The Dutch in the Arctic

Willem Barentsz and the Quest for the Northeast Passage

by Peter A. Douglas

 

Starting in the 15th century the colonial and maritime nations of Europe were consumed by the need to find a faster navigable route to the trading nations of Asia. Voyages to the Far East followed the long, costly, and dangerous routes that took the ships just to the north of the wild Southern Ocean, either by way of uttermost South America or the distant tip of Africa. Most Dutch ships sailing from Texel to the Indies (around 15,000 miles) took about eight months, and while the most fortunate might make the journey in 130 or so days, it was not unknown for East Indiamen to get blown off course in storms or be becalmed for weeks or months, while facing all the other hazards of extended ocean travel.

Many of the early attempts to find a shortcut to the Indies were east to west, through the Davis Strait by Greenland and Baffin Island and via the Hudson Strait into Hudson Bay. Thus we usually think of that elusive route to Asia as the “Northwest Passage,” a channel to the north of the American continent through the Arctic archipelago of what would become Canada. There was, however, also the quest for the “Northeast Passage,” an Arctic Ocean route to the Pacific to the north of Norway and Siberia.

The first name associated with the Northeast Passage is that of the Englishman Hugh Willoughby. Sponsored by a group of London merchants, Willoughby sailed in May 1553 as captain of the Bona Esperanza with two other ships under his command. The weather forced two of the ships to lose contact with the third, and Willoughby and the other vessel continued around the top of Norway, making it to the 600-mile-long crescent of Novaya Zemlya (New Land) in August, the first western Europeans to do so. The year being far spent, they elected to winter over in that region, but no one survived the ordeal, and Russian fishermen found the two ships, with all aboard dead, the following year.

Various attempts were made by the bold sailors of several countries to find the northeastern opening to the Indies, including Henry Hudson, who led two Arctic expeditions in 1607 and 1608, shortly before his North American discoveries that led to the creation of New Netherland. While none of the endeavors was successful, new islands were identified and knowledge of the Arctic coastlines was refined for the eager mapmakers.

Notable among these early explorers was the Dutchman Willem Barentsz, born on the West Frisian island of Terschelling around 1550. Barentsz led three expeditions into Arctic waters in search of Cathay and points east. The first of these left Texel in the summer of 1594, with Barentsz aboard the Mercury along with two other ships. They reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya and followed it northward before ice fields forced them to turn back. However, Cornelis Nay in De Zwaan passed through the Kara Strait into the Kara Sea, the open water giving false hope that the route had been found. Another attempt was made the following year, but little was achieved. The expedition left late and encountered too much ice for them to enter the Kara Sea.

A third and more important expedition set off in May 1596, though this was not financed by the States General, the Dutch government, for they were disappointed by the lack of success of the other missions and would no longer subsidize such exploits. This time it was the city of Amsterdam that outfitted two ships under the command of Barentsz and captained by Jan Corneliszoon Rijp and Jacob van Heemskerck.

The quantity of ice around the strait leading to the Kara Sea and the impenetrable nature of the icepack near Novaya Zemlya made it prudent to avoid the land and keep to the open sea. Sailing far to the north they discovered Bear Island (Bjørnøya), and soon encountered ice. Continuing along the edge of the pack ice the expedition discovered in mid-June a mountainous snow-covered land (Spitsbergen, now Svalbard, Norwegian territory), which they incorrectly believed to be part of Greenland. They spent the remainder of June exploring the western coast of the main island.
Ice prevented further progress and they returned to Bear Island in July.

From here Barentsz, along with Van Heemskerck, opted to go eastwards and pass to the north of Novaya Zemlya. But there was a disagreement; Rijp refused and they agreed to part ways, with Rijp planning to head north again to resume the exploration of Spitsbergen.

Barentsz and Van Heemskerck crossed what would come to be called the Barents Sea (named in honor of Barentsz in the 19th century) and reached the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in August 1596.
Having rounded the northernmost point they sailed southeastward and were at first convinced by the open water that they had discovered the Northeast Passage. However, the ice floes in the Kara Sea, demonstrating the obvious hazards for wind-powered vessels in such harsh conditions, quickly surrounded them. The ship, well built but hardly sufficient for the abuse it would receive in the extreme north, became trapped, and the ice began to crush it and lift it up. It was clear to the crew that they were unlikely to get free by the onset of winter, so using driftwood and timber from the ship they built themselves a shelter on the northeastern shore of Novaya Zemlya. They called it “Het Behouden Huys,” The Safe House.

