Wrangel Island: an oasis in the ice. Wrangel island: nature reserve, location on the map of Russia, climate, coordinates

Geographical position

"Wrangel Island"- state nature reserve, occupies the most northern position (located mainly to the north of 71 ° N) of the protected areas of Russia.

Created in 1976. The total area is 2,225,650 hectares, including the water area - 1,430,000 hectares. The area of ​​the security zone is 795,593 hectares. It occupies two islands of the Chukchi Sea - Wrangel and Herald, as well as the adjacent water area, and is located on the territory of the Shmidtovsky district of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Approximately 2/3 of the territory of the Wrangel Island is occupied by mountains. The climate in the region of the islands is arctic with a significant influence of cyclonic activity. The frost-free period on the islands usually does not exceed 20-25 days.

How to get there

Today, Wrangel Island is one of the most inaccessible nature reserves in the world. Several special government permits are required to visit it.
Getting to the island is not easy: in winter you have to fly by helicopter, and in summer you have to sail on an icebreaker.

Climate

The climate in the region of the islands is arctic with a significant influence of cyclonic activity. The frost-free period on the islands usually does not exceed 20-25 days. Winter, with constant frosts and strong winds generating blizzards, reigns most of the year. The cool summer is short, it is often interrupted by frosts and snowfalls, but despite this, during the polar day, a stormy life flares up on the islands.

Population

Officially, the village of Ushakovskoye on Wrangel Island was declared non-residential in 1997. However, several people refused to leave. The last 25-year-old female islander named Vasilina Alpaun was killed by a polar bear in 2003. After her, only the man Grigory Kaurgin, a practicing shamanism, remained on the island. The re-presence of people on the island was ensured by the Russian military from the troops of the Eastern Military District (VVO), who on October 1, 2014, populated the military town created for them.

Nature

The flora of Wrangel Island has no analogues in the Arctic in terms of its richness and level of endemism. To date, 417 species and subspecies of vascular plants have been identified in the reserve. This is more than is known for the entire Canadian Arctic Archipelago and is 2-2.5 times higher than the number of species in other Arctic tundra areas of similar size. About 3% of the flora of Wrangel Island are subendemic species. Among the vascular plants, 23 taxa are endemic to the island. In terms of the number of endemics, Wrangel Island has no equal among the Arctic islands, including Greenland. A number of endemic plants (Ushakov's pusher Oxytropis ushakovii, Papaver multiradiatum poppy and Papaver chionophilum snow-loving poppy) are common on the island. The endemic species also include a variety of rattle, a subspecies of the Lapland poppy, Gorodkov and Ushakov's poppies, and Wrangel's cinquefoil. The number of known species of mosses (331) and lichens (310) on Wrangel Island also exceeds other territories in the Arctic tundra subzone.

Sedge-moss tundra predominates, the middle and lower mountain belts are occupied by herb-lichen and shrub-forb tundras. There are bogs with the participation of sphagnum, low and creeping willow thickets. In the upper belts of the mountains there are extensive stony placers.

Natural conditions are not conducive to the richness of the fauna.

There are absolutely no amphibians and reptiles in the reserve; fish (Arctic cod, capelin and some others) can be seen only in coastal waters. On the other hand, there are 169 bird species on the island, most of which are migratory, nesting has been registered for 62 species, of which 44 species nest regularly on the islands, including 8 species of seabirds. For example: gulls, guillemots, etc. Among the birds, we should first of all mention the white goose, which forms its only large autonomous nesting colony of several tens of thousands of pairs that has survived in Russia and Asia. Black geese regularly nest (moreover, non-breeding geese fly here in thousands to molt from mainland Chukotka and Alaska), common eider and comb eider, in very small numbers Siberian eider, pintail and waders. On the steep sea coasts there are bird colonies, which in the 60s, according to the famous explorer of the North S.M. Uspensky, numbered 50-100 thousand thick-billed guillemots, 30-40 thousand kittiwakes, 3 thousand cormorants. V. V. Dezhkin in his book "In the world of nature reserves", published in 1989, writes "Now there are fewer of these birds", and on the official website of the reserve, the total number of seabird colonies is estimated at 250-300 thousand nesting individuals.

