Franz Josef Land

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Location of Franz Josef Land.
Location of Franz Josef Land.

Coordinates: 80°34′N 54°47′E / 80.567, 54.783 Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land, or Francis Joseph's Land (Russ. Земля Франца-Иосифа, Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa) is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia. It is found in the Arctic Ocean north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast. Franz Josef Land consists of 191 ice-covered islands with an area of 16,134 km² and is largely uninhabited.

At latitudes between 80.0° and 81.9° north, it is the most northerly group of islands associated with Eurasia. The extreme northernmost point is Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island. The archipelago is only 900 to 1110 km (560 to 690 statute miles) from the North Pole, closer than all land masses except for Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland.

The archipelago was possibly first discovered by the Norwegian sealers Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and Aidijärvi aboard the schooner "Spidsbergen" in 1865 who, according to scarce reports, sailed eastward from Svalbard until they reached a new land, denoted Nordost-Spitsbergen (Spitsbergen was the contemporary name of Svalbard). It is not known if they went ashore, and the new islands were soon forgotten.

The officially recognized discovery took place in 1873 by the Austrian polar explorers Payer and Weyprecht, who named it in honour of the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I. As the expedition was only privately sponsored and not official, these islands have never been part of Austria. In 1926 the islands were taken over by the Soviet Union, and a few inhabitants came for research and military purposes. Access by ships is possible only for a few summer weeks and requires a special permit.

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The archipelago is volcanic, composed of tertiary and jurassic basalts, and though covered mostly by ice it does have outcroppings covered with moss and lichens. The northeastern part of the archipelago is locked in pack ice all year round, however the ice sometimes retreats past the southern islands in the late summer. The northernmost point in the archipelago, and in the entirety of Asia, is Mys Fligely (Fligely Point), on Ostrov Rudol'fa (Rudolf Island), which reaches as far north as 81°52'N. The largest island is Zemlya Georga (George Land) which measures 69 miles (110 km) from end to end. The highest point in the archipelago is on Ostrov Viner-Neyshtadt (Wiener Neustadt Island) which reaches 2,035 ft (620 m) MSL. The basalts are part of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province.

In January the normal daily low is −15 °C (5 °F) and the high is −10.5 °C (13 °F). In July the normal daily low is 0 °C (32 °F) and daily high 2.2 °C (36 °F). The annual mean temperature is −12.8 °C (9 °F). In a 30-year period, the highest temperature recorded has been 13 °C (55.4 °F) and lowest −54 °C (-64.2 °F). Precipitation is common year round, but is most common during the transition seasons of late spring and autumn. Fog is very common in the late summer. From data for Nagurskoye and SevMeteo.

Native wildlife consists mostly of walrus, Arctic foxes, and polar bears. Common birds include kittiwakes, fulmars, and gulls. Beluga whales are often spotted in the waters. Caribou antlers have been found on Hooker Island, suggesting that herds reached here up to about 1,300 years ago during a warmer climate.

Map of Franz Josef Land.
Map of Franz Josef Land.

The following list describes some important islands in Franz Josef Land and their significance. [1]

The first recognized exploration of the archipelago was done in 1873 by Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition explorers Karl Weyprecht and Julius von Payer, while their ship was locked in ice trying to find a northeast passage. After exploration of its southern islands, the name was bestowed in honor of Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. The Norwegians Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen passed through the islands in 1895/96 after an aborted attempt to reach the pole. By sheer coincidence, they met British explorer Frederick George Jackson at Northbrook Island in 1896.

In 1914, Russian navigator Valerian Albanov and one crewman, Alexander Konrad, sole survivors of the ill-fated Brusilov expedition made it to Cape Flora in Franz Josef Land, where they knew that Fridtjof Nansen had left provisions and had built a hut in a previous Arctic expedition. Albanov and Konrad were timely rescued by Georgy Sedov's ship Saint Foka, while they were preparing for the winter.

With the introduction of larger steam-powered vessels, a number of sealing expeditions were made to the islands from the last decade of the 19th century, with more than 80% of these coming from Norway. In the late 1920s, both the Soviet Union and Norway claimed the islands. Norwegians called the islands "Fridtjof Nansen Land". The Soviet Union claimed a sector in the Arctic region that included Franz Josef Land and the nearby Victoria Island by a decree of 15 April 1926. Norway was notified on 6 May and officially protested on 19 December, contesting the Soviet claim.

