Ferdinand Wrangel - explorer of the Arctic

[Anatol]

Admiral, General Adjutant, honorary member of Russia’s Imperial Academy of Science, member of the State Council, Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel was not only an outstanding scientist and seaman who made two world cruises (1817-1819 and 1824-1827), but also a notable public figure and statesman of 19th century Russia. For example, in 1845 he became one of the founders of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Many years of his life were devoted to Russian America. In 1829-1835 he was the governor of all of Russia’s settlements in North America and later became the Director of the Russian-American Company (Russia’s state-sponsored trading company founded in the 19th century to explore the territories of Alaska and the Pacific Coast of North America). He did everything he could to ensure that these lands stayed with Russia. He was known as an active opponent of the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867. From 1836 he occupied different posts in the Ministry of the Navy, finally becoming the Minister of the Navy himself (1855-1857). However, it was his expedition along the arctic coasts of Siberia (1820-1824) that earned Wrangel worldwide fame. In that expedition he discovered the Northern Sea Route and collected vast scientific material.
Ferdinand Wrangel spent four years in the Far North, exploring the coasts from Kolyma Creek to Kolyuchinskaya Bay in spring and summer and spending winter in Nizhne-Kolymsk. By the end of the fourth year Wrangel had not only mapped around 115 geographical objects with high precision but also collected valuable information about the nature, climate and population of this region. It was discovered that the Arctic Ocean was not completely covered with ice, which meant that there was a possibility to establish a northern communication route by sea (the future Northern Sea Route). Ferdinand Wrangel also discovered that there was no land to the north of Siberia’s coasts at a convenient distance and once and for all overturned the rooted beliefs about a land connection to North America.
However, based on peculiarities of the local climate and the characteristics of ice movements, Wrangel suspected there was a land in front of Cape Billings (then Cape Yakan). Unfortunately, severe weather conditions never let him approach it close enough to check his conclusions. Only a few years before his death Ferdinand Wrangel found out that American whaling Captain Thomas Long had found his dreamland, and that it was called Wrangel Island.
German writer and scientist Georg Hartwig (1813-1880) wrote the following about Wrangel: "The difficulties, which Wrangel had to deal with - his eagerness for scientific achievements, the losses and dangers he suffered, his fearlessness and nerve - all this gives Wrangel the right, along with Franklin and Parry, to stand at the lead of all Arctic explorers.” Wrangel often repeated his motto: “Fanaticism and national hatred are alien to the Russian character.”
PMR 2019; [P].
Source: https://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-ru ... index.html.