The bulk of the bird population is made up of tundra species, most of which have circumpolar ranges and are common in all Arctic tundras. These are the Lapland plantain, snow bunting, tules, turnbones, Icelandic sandpiper and a number of other species. At the same time, there are cases of nesting of species uncharacteristic for the Arctic, such as turukhtan, ruby-necked sandpiper, ipatka and hatchet, talovka warbler, for which Wrangel Island is the most north point nesting. In recent years, the Ipatka has begun to nest regularly on the Wrangel Island seabird colonies, and its numbers are growing.

The world of mammals is poorer, and its most typical representatives are the Siberian lemming and Vinogradov's lemming, which in the years of high abundance are very important in the ecosystems of the reserve. Arctic fox, ermine, wolverine, wild reindeer, wolves live, red foxes wander. But the most famous inhabitant of both islands is the polar bear. The Wrangel and Herald Islands are known as the world's largest concentration area for polar bear ancestral dens. V. V. Dezhkin writes: "In some years, up to 200-250 she-bears were set up in the reserve." On the site of the reserve there is information that “annually on the islands from 300 to 500 she-bears lie in dens. Approximately 100 of this number of ancestral dens are arranged on a small island. Herald ". In the spring, with slightly stronger offspring, they embark on a journey across the expanses of the Arctic.

Ungulates are represented in the reserve by two species - reindeer and musk ox. Reindeer were brought to Wrangel Island in the late 1940s and early 1950s: they were brought in in two batches of domesticated reindeer from the coast of Chukotka. Currently, they represent a unique in history and biological characteristics island population of feral reindeer, the number of which in certain periods reached 9-10 thousand individuals. In 1975, a year before the establishment of the reserve, 20 musk oxen caught on the American island of Nunivak were brought to Wrangel Island. The period of adaptation of musk oxen on the island and the development of the entire territory by them passed with difficulties and was extended for several years, after which the survival of the original herd was no longer in doubt and the population began to grow actively. At present, the number of musk oxen on the island is about 800-900 individuals, according to the situation in autumn 2007 - possibly up to 1000. According to paleontological data, both species of ungulates lived on the territory of Wrangel Island in the late Pleistocene, and reindeer and much later - only 2 -3 thousand years ago.

Finally, walruses, the most interesting and valuable sea animals, are found on the coasts of the reserve. Their protection and study is the task of the local scientists. The Pacific walrus lives here, for which this water area is the most important summer feeding area. In certain years, in the summer-autumn period - from July to late September-early October, most of the females and young animals of the entire population accumulate near the islands. Walruses keep at the edge of the ice and prefer to crawl out to rest on the ice floes, as long as they are in the water area. With the disappearance of ice near the most feeding shallow areas, walruses approach the islands and form the largest coastal rookeries in the Chukchi Sea on certain spits. At the same time, a total of up to 70-80 thousand animals were recorded at the coastal walrus rookeries on Wrangel Island, and taking into account the animals swimming in the water, up to 130 thousand walruses gathered here. For wintering, walruses migrate to the Bering Sea.

Ringed seals and bearded seals are common in the coastal waters throughout the year. The ringed seal is the main food for polar bears throughout the year, providing the full life cycle of a predator.

In the summer-autumn period, the water area adjacent to the Wrangel and Herald Islands- cetacean feeding and migration area. The most abundant here is the gray whale. In recent years, the number of gray whales in the summer-autumn period off the coast of Wrangel Island has increased markedly. Every year, large herds of beluga whales pass along the shores of Wrangel Island during the autumn migration. According to satellite tagging data, it was found that beluga whales approach Wrangel Island in autumn and gather for childbirth in the Mackenzie River Delta (Canada).

Wrangel Island: an oasis in ice

The bully arctic fox drives the goose away from the nest: this dexterous distracting maneuver will allow him to steal the eggs. Snow geese arrive on the island in May, passing the winter in North America.

An American journalist shares his impressions of Wrangel Island, a protected corner of the Russian Arctic.

Cutting through the chilly waves of the Chukchi Sea, the Zodiac inflatable motor boat deftly maneuvers between the giant pieces of drifting ice. A thick curtain of dank drizzle and fog covers the invisible shore.

Arctic foxes, the main rogues of the Far North, steal 40 eggs a day from white geese and hide them in hiding places to feed their cubs.

Although our guide assures that there is a huge island right on the course, it is hard to believe in it. But suddenly the fog dissipates, and the outlines of the island appear in the air before our eyes, as if by magic. In the cold northern light, they appear unusually sharp and contrasting. Before us is a piece of land with a length of 146 kilometers, where high to the sky soar mountain slopes shining gold in the sun's rays and covered with such bright flowers, which are found only in the tundra.

