Halvmåneøya
Encyclopedia
Halvmåneøya is a small, uninhabited island off the southeastern coast of Edgeøya
, part of the Svalbard
archipelago. Halvmåneøya, as part of Edgeøya, has been a nature preserve since 1973, and visitation is strictly regulated.
The island was labelled as Abbots I. by the Muscovy Company’s map (1625), and St. Jacob by Willem Jansz. Blaeu (1662). Hendrick Doncker (1663) was the first to mark it Halvmaens eyl.. This last name has been retained to the present.
Four Russian sailors, Aleksei Inkov, Khrisanf Inkov, Stepan Sharapov, and Fedor Verigin, were marooned on either Halvmåneøya or Edgeøya for over six years from May 1743 until September 1749. Only three of them survived. Author David Roberts
wrote a book sharing his research on this amazing survival story, Four Against The Artic. After years of research regarding the four Russians, Roberts was able to spend two weeks on the desolate Halvmåneøya to further pursue his research. He concluded, although not definitively, that the men were probably on Halvmåneøya and not Edgeøya.
Edgeøya
Edgeøya, occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is an uninhabited Norwegian island in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; it is the third largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the South East Svalbard Nature Reserve, home to polar bears and reindeer. Its eastern...
, part of the Svalbard
Svalbard
Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...
archipelago. Halvmåneøya, as part of Edgeøya, has been a nature preserve since 1973, and visitation is strictly regulated.
The island was labelled as Abbots I. by the Muscovy Company’s map (1625), and St. Jacob by Willem Jansz. Blaeu (1662). Hendrick Doncker (1663) was the first to mark it Halvmaens eyl.. This last name has been retained to the present.
Four Russian sailors, Aleksei Inkov, Khrisanf Inkov, Stepan Sharapov, and Fedor Verigin, were marooned on either Halvmåneøya or Edgeøya for over six years from May 1743 until September 1749. Only three of them survived. Author David Roberts
David Roberts (climber)
David Roberts is a climber, mountaineer, and author of books and articles about climbing. He is particularly noted for his books The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative, chronicling major ascents in Alaska in the 1960s, which had a major impact on the form of mountaineering...
wrote a book sharing his research on this amazing survival story, Four Against The Artic. After years of research regarding the four Russians, Roberts was able to spend two weeks on the desolate Halvmåneøya to further pursue his research. He concluded, although not definitively, that the men were probably on Halvmåneøya and not Edgeøya.