Willem Barentsz
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Willem Barentsz (Template:IPA; Template:C. – 20 June 1597), anglicized as William Barents or Barentz, was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer.
Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as far as Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea in his first two voyages, but was turned back on both occasions by ice. During a third expedition, the crew discovered Spitsbergen and Bear Island, but subsequently became stranded on Novaya Zemlya for almost a year. Barentsz died on the return voyage in 1597.
The Barents Sea, among many other places, is named after him.<ref name="Pitzer" />
Life and career
[edit]Willem Barentsz was born around 1550 in the village Formerum on the island Terschelling in the Seventeen Provinces, present-day Netherlands.<ref name="godutch">Template:Cite web</ref> Barentsz was not his surname but rather his patronymic name, short for Barentszoon "Barent's son".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A cartographer by trade, Barentsz sailed to Spain and the Mediterranean to complete an atlas of the Mediterranean region, which he co-published with Petrus Plancius.<ref name="godutch"/>
His career as an explorer was spent searching for a Northeast passage in order to trade with China.<ref name="Pitzer" /> He reasoned clear, open water north of Siberia must exist since the sun shone 24 hours a day melting Arctic sea ice, indeed he thought the farther north one went the less ice there would be.<ref name="Pitzer" /><ref name="new">Template:Cite journal</ref>
First voyage
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On 5 June 1594, Barentsz left the island of Texel<ref name="godutch" /> aboard the small<ref>Alexander, Philip Frederick. The North-west and North-east passages, 1915.</ref> ship Mercury,<ref>Mirsky, Jeannette. "To the Arctic!: The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times", 1997.</ref> as part of a group of three ships sent out in separate directions to try to enter the Kara Sea, with the hopes of finding the Northeast Passage above Siberia. Between 23 and 29 June, Barentsz stayed at Kildin Island.
On 9 July,<ref name="discovery">Template:Cite book</ref> the crew encountered a polar bear for the first time. After shooting and wounding it with a musket when it tried to climb aboard the ship, the seamen decided to capture it with the hope of bringing it back to Holland. 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 they imagined, cold steel shattering against the tough hides of the animals, they left with only a few ivory tusks.<ref name="Pitzer" /><ref name="diary" />
Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and followed it northward before being forced to turn back in the face of large icebergs. Although they did not reach their ultimate goal, the trip was considered a success.<ref name="godutch" />
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten was a member of this expedition and the second.
Second voyage
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The following year, Prince Maurice of Orange was filled with "the most exaggerated hopes"<ref name="maine" /> on hearing of Barentsz' previous voyage, and named him chief pilot and conductor of a new expedition, which was accompanied by six ships loaded with merchant wares that the Dutch hoped to trade with China.<ref name="lights">Template:Cite web</ref>
Setting out on 2 June 1595,<ref name="maine" /> 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.<ref name="diary" /> 4 September saw a small crew sent to States Island to search for a type of crystal that had been noticed earlier. The party was attacked by a polar bear, and two sailors were killed.<ref>Beechey, F.W. "A Voyage Of Discovery Towards The North Pole, In The Majesty's Ships", 1843.</ref>
Eventually, the expedition turned back upon discovering that unexpected weather had left the Kara Sea frozen.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This expedition was largely considered to be a failure.<ref>Scoresby, William. "An Account of the Arctic Regions", 1820.</ref>
Third voyage
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In 1596, disappointed by the failure of previous expeditions, the States-General announced they would no longer subsidize similar voyages – but instead offered a high reward for anybody who successfully navigated the Northeast Passage.<ref name="maine" /> The Town Council of Amsterdam purchased and outfitted two small ships, captained by Jan Rijp and Jacob van Heemskerk, to search for the elusive channel under the command of Barentsz. They set off on 10 May or 15 May, and on 9 June discovered Bear Island.<ref name="diary">De Veer, Gerrit. "The Three Voyages of William Barentsz to the Arctic Regions" (English trans. 1609).</ref>
They discovered Spitsbergen on 17 June, sighting its northwest coast. On 20 June they saw the entrance of a large bay, later called Raudfjorden. On 21 June they anchored between Cloven Cliff and Vogelsang, where they "set up a post with the arms of the Dutch upon it." On 25 June they entered Magdalenefjorden, which they named Tusk Bay, in light of the walrus tusks they found there. The following day, 26 June, they sailed into the northern entrance of Forlandsundet, but were forced to turn back because of a shoal, which led them to call the fjord Keerwyck ("inlet where one is forced to turn back"). On 28 June they rounded the northern point of Prins Karls Forland, which they named Vogelhoek, on account of the large number of birds they saw there. They sailed south, passing Isfjorden and Bellsund, which were labelled on Barentsz's chart as Grooten Inwyck and Inwyck.
