Franz Josef Land, an uninhabited archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, Barents Sea, and Kara Sea, may have been discovered by the 1865 expedition of the Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen captained by Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck. However, the discovery was never announced and the existence of the territory only came to public notice following the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872, which named the archipelago in honor of Franz Joseph I of Austria. Benjamin Leigh Smith led the next expedition in 1880, which continued the work of the first expeditions in investigating the southern and central parts of the archipelago. Concurrent expeditions followed in 1896, Nansen's Fram expedition and the Jackson–Harmsworth Expedition, which met by accident. These two journeys explored the northern area and the flanks of Franz Josef Land.
The next series of expeditions used the archipelago as a base for attempts to reach the North Pole. The first, carried out by Walter Wellman in 1898, was followed the next year by the voyage of the Stella Polare then from 1901 to 1905 the Ziegler Polar Expedition took place. Although often poorly organized and unsuccessful at reaching their ultimate goal, these expeditions further explored the islands. Russian expeditions, starting with the icebreaker Yrmark in 1901, began visiting the area and conducted increasing amounts of scientific research alongside their exploration activities. Russia claimed sovereignty over the archipelago in 1914, and the Soviet Union formally annexed the islands on 15April 1926, making it part of Arkhangelsk Oblast. Norway and Italy protested, and Norwegian sealers continued to operate in the surrounding waters for several years. A 1929 Norwegian attempt to establish a base failed.
The 1930 Bratvaag Expedition was the last Western European presence on the islands until 1990, except for an undetected German weather station on Alexandra Land during World War II. From 1932 the Soviet Union operated weather stations at Tikhaya Bay, Hooker Island and on Rudolf Island. The 1930s also saw the development of complete topographical maps with the islands used as launching points for drifting ice stations. During the Cold War the islands became strategically important and aerodromes were constructed at Nagurskoye and Heiss Island. The Ernst Krenkel Observatory was established in 1957. From 1991 foreign scientists were again welcome to the islands, which were declared a nature reserve in 1994. Tourism commenced and the archipelago became part of the Russian Arctic National Park in 2011.
Discovery There are two possible candidates for the claim to have discovered Franz Josef Land.
Voyage of the Spidsbergen The Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen with captain Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and harpooner Johan Petter Aidijärvi aboard sailed northeast from Svalbard in 1865 in search of suitable sealing sites and found an archipelago that was most likely Franz Josef Land. They named the area Nord-Øst Spidsbergen (Northeast Spitsbergen) or Rønnbeck Land. However, an announcement of the discovery was never made and the archipelago remained unknown until the following expedition. It was at that time common to keep newly discovered areas secret to avoid competition for sealing and whaling from other vessels.
In a May 1865 article for the Russian magazine Morskoy sbornik, N. G. Schilling argued that current flows and ice conditions in the Barents Sea predicated the existence of a landmass between Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard. The report received little attention at the time, but from 1871 it was used as an argument to justify sending a Russian expedition to explore further. However, due to lack of funding the voyage never took place.
Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition
Discovery of the islands was first publicly announced by the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872–74. Led by Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht of Austria-Hungary on board the schooner Tegetthoff, this expedition's primary goal was to find the north-east passage with the secondary goal of finding a way for subsequent expeditions to reach the North Pole. The ship left Tromsø, Norway, in July 1872 but by August had become locked in pack ice north of Novaya Zemlya. The vessel drifted and eventually reached a hitherto unknown archipelago, which they named in honor of Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), Emperor of Austria. In May 1874 the crew of twenty-four abandoned the ice-bound ship. On 16 August they reached land at Novaya Zemlya. They followed the coast and was eventually picked up by a Russian fishing vessel which brought them to Vardø, Norway where they arrived on 3 September 1874. This expedition contributed significantly to the mapping and exploration of the islands.
The next expedition to spot the archipelago was the "Dutch Expedition for the Exploration of the Barents Sea", on board the schooner Willem Barents. Its plans frustrated by ice, the vessel never reached land.
Other early expeditions
Leigh Smith The next expedition to land on the islands was that of Benjamin Leigh Smith in 1880. The Briton captained the 250-tonne barque Eira, which left Lerwick on 22June 1880 with an undetermined destination. After a stop by Jan Mayen Island, heavy ice off Spitsbergen forced them to choose a southern route, which sent the ship towards Franz Josef Land. The Eira landed west of Wilczek Island on 14August, such that all land subsequently spotted was newly discovered. Within days they had caught walrus, ivory gulls and polar bears. On 18August the expedition discovered a natural harbor on Bell Island, which they named Eira Harbour and used as a base of operations. They then conducted a series of scientific experiments, explored the area and went hunting. The expedition next headed towards McClintock Island and Wilczek Island, but found their route blocked by ice. At the end of August they therefore returned to Svalbard, reaching Peterhead on 12October.