Back in 1881, the same picture was revealed to my compatriot, an American naturalist of Scottish descent, John Muir, who left the first description of the island. At the sight of his harsh beauty, Muir was indescribable delight. "This vast desert in its pristine freshness", "an impregnable citadel beyond the distant distances, by the will of the Creator, fell under the onslaught of a merciless cold" - admiration drove his pen.

Wrangel Island is the world champion in the number of polar bear dens: scientists have calculated that nearly four hundred bears come to its shores in winter to breed.

The coastal spit made of alluvial rubble is a natural barrier blocking the way to Wrangel Island. It extends to Cape Blossom, the southwestern tip of the island. The mainland lies 141 kilometers south of the cape.

Today, Wrangel Island is one of the most inaccessible nature reserves in the world. To visit it, several special government permits are required, and getting here is not easy: in winter you have to fly by helicopter, and in summer - sail on an icebreaker. At the pier in Rogers' Bay, the huntsman Anatoly Rodionov, a big man in a soldier's jacket, is waiting for us. In his hands is a rocket launcher and pepper spray - to scare away bears. Rodionov lives here all year round, like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. However, he still has a company: several colleagues and a community of polar bears who are always willing to profit from something. "Hey! Welcome to Wrangel Island! ”He exclaims with exaggerated enthusiasm. It is not surprising - the guy is sad here. “For nine months, only three colors - white, black, gray. I don’t like the local winter! ”Anatoly admits.

Contrary to the name, the musk ox has a very indirect relationship to bulls - it has much closer blood ties with goats and sheep. Musk oxen were brought to Wrangel Island in 1975, and now their population is about 800 individuals. Recently, they are increasingly huddled in herds to repel the dangerous predators - wolves - who have returned to the island.

Along the pebble shore dotted with the bones of whales and walruses, Rodionov leads us to Ushakovskoye, a tiny Soviet-era ghost village. Mountains of rusty barrels rise everywhere. Two hundred meters away from us, a nimble bear cub with interest draws in air with its nostrils. Anatoly looks at him as an old acquaintance. The ground is covered with a solid carpet of moss and lichen, in which the leg is buried.

A polar bear in the company of two cubs is looking for something to profit from. It is not for nothing that Wrangel Island is called the world's maternity hospital for polar bears.

On this carpet are piled wooden houses - some have already been almost completely pulled apart for firewood. Old, long-abandoned radar discs are about to topple into the sea, and the howling wind, like on strings, plays on the guy wires of the radio antennas. The barred windows of the Russian bathhouse bristled with sharp 120mm nails: this is how uninvited guests - bears - are welcomed here.

The long pebbly shoals of the Wrangel Island were chosen by Pacific walruses for rookeries - especially after climatic changes began to thin out perennial drifting ice, the usual habitat of these pinnipeds. A healthy adult walrus, like this large female, will not give himself up in a fight with a polar bear.

Back in 1976, Wrangel Island was declared a state reserve - a specially protected natural area. It retains this status today. An island with an area of ​​7,510 square kilometers, lying on either side of the 180th meridian, is the northern twin Galapagos Islands: despite the harsh climate, and largely thanks to it, it remains an oasis of wildlife. The island is the world champion in the number of polar bear dens: scientists have calculated that in winter nearly four hundred bears come to its shores to breed. And as the climate is gradually changing and the ice cover is becoming less durable, in recent years, polar bears often visit the island in summer. In addition, the world's largest population of Pacific walruses and the only nesting colony of white geese in Asia have settled here. White owls, musk oxen, arctic foxes, reindeer, as well as large populations of lemmings and seabirds are adjacent to them.

A special dwarf mammoth subspecies survived on Wrangel Island until the 18th century BC. - 6 thousand years after the mammoths became extinct in all other parts of the planet.

Two musk oxen measure each other with appraising eyes. In September, at the height of the mating season, males often organize butting tournaments.

Wrangel Island was lucky: in the last ice ages it has never been completely covered with ice, and during global warming it has never been completely flooded by sea waters. That is why the local soil covers and plants give us a unique idea of ​​what the tundra looked like during the Pleistocene era. Mikhail Stishov, a biologist and expert at the World Wildlife Fund, lived on the island for 18 years before moving to Moscow. “When you get to Wrangel Island,” he says, “you seem to be transported into the past for hundreds of thousands of years. The biological diversity here to this day remains as rich as in antiquity. But this is a very fragile ecosystem. "

For most of the year, polar bears rarely get together. But in summer, walruses appear under the cliffs of Cape Waring. A spirit of collectivism awakens in bears, and they willingly share prey.