The ships once again found themselves at Bear Island on 1 July, which led to a disagreement between Barentsz and Van Heemskerk on one side and Rijp on the other. They agreed to part ways, with Barentsz continuing northeast, while Rijp headed due north in an attempt to cross directly over the north pole to reach China.<ref name="Pitzer" /><ref name="survey"/> Barentsz reached Novaya Zemlya on 17 July. Anxious to avoid becoming entrapped in the surrounding ice, he intended to head for the Vaigatch Strait, but their ship became stuck within the many icebergs and floes.<ref name="maine"/> Stranded, the 16-man crew was forced to spend the winter on a barren bluff.<ref name="discovery" /> After a failed attempt to melt the permafrost, the crew used driftwood and lumber from the ship to build a 7.8×5.5-metre lodge they called Het Behouden Huys (The Saved House).<ref name="new" />
Dealing with extreme cold, the crew realised that their socks would burn before their feet could even feel the warmth of a fire – and took to sleeping with warmed stones and cannonballs. They used the merchant fabrics aboard the ship to make additional blankets and clothing.<ref name="diary" /> The ship bore salted beef, butter, cheese, bread, barley, peas, beans, groats, flour, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, beer, wine, brandy, hardtack, smoked bacon, ham and fish. Much of the beer froze, bursting the casks. By 8 November Gerrit de Veer, the ship's carpenter who kept a diary, reported a shortage of beer and bread, with wine being rationed four days later.<ref name="diary" />
In January 1597, the crew became the first to witness and record the atmospheric anomaly of a polar mirage, now coined the Novaya Zemlya effect due to this sighting.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Proving somewhat successful at hunting, the group caught Arctic foxes in primitive traps.<ref name="new" /> The raw flesh of the Arctic fox contains small amounts of vitamin C, which, unknown to the sailors, reduced the effects of scurvy.<ref name="Pitzer" /> The crew were continually attacked by polar bears that infested the area where they camped.<ref name="Pitzer" /> The bears turned the stranded and now empty ship into a wintertime abode. Primitive guns usually did not kill the bears on first or even second shot (unless well aimed at the heart) and were difficult to aim, while the cold and brittle metal weapons often shattered or bent.<ref name="Pitzer">Template:Cite book</ref>
By June, the ice had still not loosened its grip on the ship, and the remaining desperate scurvy-ridden survivors took two open boats. Barentsz died at sea soon after on 20 June 1597. It is not known whether Barentsz was buried on the northern island of Novaya Zemlya, or at sea.<ref>"Search for Barents: Evaluation of Possible Burial Sites on North Novaya Zemlya, Russia", Jaapjan J. Zeeberg et al., Arctic Vol. 55, No. 4 (December 2002) pp. 329–338</ref> It took seven more weeks for the boats to reach the Kola Peninsula, where they were rescued by a Dutch merchant vessel commanded by former fellow explorer Jan Rijp who by that time had returned to the Netherlands and was on a second voyage, assuming the Barentsz crew to be lost, and found it by accident.<ref name="Pitzer" /> By that time, only 12 crewmen remained. They did not reach Amsterdam until 1 November.<ref name="sea">Goorich, Frank Boott. "Man Upon the Sea", 1858.</ref> Sources differ on whether two men died on the ice floe and three in the boats,<ref name="new" /> or three on the ice floe and two in the boats.<ref name="maine">De Peyster, John Watts. The Dutch at the North pole and the Dutch in Maine. 3 March 1857.</ref> The young cabin boy had died during the winter months in the shelter.<ref name="discovery" />Template:Clear
Excavation and findings
