BARENT'S SEA


Doug-About
England and Russia traditionally fight it out for the domination of Scandinavia.  
England's greatest ally in conquering Russia in the north is through the occupation of the Barents Sea.  
But few people probably realise that it was named after the Dutch navigator Willem Barents (b. circa 1550, d. 1597), the most famous of the early explorers of the Arctic. 

Seeking the NORTHEAST PASSAGE, he reached the archipelago of NOVAYA ZEMLYA on his first two voyages (1594, 1595).  
He embarked again in 1596, discovering Spitsbergen and rounding the northern point of Novaya Zemlya.  
Caught in the ice, Barents and his crew  survived the winter in a shelter built on Novaya Zemlya.

In June 1597 they set out for the mainland in two open boats, but Barents soon died.  
One survivor was Gerrit de Veer, who chronicled the voyages in The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions (Eng.  trans., 1876).  
In 1871 the shelter in which Barents wintered was found.  
The BARENTS SEA was named for him.

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