In the following years, Norwegian authorities put much effort into reclaiming Victoria Island and Franz Josef Land. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not wish to take any measures to lay official claims, but had no objection to private initiatives. In 1929, consul Lars Christensen of Sandefjord, a whaling tycoon whose expeditions had annexed Bouvet Island and Peter I Island in Antarctica, funded an expedition of two vessels, S/S Torsnes and M/C Hvalrossen. Upon departure from Tromsø, the crew were given detailed instructions to erect a manned wireless station and leave a wintering crew on Franz Josef Land, and also to claim Victoria Island on behalf of Christensen. The objective was to obtain legal footing in part of the archipelago before the Soviets did. The expedition never reached Franz Josef Land due to severe ice conditions, and while waiting for better conditions they were surpassed by the Soviet icebreaker Georgij Sedov.

On 29 July 1929 professor Schmidt of the Sedov Expedition raised the Soviet flag at Tikaya Bay, Hooker Island, and declared that Franz Josef Land was a part of the Soviet Union. Norway did not officially contest the Soviet annexation of Franz Josef Land itself, but continued their efforts regarding Victoria Island. The dispute over Victoria Island was ended when the Soviets annexed the island in September 1932.

In July 1931, a German airship marked a milestone in Russian polar exploration. The Graf Zeppelin travelled from Berlin to Hooker Island, by way of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). It delivered 650 pounds (300 kg) of commemorative mail and met with the icebreaker 'Malygin'. After traveling east along the 81st parallel to Severnaya Zemlya, it returned to Hooker Island and began a groundbreaking aerial survey of the archipelago, flying as far north as Ostrov Rudolfa.

During the Cold War years, the polar regions were a hot buffer zone between the U.S. and Russia, and many points in the Arctic became key strategic locations. The islands were declared as a national security area from the 1930s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and were therefore off-limits to foreigners. An airfield was built at Greem Bell to serve as a staging base for Russian bomber aircraft, and training missions were quite common between Franz Josef Land, the mainland, and Novaya Zemlya. Though the islands were militarily sensitive, a cruise ship visited in 1971.

In 2005, the Austrian geographer Christoph Höbenreich led the Payer-Weyprecht-Memorial expedition to Franz Josef Land. The Austrian-Russian team followed the historic footsteps of explorer Julius Payer by ski and pulkasleds.

The Russian Orthodox denomination plans to build the world's northernmost church in the Franz Joseph Archipelago. It will be named after St. Nicholas. This was announced by Bishop Tikhon of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory in August 2007.

Some maps are found on these sites:

Swedish musician Stina Nordenstam's sound installation Isens Fasor was spoken directly from the journal of Karl Weyprecht, on the voyage he and Payer took to discover the islands, which almost failed when their ship became trapped in Arctic ice and they and their crew were forced to walk 1000 miles to Russia.

  • Andreas Umbreit, SPITSBERGEN: Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, Jan Mayen, Bradt Travel Guides, U.K, 2005
  • Valerian Albanov. In the Land of White Death.
  • Karl Weyprecht, Die Metamorphosen des Polareises. Österr.-Ung. Arktische Expedition 1872-1874 (The Metamorphosis of Polar Ice. The Austro-Hungarian Polar Expedition of 1872-1874)
  • Julius von Payer, New Lands within the Arctic Circle (1876)
  • Andreas Pöschek, Geheimnis Nordpol. Die Österreichisch-Ungarische Nordpolexpedition 1872-1874. - Wien: 1999 (Available as PDF)
  • I. Gjertz, B. Mørkved, "Norwegian Arctic Expansionism, Victoria Island (Russia) and the Bratvaag Expedition", Arctic, Vol. 51, No. 4 (December 1998), P. 330-335 (Available as PDF)
  • H. Straub, Die Entdeckung des Franz-Joseph-Landes (discovery report), Styria-Verlag, Austria 1990.
  • Christoph Höbenreich (2007): "EXPEDITION FRANZ JOSEF LAND. In der Spur der Entdecker nach Norden". Expeditionsbook on the Payer-Weyprecht-Memorialexpedition 2005, the Austro-Hungarian Northpolar-Expedition 1872-1874, the journey of the icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn 2006 und an expedition-chronic (publishing house Frederking-Thaler, Munich, ISBN 978-3-89405-499-1).

Throughout history, and even into the modern age, there have been a number of personages that share the name Franz Josef in a variety of spellings. Franz Josef, Franz Joseph, Joseph James Frantz, Josef Franz Heffler are among notable figures that share this name.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Land"
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