According to paleontologists, Wrangel Island was also the last stronghold of woolly mammoths. A special dwarf subspecies lasted here until the 18th century BC. - 6 thousand years after the mammoths became extinct in all other parts of the planet. The whole island is dotted with spiral-shaped mammoth tusks: there are plenty of them on the pebble banks and in the riverbeds - and in some places they even prop up the walls of the rangers' dwellings, like hunting trophies. “When the pyramids were being built in Egypt, elephants roamed around Wrangel Island,” says the director of the reserve, Alexander Gruzdev. - The proximity of the territory to the continental natural complexes of Asia and North America and at the same time isolation from them created excellent conditions for a unique ecosystem to form here. There is nothing like this anywhere in the world. "

In August, barely fledged snowy owl chicks learn to fly, sometimes with unpredictable consequences. This owlet fearlessly dived into the river and is now struggling with its wings, trying to stay afloat.

The land, lying 140 kilometers from the shores of North-Eastern Siberia, haunted seafarers for decades. Almost until the end of the 19th century, the very existence of this island remained in question, and it had already changed several names: Tikegen Land, Plover Land, Kellett Land. The cartographers were at a loss - some suggested that this was a "offshoot" of Greenland, stretching right across the pole.

Throughout the 19th century, almost every expedition that sought to get closer to the island was eventually awarded the epithet "ill-fated". In the early 1820s, Chukchi hunters on the northeastern coast of Siberia informed the Russian traveler Ferdinand Wrangel about mysterious land in the north, which can only be seen in clear weather. Wrangel sailed in the indicated direction, but the path of the ship was blocked by ice: the shores did not open to him. Almost 30 years later, the captain of an English ship that went in search of John Franklin's expedition noticed ghostly outlines in the distance. Subsequently, the captains of the whaling ships have repeatedly assured that they also saw this island.

The American Arctic expedition of 1879, trapped in ice, approached the cherished land so much that the head of the team, George Washington De Long, was able to establish for certain that it was an island, and not a polar continent. He also gave the island the name of Wrangel. But, alas, De Long did not manage to land ashore. His ship "Jeanette" drifted in the ice for almost two years and sank 1290 kilometers northwest of the island.

Young Arctic foxes begin to explore the territory in the fall and less and less often return to the burrow, where they were born and spent the first three months of their life.

It was only in August 1881 that a man's foot first set foot on Wrangel Island: the crew of the American ship "Thomas Corvin" landed on it, sailing the northern waters in search of the missing "Jeanette". Members of the search party, including John Muir, planted the US flag on the island. The crew of the Corvinus gave the island the name New Columbia - a name that, however, did not catch on. In the same year, the first description of the island by John Muir was published.

However, soon everyone forgot about this land at the end of the world - no one visited the island for more than thirty years. And then the next wave of doomed expeditions swept through. The first of these was the 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition. To get to the island, the crew of the brigantine "Karluk" crushed by the ice covered 130 kilometers on drifting ice. Eight months were awaited for rescue, and during this time 11 out of 25 unfortunate people died. In 1921, another Canadian expedition, raising the British flag over the island, tried to colonize it. But this attempt was not crowned with success - it only took the lives of four more people. In 1924, Boris Davydov's expedition raised the flag of the USSR over the island, and two years later a permanent settlement was founded here.

Island Map:

Recently, it has become easier to get into the protected area. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of Russia even announced plans to develop ecotourism in the reserve, but this is a matter for the future. In the meantime, the island remains a natural laboratory for Arctic explorers, who unanimously insist that this relict tundra of the Pleistocene epoch beckons to itself with irresistible force. “It feels like you're at the end of the world and there’s nothing further,” says Daniel Fisher, a mammoth specialist at the University of Michigan.

