Alger Island, Russia

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The Alger Island (Russian Алджер, Aldscher ) is an uninhabited island in the south of the archipelago Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Ocean. It lies north of the McClintock Island on the southeastern exit of the Markham - Sund and on the northern end of the Aberdare Canal. Southwest of their precedes the Matilda Island. With an area of 45 km ², it is one of the smaller islands of the archipelago. The center and the north-western part of the island is glaciated, while extending a sandy-loamy surface on the flat south-eastern part. In the extreme southeast of the island are the remains of Camp Ziegler, the former base camp of the Baldwin - Ziegler Polar Expedition, which are now a tourist attraction.

History

The discovery of the island is attributed to the Wellman expedition of 1898-1899. Walter Wellman gave the island its name, probably by Russell Alexander Alger, the reigning U.S. Secretary of War, perhaps even after the writer Horatio Alger.

The Alger Island is famous because of the role they played during the two Arctic expeditions, which funded the American entrepreneur William Ziegler (1843-1905) in the first decade of the 20th century. Evelyn Baldwin, head of the Baldwin - Ziegler expedition, erected in 1901, in the southeast of the island his base camp Camp Ziegler, after the attempt to penetrate further with his ship America to the north, had failed. A second camp was, directly opposite the Matilda Island, applied to the western tip of the island of Alder. Although the Baldwin - Ziegler expedition was the best-equipped Polar expedition of her time, she failed without even having attempted to achieve their ultimate goal - the geographic North Pole. The second, funded by Ziegler expedition, which was undertaken from 1904 to 1906, led by Anthony Fiala ( 1869-1950 ), the pole could not conquer also. Part of the team used temporarily again, built by Baldwin Camp Ziegler.