Leigh Smith led another expedition in the same vessel the following year, which left Peterhead on 14June 1881. He sailed to Novaya Zemlya, before heading north to Franz Josef Land, arriving on 23July. The expedition landed at the natural harbor at Gray Bay on the south of Zemlya Georga (Prince George Land). In the second week of August a small shelter was built on Bell Island, which they named Eira Lodge and which still stands. It was used for storage of materials brought by the expedition. The Eira then headed eastwards to explore further, hoping to find the USS Jeannette, which was believed to be in the area. After a landing at Cape Flora ice hindered any further progress.
Pressed by pack ice Eira was holed and subsequently sank off Cape Flora on 21August. Although men, stores and boats were saved, ice hindered the expedition from reaching Eira Lodge so instead the men built a turf and stone hut at Cape Flora. Coal and salt was brought from the lodge on 1September, which meant that they had sufficient food, including fresh meat to ward off scurvy. The cottage was subdivided into two sections for officers and crew respectively. Twenty-four walruses and thirty-four polar bears were killed by the expedition during the winter. Meteorological reports were recorded, but lack of sleds made exploration difficult. The group set off in their boats for Novaya Zemlya on 21June 1882. They reached a beach on Matochkin Strait on 2August, where they rendezvoused with the Willem Barents and the British vessels Kara and Hope, which had been dispatched on a search mission.
Nansen and Johansen
Fridtjof Nansen's 1893–1896 expedition aboard the Fram attempted to reach the geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean. His custom-built vessel departed Christiania (today Oslo) on 24June 1893 and sailed to the New Siberian Islands in the eastern Arctic Ocean. There she became frozen into the pack ice and had to wait for the drift to carry her towards the pole. Impatient with the slow progress and erratic character of the drift, after eighteen months Nansen and a chosen companion, Hjalmar Johansen, left the ship with a team of dogs and sledges to make for the pole. On 14March, with the ship at 84°4′N, the pair finally began their polar march. They did not reach their objective, but achieved a record "Farthest North" latitude of 86°13.6′N before their long retreat over ice and water to reach safety in Franz Josef Land. Meanwhile, Fram continued to drift westward, finally emerging in the North Atlantic Ocean.
After his arduous travels, Nansen decided on 7April that the pole was unreachable and instead headed for Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island, which had been discovered by Payer. Nansen and Johansen were thus able to establish that there was not, as Payer had predicted, any land north of 82°. The duo spotted their first land on 24July, which Nansen named Eva Island after his wife and Liv Island for his daughter. These turned out to be the same island and is now named Eva-Liv Island. They reached Adelaide Island on 10August, and for the first time in two years stood on dry land. By this point both their watches had become unreliable and they were therefore unable to establish exact locations. The last dog was subsequently shot and the journey continued by kayak.
Nansen believed he was on the west side of the archipelago and planned to reach Svalbard via the predicted Gilles Land, which turned out not to exist. He also aimed to reach Eira Lodge. Johansen, with his head nearly bitten off by a polar bear, and Nansen, exhausted from swimming after the drifting kayaks, were both close to death. By 28August the winter conditions had become so severe that the expedition halted. The pair built a hut and waited for the next season at a spot they named Cape Norvegia. While they believed they were on Alexandra Land, they were in fact on Jackson Island where they sustained themselves on bear and walrus meat and blubber. At Christmas they turned their clothes inside out and from New Year they agreed to address each other with the Norwegian familiar form du instead of the formal De. They continued their journey on 19 May 1896 and left a note in the hut, which was found in 1902. The hut was visited by several expeditions, then forgotten until being discovered again in 1990. They continued southwards, with the ultimate goal of reaching Svalbard, until they stumbled upon the Jackson–Harmsworth Expedition by pure chance at Cape Flora on17 June.
Jackson–Harmsworth
After the Austro-Hungarian and British expeditions, only the southern and central parts of the archipelago had been explored. At the time there was a presumption that a large landmass, tentatively called Petermann Land, stretched northwards, possibly all the way to the pole. To the west another landmass was expected, Gillis Land, which it was expected might reach as far as Svalbard. Frederick George Jackson hoped to exploit the previous expeditions' experience with overwintering to launch an expedition to explore the northern parts of the island group. To prepare for the trip, in 1893 he took an expedition to Yugorsky Strait and Vaygach Island, south of Novaya Zemlya. The plan was then to construct a series of depots along Franz Josef Land while moving northwards. Financing for the expedition was to be provided by the newspaper magnate Alfred Harmsworth.