In 1871 a Norwegian seal hunter named Elling Carlson discovered the remains of this cabin, noting that it was 12 yards long and 7.5 yards wide. Carlson also found numerous articles used by the crew, including copper cauldrons, a clock, weapons, plates, carpenter’s tools, and a cooking tripod. Subsequent expeditions found more items, which ended up in various museums, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The crew of seventeen was ill equipped for the long enforced stay and suffered greatly from the severe cold and other hardships, including the incessant depredations of polar bears. The following summer, in June 1597, the remaining marooned sailors succeeded in patching up two small boats using wood from their cabin. With the return of open water they set out southwards.
They reached the Kola Peninsula in September and were greeted by Russians and also by Jan Rijn, who happened to be there on a trading voyage. By November they were back in Amsterdam.
Barentsz, however, was not with them, having died on the journey, and was buried either at sea or on the northern island of Novaya Zemlya.

Barentsz’s adventures have been well documented by eyewitnesses. Jan Huyghen van Linschoten sailed with him on his first two northern voyages and published his record of these. For a detailed narrative of this last epic adventure we can look to a Dutch officer called Gerrit de Veer, who accompanied Barentsz on his final two voyages. De Veer kept a journal throughout the overwintering, which was published in a well-illustrated edition in 1598. It had many editions, and was translated into several languages. The account also detailed the two other Arctic expeditions that Barentsz undertook.

Barentsz is remembered now for his bravery and the intellectual curiosity that inspired future polar explorers. But back in 1597 the Northeast Passage had still not been found, the ship and cargo were lost, and the leader and four crewmen had not survived. So was Barentsz’s voyage a failure? He died, so from his point of view, probably yes, but there were some important achievements nevertheless. More previously unknown coastline was discovered on this last voyage than on either of the other two. Bear Island, the northern and western coasts of Spitsbergen, and the northern and eastern shores of Novaya Zemlya had been reconnoitered and charted for the first time. While details about the whaling prospects near Spitsbergen did not come from Barentsz, the geographical information he collected certainly helped future whalers.

He failed to find the route to the Indies but his northern expeditions helped to lay the foundations for the “Golden Age” in which trade with Russia was an important and rewarding element. The most significant result of Barentsz’s voyages is the posthumously printed map of the polar region, the first circumpolar map of the North Pole, based on a wealth of accumulated experience, and published by Cornelis Claesz of Amsterdam in 1598. While the coasts of Asia are speculative, the map shows a good grasp of the coasts of Europe as far east as Novaya Zemlya, whose east coast is extensively mapped and features numerous place names. He clearly spent his time well while stuck on the ice. Barentsz’s fame as an Arctic explorer helps us forget that he was a cartographer by trade and well read in the cartographical literature of the period.

The sponsors of the expedition from which Barentsz failed to return would probably not have attached much value to all these mostly long-term results, positive though they may have been. The States General, clearly unimpressed with the outcome, refused to do anything for Barentsz’s widow when she applied for financial help in 1598.

In a somewhat ironic and poignant coda to the story of Willem Barentsz and that of all the other explorers who sacrificed, suffered, and died while looking for a northeastern route to Asia, we learn that global warming has helped achieve what they could not. Through excessive carbon emissions the Arctic ice pack has now shrunk so much that new sea lanes nearer to the North Pole, and the previously usable routes near shore, have opened up enough to make the Northern Sea Route (NSR), as it is now known, navigable for more months of the year. Shipping, mining, oil and gas drilling, and fishing ventures are now looking farther north than ever before. As the merchant adventurers and explorers of old would have understood well, this route over the top of Russia and south through the Bering Strait has become competitive with the passage from western Europe to Asia via the Suez Canal, trimming days off the voyage and saving fuel.

The polar route shaves, for example, over 4,000 miles (37 percent) off the voyage from Rotterdam to Yokohama by way of the Suez Canal. The thawing north has made possible a new alternative route for ships that are too big for the Suez Canal and are therefore still forced to make the long haul around the Cape of Good Hope. While the NSR traffic is nowhere close to the 18,000 ships that pass through the Canal every year, the clear potential exists for an increase in traffic for the polar route and a consequent growth in savings of time and money for commercial interests. In the summer of 2011, one of the warmest on record in the Arctic, a tanker crossed the Arctic Ocean in a record six and a half days. Climate experts say that as the Arctic ice pack recedes farther offshore, thanks to continuing and barely restrained human pollution, this route will be passable for deepwater vessels without the help of icebreakers for a greater period each summer.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has endorsed the new business prospects, saying: “The Arctic is the shortcut between the largest markets of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.” Barentsz would doubtless have agreed, but perhaps he would have added, as we should, that it is, with the future of the planet at risk, the tarnished silver lining of a very dark cloud indeed.