“This is a virgin environment,” says Irina Menyushina, who has been studying snowy owls and polar foxes on the island for 32 seasons. - Here you feel closeness to the fundamental processes that govern the life of the Universe - birth, death, natural selection, the ebb and flow of population waves. I come to Wrangel Island from year to year, but his witchcraft does not lose its power. "

Text: Hampton Sides Photos: Sergey Gorshkov

This is how L.V. Gromov, one of the first geologists to investigate its subsoil in the 1930s. During the Pleistocene epoch, which began about one million years ago, the vast land that connected Asia and America, which was named "Beringia", appeared and disappeared several times. The last time it existed 25 thousand years ago, during the Sartan glaciation, and again disappeared 10-12 thousand years ago, forming the modern geographical picture of the world. Beringia was the center for the formation of specific tundra-steppe landscapes and the accompanying "mammoth" fauna, typical representatives of which were the mammoth itself, as well as the woolly rhinoceros, saiga, musk ox, reindeer, cave lion and cave bear. It was here that the main route of primitive settlement of the American continent lay.

Before the beginning of the polar night.
Scythe Doubtful, November 1997

Wrangel Island, due to its geographical position and features of the relief, has most fully preserved some of the features of the ancient Beringian landscape. In the center of the island there are many relict areas of tundra-steppe vegetation. A number of plants and insects, as well as some species of birds that inhabit the island, are more characteristic of the tundra of North America than of our Asian north. Among them there are real relics of the Pleistocene, which today are not found anywhere except on Wrangel Island. Of the plants, these are the Wrangel bison, one flowering spitfish, Wrangel's cinquefoil, and from insects, the weevil beetle Rhynchenus. The remains of many Pleistocene animals that lived here have been found on the island: rhinos, musk oxen, wild horses, reindeer, primitive bison, and, of course, mammoths, whose tusks and teeth in abundance lie in river channels and stick out of coastal cliffs. The most recent sensational discovery is associated with mammoths - on Wrangel Island they outlived their mainland counterparts for 7-8 millennia and died out only 3.5 thousand years ago, during the heyday of Egyptian and Ancient Greek civilizations, a little short of our era! Indeed, Wrangel Island is one of the last " lost worlds" on the ground.

The highest peak of Wrangel Island is Mount Sovetskaya. April 1999.

"Blizzard Island"

This definition belongs to G.A. Ushakov, head of the first Soviet settlement on Wrangel Island. Indeed, the island is rightfully considered one of the windiest places on Globe... The speed of the hurricane "bora" in the Rogers Bay area can reach 40 or more meters per second. Completely calm days on the island are the greatest rarity. Even if it is calm in one place, a strong wind can blow in any of the many mountain canyons. Sometimes the border between calm and windy zone is expressed so sharply that you can go from blizzard to calm and back to blizzard in several steps.

The Drem-Head mountain range is one of the main "maternity hospitals" for polar bears. April 1999

Due to its size (145 kilometers in length and 83 in width) and a diverse relief (from the vast coastal plains to the Central Mountains with peaks over a kilometer above sea level), Wrangel Island has a peculiar climate that distinguishes it from most of the Arctic islands. The coast is affected by the influence of the sea, and in winter it is not too cold here (-25 - 30 ° C), but the average temperature of the hottest month - July, fluctuates only from 1.5 to 3.5 ° C. At the same time, the central part of the island , surrounded by mountains, has a pronounced continental climate: in summer, intermontane basins warm up to 8-10 ° C, and even over 20 ° C, while in winter there are regular frosts down to -40 -50 ° C. Simply put, Wrangel Island is a real little "mainland"!

Sunset over Mount Utterton. September 1994

"Island of discord"

Ushakovskoe village in September 1989

This name was given to Wrangel Island by William McKinley, using a bitter play on words: Wrangel (Wrangel) and Wrangle (quarrel, discord). McKinley was a meteorologist for the Canadian Arctic Expedition aboard the ship Karluk. The ship received a hole and sank in January 1914. Part of the team moved across the ice to Herald Island, where they died. The rest of the people (17 people) went to north coast the Wrangel Islands, losing four more along the way. Captain Bartlett, accompanied by one of the Eskimos, crossed the ice of the Long Strait on foot, reached Provideniya Bay across the whole of Chukotka, from there he moved to Alaska on a random ship and returned in September of the same year at the head of a rescue expedition. Bartlett accomplished an unparalleled feat that will forever remain in the Arctic tablets.

The first "Robinsonade" on the island was accompanied by fear and despair. People did not trust each other, hid food from prying eyes, often quarreled. Two people died of kidney inflammation, one shot himself, another went mad. The survivors remembered Wrangel Island only as a nightmarish, hellish place ...

