a familypicnic among the bright pastel spraysof arctic wildflowers. Wrangel’s 400vascular plants – more than any otherarctic archipelago, and 23 endemicspecies had the plant people quiteexcited. Their well-insulated posteri-ors point skyward as they arrangetheir cameras for precision macrophotos.

My mind instead turns to the for-lorn souls trapped here a centurybefore, forced to eke out a living byhunting anything and everything.

ADA’S STORYWith boundless care and precision, and no smallamount of affection for her topic, Jennifer Niven haspenned a marvelous biography of Ada Blackjack, theheroic Inuit and lone survivor of Vilhjalmur Stef an s -

son’s ill-planned missionto Wrangel Island. ThatStefansson’s vaingloriousattempt to squeeze richesfrom a frozen stone will endin tragedy, we know beforepage 1. Yet Niven still drawsus into this irresistible taleof ambition, greed, courageand sacrifice. She is partic-ularly adept at recreatingthe feel of the 1920s, when

America was strangely fascinated with the unchart-ed realms of the North. And we get a telling glimpseof the tragedy from Ada’s perspective – a tragedythat continued well after her rescue, with a mediacircus to rival our present day.

Ada Blackjack, by Jennifer Niven (Hyperion, $24.95)

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They ate polar bear, foxes and evengrass to survive. Jennifer, normallyebullient and vivacious, is alsostrangely silent as she pensively kickspebbles on the beach in her leopardskin gumboots.

We all try to imagine being aloneon this treeless land for months onend, foraging, hunting and just sur-viving. Two days are all we have tosynthesize this isolation, and then itis off again, pressing west throughthe Northeast Passage.

Icebreakers as tourist vesselshave only been coming this waysince 1991, when the icebreakerSovetsky Soyuz – on its return voy-age from the North Pole – broughtthe first tourists to visit WrangelIsland. The secret was out. Today thisarctic wonderland is a regular stopfor cruises that traverse the Bering

Sea. Naturalists, ecologists, archaeol-ogists, “twitchers” (fanatical birdwatchers) and tourists searching forsomething unusual now comprise aminor throng sailing north each yearout of Anadyr aboard the helicopter-equipped icebreaker, KapitanKhlebnikov (see box). Surrounded asit is by ice almost all year, every year,Wrangel Island is destined to remaina difficult-to-visit location.

With the smooth, flat landscapeof Wrangel Island slowly disappear-ing amid a lingering polar sunset, weleave behind this renowned naturereserve, repository of legend and lore,natural wonderland and kingdom ofsadness and despair. Clearly, despiteearlier valiant efforts, Wrangel Islandwill never again be inhabited, leftinstead to the occasional scientificobservers and the capricious devicesof nature. A good thing too. RL

Cruising the Northeast Passage If you want to take a voyage across Russia’s arcticcoastline aboard a polar-class icebreaker, you haveto sail with Quark Expeditions. They are the onlygame in town. Their 2008 Northeast Passage cruisewill commemorate theInternational Polar Year,marking the 130th anni -versary of the first suc-cessful transit of theNortheast Passage, thenorthern shipping routefrom Europe to Asia. Itdeparts June 28. Travelerswill be flown fromAnchorage, Alaska toAnadyr, Russia, wherethey will embark the Kapitan Khlebnikov. En route toMurmansk, the disembarkation point, shore land-ings are planned for the Chukotka Peninsula,Wrangel Island, the New Siberian Islands, SevernayaZemlya, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land.Travelers will then fly from Murmansk to Helsinki,then on to their home countries.

quarkexpeditions.com

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Wrangel Island

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