History
Several nations have participated in the discovery and exploration of Herald Island. The island was discovered in 1849 by Sir Henry Kellett, captain of the survey vessel HMS Herald, who was searching for the vanished expedition of Sir John Franklin. Kellett landed on Herald Island and named it after his ship. He also sighted Wrangel Island in the distance.
Herald Island was next visited in 1855 by the USS Vincennes under Lt. John Rodgers. An attempt was made to reach Wrangel Island, which was inaccessible because of sea ice. The ill-fated Arctic expedition of George W. DeLong in the Jeannette entered sea ice near Herald Island in 1879, hoping to reach Wrangel Island and open water near the North Pole. No landing was made, and the ship remained trapped in ice until it was finally crushed. In 1881, the US revenue cutter Corwin under Calvin L. Hooper searched Herald Island for message cairns or other signs that might have been left by the Jeannette crew. With the aid of John Muir's mountaineering skills, they were able to reach the top of the island and conduct a thorough search, as well as make geological and biological observations and collect specimens.
No wintering has been recorded on Herald Island, but four crewmen of the ill-fated exploration ship Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, reached Herald Island in January 1914 after their ship sank crushed by ice. These four men, Sandy Anderson, Charles Barker, John Brady and Edmund L. Golightly, died there without leaving any record. Their skeletons were found in 1924 by Captain Louis Lane's expedition on the MS Herman. The cause of their death still remains a mystery because there was enough food and ammunition in the place where their remains were found.
In 1916 the Russian ambassador in London issued an official notice to the effect that the Imperial government considered Herald, along with other Arctic islands, integral parts of the Russian Empire. This territorial claim was later maintained by the Soviet Union. In 1926, the Soviet icebreaker Stavropol under G.A. Ushakov approached Herald Island, but was unable to come to shore because of thick sea ice. The icebreaker Krasin made several attempts to reach Herald Island in 1953 while en route to Wrangel Island, but was hindered by thick fog. A landing was finally made on the return trip, when the island was fully surveyed.
Some U.S. individuals, including the group State Department Watch, assert American ownership of Herald Island based on the 1855 landing. A 1988 resolution of the Alaska State Senate supported this claim. However, the United States government has never claimed Herald Island, and recognizes it as Russian territory. In 1994, the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled in D. Denardo v. State of Alaska that Herald Island, along with several islands, is not part of Alaska.
In 2004 Herald Island and neighboring Wrangel Island, along with their surrounding waters, were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.
Read more about this topic: Herald Island (Arctic)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)