The history of the island was strange and bizarre. Those who wanted to find, who overcame many obstacles on the way to him, could not even see him. And the discovery and the first studies of it were made along the way, between times, and both happened during the search for the lost expeditions ... The island changed one name after another: Doubtful Island, Tikegen Land, Kellet Land, New Columbia, and, finally, the island Wrangel ... Changed state flags: English, American, Canadian, Russian, Soviet, and, finally, Russian ... Became an arena for political and human passions, tragic events that were destined to play a role in the history of Russia and the whole world.

In the 17th-18th centuries, Russian explorers and Cossacks often reported about unknown lands located not far from the Chukchi coast. Most often they meant the American continent, but among the descriptions and sketches of that time, one can catch hints of Wrangel Island. The first cartographic image of the island is considered to be a drawing by the Yakut clerk Ivan Lvov, made in 1710-1714. Probably, taking this drawing as a basis, Mikhailo Lomonosov himself indicated the location of a certain "Doubtful Island" in 1763 on his map. At that time, there were many reports about the lands lying north of Chukotka, so the search for Wrangel Island was intricately intertwined with the discovery of the Bear Islands at the mouth of the Kolyma, as well as with the search for the mythical lands of Sannikov and Sergeant Andreev. At the end, in 1821-1823. Several sledging trips on ice in the East Siberian Sea were made by Fleet Lieutenant F.P. Wrangel, who collected the most accurate information about the island's location from the words of the Chukchi who lived in the vicinity of Cape Shelagsky. During the third campaign from the Aachim Peninsula, Wrangel reached the latitude of the island and was some 100 km from its west coast when the path was blocked by a huge hole. From the high hummocks he tried to see the ground, but in vain. Wrangel did not see the land later named after him. If he took the direction to the northeast, he would have come to the area of ​​Cape Blossom and opened his island, but fate decided otherwise ...

Islanders.

Eskimo Yuri Alpaun is standing,
Chukchi Grigory Kaurgin is sitting.
Krasin Bay, August 1990

After 26 years, a sailor of the English ship "Herald" under the command of Captain Kellet, cruising in the Chukchi Sea in search of the missing expedition of J. Franklin, was the first of the Europeans to see the mountains of Wrangel Island. On the same day, the Herald Island was discovered 60 km to the northeast. For the first time close to the coastline of Wrangel Island in 1867, the American whaling boat "Nile" of Captain T. Long approached, after whom the strait between the island and the mainland was named. In 1879, the Jeannette, covered with ice, drifted past Wrangel Island, the crew of which later died on the Yakut coast. The search for this disappeared expedition in 1881 led to Wrangel Island at once two American ships "Thomas Corwin" and "Rogers", commanded by Captains Hooper and Berry. It is to these navigators that the priority of the first explorers of the island belongs, and the English names of capes, rivers and mountains are still preserved on the map in great numbers, having survived the Soviet era.

The development of the island was accompanied by no less tragic events, and it happened as a result of another discord. Friction arose between the USSR and Canada, which was the British dominion in those years. Here is how it was. Until 1924, Russian ships made only three attempts to reach Wrangel Island. In 1876, the clipper "Horseman" failed due to heavy ice blocking the way. In 1911, members of the famous hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean from the Vaigach icebreaker landed on the southwestern coast of the island. Again "Vaygach" tried to break through the ice to the island in 1914 to save the crew of "Karluk", but broke the propeller and retreated.

However, the 1914 "Robinsonade" attracted the attention of the famous Canadian polar explorer Viljalmur Stefanson, the leader of the expedition, which included "Karluk", to Wrangel Island. He believed that Canada, and with it the British Empire, could lay claim to the Wrangel and Herald Islands, despite the Russian note from 1916, which secured the right of ownership of these islands to Russia. In 1921, Stephansson sent a five-man detachment to the island, led by Alan Crawford, to explore and create a fishing base that would allow Canada to declare hitherto uninhabited island their property. And again - a tragedy! In the fall of 1923, when the Donaldson came to take out Crawford's party, it turned out that there was practically no one to take. All Europeans, including the chief, died, only the Eskimo Ada Blackjack survived. Nevertheless, another shift was landed on the island - 13 Eskimos, led by the former hairdresser Wells. The attempts of the Canadians to colonize Wrangel Island became known in Moscow. In 1924, the gunboat Red October was sent to the island under the command of B.V. Davydov. Canadian colonists were removed from the island, Wells died of pneumonia upon arrival in Vladivostok, and the Eskimos were sent to Alaska.

