The Heiberg Islands, spelt ''Geyberg'', ''Gejberg'' or ''Geiberg'' (Russian: ''острова Гейберга''; ''ostrova Geyberga'' or also ''острова Акселя Гейберга'') is a group of four small islands covered with tundra vegetation and with scattered stones on their shores. They lie in the

Kara Sea The Kara Sea is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. Ultimately the Kara, Barents and Laptev Seas are all ...

, between the bleak coast of

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

Taymyr Peninsula The Taymyr Peninsula ( ) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administratively it is part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Federal subject of Russia. Ge ...

and

Severnaya Zemlya Severnaya Zemlya (, ) is a archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It lies off Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Vilkitsky Strait. This archipelago separates two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Kara Sea i ...

. These islands are between from the continental shore. The Heiberg Islands are covering the entrance to the

Vilkitsky Strait : Vilkitsky Strait () is a strait between the Taimyr Peninsula and Bolshevik Island in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago of Russia. The strait connects the Kara and Laptev Seas. The length of the Vilkitsky Strait is 128 km, the width approx. ...

from the west. The latitude of this group is 77° 40' N and the longitude 101° 27' E. The largest island of the group is only about
in length. The sea surrounding the Heiberg Islands is covered with fast ice in the winter, which is long and bitter, and the climate is severe. The surrounding sea is obstructed by pack ice even in the summer, so that these islands are connected with the mainland for most of the year. The Heiberg Islands were named by

Fridtjof Nansen Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (; 10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and co-founded the ...

. He named them after

Axel Heiberg Axel Heiberg (16 March 1848 – 4 September 1932) was a Norwegian diplomat and financier as well as a patron of the arts and sciences. Biography Heiberg was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway. He was the son of Johan Fritzner Heiberg (1805� ...

, financial director of the Norwegian

Ringnes Ringnes is the largest brewer in Norway. Ringnes is part of the Carlsberg Group. History Ringnes AS was founded in 1876. The company's brewery in the Grünerløkka district of Oslo produced its first beer in 1877. The brewery was founded by brot ...

brewery, who was the main financier of the '' Fram'' expedition to the Arctic. This island group belongs to the

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...

administrative division of the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is also part of the

Great Arctic State Nature Reserve The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve () is a nature reserve in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. With an area of , it is the largest reserve of Russia and Eurasia, as well as one of the largest in the world. History The Great Arctic State Nature Reserv ...

, the largest nature reserve of Russia.

History

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

polar meteorological station was established on Heiberg in 1940 to aid navigation of the

Northern Sea Route The Northern Sea Route (NSR) (, shortened to Севморпуть, ''Sevmorput'') is a shipping route about long. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is the shortest shipping route between the western part of Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific region. Ad ...

. After the breakup of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, commercial navigation in the Arctic went into decline. More or less regular shipping is to be found only from

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

Dudinka Dudinka (; Nenets: Тут'ын, ''Tutꜧyn'') is a town on the Yenisei River and the administrative center of Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It used to be the administrative center of Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, ...

in the west and between

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

and

Pevek Pevek (; Chukchi language, Chukchi: , ''Pèèkin'' / ''Pèèk'') is an Arctic port types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Chaunsky District in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on Chaunskaya Bay (pa ...

in the east. The areas around the

, including the Vilkitsky Strait, see next to no shipping at all. The polar station on the Heiberg Islands is now abandoned, with millions of rubles of equipment still there.

Adjacent islands

*Closer to the coast there is a long island called Helland-Hansen Island (''Ostrov Gellanda-Gansena''). Usually this island is not considered part of the Heiberg group, but it lies quite close to it, at only 28 km ESE of Vostochnyy Island. This single island was named after Norwegian pioneer of modern

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of to ...

Bjorn Helland-Hansen (b. 1877 in Oslo, d. 1957 in Bergen). *Further south lie two islands close to the coast. Povorotnyy is the larger one close to the shore. The smaller one further offshore is called Vecherniy.

References

External links

*Polar Station

*Nature Reserve: https://web.archive.org/web/20071008044746/http://www.bigarctic.ru/Eng *A first-person account of the Taymyr's voyage in 1938, including a bear hunt and snow blindness on Heiberg Islands

*Account of a ski expedition in 1994

. *Description of sightings of wolves and other wild animals on Heiberg

*Professor Helland-Hansen: :de:Björn Helland-Hansen, (in German) {{coord, display=title, 77, 40, N, 101, 27, E Islands of the Kara Sea Islands of Krasnoyarsk Krai

History

Adjacent islands

See also

References

External links