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The wooden lodge where Barentsz' crew sheltered was found undisturbed by Norwegian seal hunter Elling Carlsen in 1871. Making a sketch of the lodge's construction, Carlsen recorded finding two copper cooking pots, a barrel, a tool chest, clock, crowbar, flute, clothing, two empty chests, a cooking tripod and a number of pictures.<ref>De Jonge, J.K.J. "Nova Zembla: De voorwerpen door de Nederlandsche Zeevaarders na hunne overwintering aldaar in 1597 achtergelaten en in 1871 door Kapitein Carlsen teruggevonden, beschreven en toegelicht.", 1872.</ref> Captain Gunderson landed at the site on 17 August 1875 and collected a grappling iron, two maps and a handwritten translation of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman's voyages. The following year, Charles L.W. Gardiner also visited the site on 29 July where he collected 112 more objects, including the message by Barentsz and Heemskerck describing their settlement to future visitors. All of these objects eventually ended up in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam,<ref name="survey" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> after some had initially been held in The Hague.<ref>Template:Cite EB1911</ref>
The amateur archaeologist Miloradovich's 1933 finds are held in the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St. Petersburg. Dmitriy Kravchenko visited the site in 1977, 1979 and 1980 – and sent divers into the sea hoping to find the wreck of the large ship. He returned with a number of objects, which went to the Arkhangelsk Regional Museum of Local Lore (Russia). Another small collection exists at the Polar Museum in Tromsø (Norway).<ref name="survey" />
In 1992, an expedition of three scientists, a journalist and two photographers commissioned by the Arctic Centre at the University of Groningen, coupled with two scientists, a cook and a doctor sent by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, returned to the site,<ref name="survey">Template:Cite journal</ref> and erected a commemorative marker at the site of the cabin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The location of Barentsz' wintering on the ice floes has become a tourist destination for icebreaker cruiseships operating from Murmansk.<ref name="new" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Clear
Legacy
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Two of Barentsz' crewmembers later published their journals, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten who had accompanied him on the first two voyages, and Gerrit de Veer who had acted as the ship's carpenter on the last two voyages.
In 1853, the former Murmean Sea was renamed Barents Sea in his honour.<ref>"Barentsz Sea." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 December 2007</ref><ref>C. Michael Hogan and Steve Baum. 2010. Barents Sea. Eds. P. Saundry & C. Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington DC</ref> Barentsburg, the second largest settlement on Svalbard, Barentsøya (Barents Island) and the Barents Region were also named after Barentsz.
In the late 19th century, the Maritime Institute Willem Barentsz was opened on Terschelling.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1878, the Netherlands christened the Willem Barentsz Arctic exploration ship.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1931, Nijgh & Van Ditmar published a play written by Albert Helman about Barentsz' third voyage, although it was never performed.
In 1946, the whaling ship Pan Gothia was re-christened the Willem Barentsz. In 1953, the second Willem Barentsz whaling ship was produced.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
A protein in the molecular structure of the fruit fly was named Barentsz, in honour of the explorer.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Dutch filmmaker Reinout Oerlemans released a film called Nova Zembla in November 2011. It is the first Dutch 3D feature film.
In 2011, a team of volunteers started building a replica of Barentsz' ship in the Dutch town of Harlingen. The plan was to have the ship ready by 2018, when the Tall Ships' Races was scheduled to visit Harlingen.<ref>Template:In lang Website of the Stichting Expeditieschip Willem Barentsz</ref>
References
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