Willem Barentsz

Who is Willem Barentsz?

Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer who led three expeditions in the 1590s in search of the Northeast Passage, a hoped-for northern sea route to Asia over Russia. On his third voyage in 1596, sailing with Jacob van Heemskerck, Barentsz and his crew sighted and charted the northwest coast of an unknown archipelago on 17 June, naming it "Spitsbergen" for its jagged, pointed mountains — the first documented European discovery of what is now called Svalbard. The expedition continued east and became icebound off Novaya Zemlya, forcing the crew to overwinter in a hut they built from driftwood and salvaged timber, one of the earliest recorded European survivals of an Arctic winter. Barentsz died in June 1597 during the crew's desperate open-boat retreat toward the Russian mainland after their ship was crushed by ice. The Barents Sea, which lies between Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya, was later named in his honor, and the detailed account of his voyages, kept largely by the ship's carpenter Gerrit de Veer, remains a primary historical source for early Arctic exploration.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Willem Barentsz" · Gerrit de Veer, journal of the third voyage, published as "The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions" (Hakluyt Society translation) · Britannica, "Willem Barents"