The name White is not one island. There is it in the Kara Sea, it is part of the Svalbard archipelago and at the mouth of the Neva, there are legends about the legendary White Island, which was once in the Gobi desert.
Two islands of the Arctic Ocean
White Island, part of Svalbard, was opened in 1707 by the Dutchman Cornelis Giles. It was mapped the last of the major islands of the archipelago, is the easternmost of them. Refers to Norway.
Bely - an island located in the Kara Sea, belongs to the Russian Federation and is included in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The Bely Island is separated from the Yamal Peninsula by the shallow Malygin Strait, which in its narrowest place does not exceed 9 km.
Pages of History
Getting to the island from the mainland is not difficult either in summer or in winter, when the strait is covered with ice. However, there have never been permanent residents, except the Boatswain dog, which has become popular thanks to the Internet. Nowadays, when the Arctic regions begin to deal with more than substantively, new data appear on the history of this region. The military period includes a report that a German submarine sank the Arctic convoy BD-5 60 miles from the island on August 12-13, 1944. In 2009, a memorial sign was installed on the island - a marble slab dedicated to all the dead members of the convoy, and in 2015, the victims of this tragedy of the Great Patriotic War were buried.
In the most general terms
The White Island (Kara Sea) is widely sparse in wide access: its area is 1900 square kilometers, the highest point rises to a height of 12 meters above sea level.
It is reported that the island is covered with tundra vegetation, that there are many lakes on it - a common characteristic of the northern edge. It can be added that the northeastern shores of the island are gentle and sandy, the sand is white, and its color gave the name to the island. The southwestern shores are steep, the height of which sometimes reaches 6 meters.
Island flora
However, special attention should be paid to the fact that Bely Island is one of the most important components of the entire ecological Arctic system - this is the habitat of polar bears. In addition to them, walruses and wild deer, arctic foxes and wolverines live on this territory. There are also such rare animals from the Red Book as the small swan, the Atlantic walrus and the white-bloomed loon. As for polar bears, in some articles Bely Island (a photo with its main resident is attached) is called the hospital of these animals. Pregnant females make lairs on the island, in which they produce offspring.
Arctic dump
What has attracted attention to these days this northern edge of the earth? First of all, with its amazing trash. It would seem, where did she come from on a desert island? I took it, and in such a size that it attracted the attention of the country's leadership.
Perhaps everyone heard about the sending of northern convoys with goods to the Arctic, but no one heard of convoys that would return with containers from these goods, which included fuel and technical oil. And all these barrels, abandoned equipment accumulated over 100 years, especially actively at the end of the past century.
Bridgehead
But not only the pollution of the island made it the object of close attention of the Yamal-Nenets administration. The territory of the Kara Sea, on the shelf of which there is an active marine activity, where Bely Island is part of the infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route, is considered as a testing ground for environmental monitoring and research. The island is one of the bridgeheads for the development of the Arctic. The following fact speaks of the importance attached to Bely Island: at the beginning of the coming year 2016, work should be completed on compiling a 3D model of the island, which is made according to unmanned aerial vehicles. The map will be posted on the website of the Russian Arctic Development Center.
Concrete benefit
Since 1933, a polar hydrometeorological station has been operating here, at which the next shift of 4 employees is constantly working. There are border guard barracks on the island, useful to participants in the annual summer environmental expeditions, the first of which started in 2012. The border guards themselves left the icy silence back in the 90s. It should be noted that since 2010 there is a state project “Arctic Cleansing”.
But the White Island is brought into a divine form by volunteers traveling here from all over the country and neighboring countries, although annual expeditions are one of the components of the overall environmental strategy of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. 13 volunteers of the first expedition removed 1, 000 metal barrels and took out 65 cubic meters of garbage. Their efforts removed a total of 85 tons of metal.
The island is getting settled
And in August 2014, the Internet came to Bely Island. In April 2015, a research expedition set off here, who will work here for a rather long time (fuel and food were delivered to the island for subsequent shifts) and study the cryogenic and ecological systems of the Arctic tundra.
In a word, the places where Bely Island is located have been given very close attention, they have been actively engaged in it: winter expeditions are already planned, and the island itself is called a place of great hope. A small felled Orthodox church appeared here.
All new and new expeditions
In August-September 2015, an expeditionary group of the Russian Academy of Sciences arrived, the object of study of which are polar bears. According to information received, only in the area in which people are on the island, 5-7 bears constantly live. One of the tasks of the expedition is to fix satellite collars on bear specimens. The program for the group that went to Bely Island is very extensive. A separate item in it includes the relationship between a polar bear and a person.
