Northbrook Island
The Northbrook Island (Russian Остров Нортбрук, Ostrow Nortbruk ) is one of the southernmost, and most accessible from the sea islands belonging to Russia Franz -Josef- Lands in the Arctic Ocean. It was therefore the starting point of numerous Polarexepditionen.
Geography
The Northbrook Island is located at the 80th degree of north latitude, and is just under 289 km ² area one of the smaller islands of the Franz -Josef- country. It is almost triangular in shape with sides of about 25 km in length; its highest point is given as 344 meters above the sea. Because of their relatively southern location, large parts of the island are unglaciated.
History
The island was probably sighted in 1879 by a Dutch expedition under A. de Bruyne from the Willem Barents made , however, to approach without the island.
When secured, the discovery of the island by August 14, 1880 is considered by the British polar explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith on the fourth polar travel. It was named after Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook ( 1826-1904 ), a British politician and later president of the Royal Geographical Society named. On August 21, 1881 Smith was stranded during his fifth and final Polar Flight to Cape Flora in the extreme southwest of the island, but was able to escape with dinghies to Novaya Zemlya.
On June 17, 1896 hit, also at Cape Flora, the Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen after his failed attempt to reach the North Pole to the base camp of the Jackson - Harmsworth expedition led by the British polar explorer Frederick George Jackson. The northern tip of the island, Cape Bruce, William Speirs Bruce was after, participants of this expedition, named.
Some participants of the Fiala - Ziegler expedition had to 1904-1905 winter on the island after their ship America had sunk near the Rudolf Island.
1914 ended on Cape Flora the months-long odyssey of the only two survivors of the 1912 launched, Russian Brusilov expedition, navigator and sailor Alexander Konrad Walerian Albanow. They were found and saved as part of another polar expedition Georgi Yakovlevich Sedov.