But the point was not put on this. In the same 1924, with the support of the United States government, businessman Karl Loman, the founder of domestic reindeer husbandry in Alaska, equipped 3 ships at once on Wrangel Island. This campaign ended in failure, only the ship "Herman" reached the Herald Island. The Soviet-American confrontation over Wrangel Island was avoided.

Finally, in 1926, a Soviet settlement of 51 Eskimos and 9 Russians was founded on an island in Rogers Bay, headed by the first "chief of the island" G.A. Ushakov (who later was the first explorer of Severnaya Zemlya, the head of the high-latitude expedition on the steamer "Sadko" and the head of the Main Directorate for Hydrometeorology under the USSR Council of People's Commissars, and then worked for many years at the Academy of Sciences). The village that grew up on this place was named Ushakovsky, in honor of its founder. Now the question of the state ownership of the Wrangel and Herald Islands was not raised by anyone. Nevertheless, more recently, in 1986, the US Senate considered the application of the state of Alaska on the rights to these islands ...

Wrangel Island has seen many more tragic events in its lifetime: the wreck of the Chelyuskin, which was trying to bring a team of winterers to the island; famine and epidemic among the Eskimos in the winter of 1934-1935, when 12 people died; the textbook "murder case" of the doctor N.L. Wolfson, thanks to whom the "star" of the investigator and writer L.R. Sheinin and the notorious public prosecutor A.Ya. Vyshinsky; the first “enemies of the people” to be shot in the Soviet Arctic: the head of the polar station Semenchuk and the musher Startsev ... And later there were enough ridiculous deaths and mutual grievances. The "Island of Discord" was and remains a harsh examiner of humanity for humanity.

"Maternity hospital of polar bears"

Polar bear tracks in the Dream Head mountains.
March 1999

This was the name of Wrangel Island by zoologists S.M. Uspensky and F.B. Chernyavsky, whose names are associated with the first detailed studies of the ecology of the polar bear in the Chukchi Sea. The phrase has taken root among journalists and popularizers, and it is really based on an immutable fact: the Wrangel Islands and Herald breeding site about? of all female bears of the Chukchi-Alaskan population. There are from 200 to 400, and sometimes more than 500, ancestral dens there annually. On some comfortable snow slopes, their density reaches the highest values ​​in the entire Arctic - up to 4-5 per square kilometer. The privacy of the islands and the ice conditions around them contribute to such an abundance of dens. In late summer and autumn, the southern edge of the ice passes nearby, where polar bears are concentrated in large numbers. In September-October, pregnant bears, in search of a place for a den, go to the nearest land - the Wrangel and Herald islands. Bear cubs are born in December, and already in March and April, bear families go into the ice.

The bear is playing. Scythe Doubtful,
September 1991

The island is not only the main breeding ground for polar bears. These largest predators of the planet are common here all year round. Especially many bears can be seen on the coast at the end of summer and in autumn in those years when the Chukchi Sea is completely cleared of ice. During this period, bears usually concentrate on promontories and spits protruding into the sea, where walrus rookeries are located. A bear cannot get an adult walrus, so predators try to catch small walruses. The most experienced hunters resort to the safest and most prey method: they scare away walruses, which, in a panic, begin to go into the water, causing serious injuries to each other. Many, sometimes more than a hundred, depressed walruses remain on the shore. Up to one and a half to two hundred white predators gather for a grand feast. The bears eat their fill, sleep well, explore the surroundings, make acquaintances, play in the snow for a long time. Such a carefree life continues until the supply of meat runs out ...

The bears feed on the carcasses of dead walruses.
Scythe Doubtful, October 1996

For polar bears, Wrangel Island is not only a "maternity hospital", but also a "restaurant" and a "club" for communication, in some way - a bear "capital".

"Island of Arctic Treasures"

This name was given to his book about Wrangel Island by the same zoologist F.B. Chernyavsky. For a naturalist scientist, the island is, without any exaggeration, a real treasure. Among other Arctic territories, there is not a single one that could compete with Wrangel Island in terms of the diversity of plant and animal species. There are over 400 species and subspecies of vascular plants alone, which is twice the size of any island and archipelago in the Arctic. The fauna of insects and other arthropods is no less rich. There are 169 bird species on the island, of which 56 nest (this is one and a half times more than in other Arctic tundra). In terms of the number of species of marine and land mammals, Wrangel Island also stands out among other Arctic islands.

A group of walruses gets out onto the ice floe. Krasin Bay, September 1994

Wrangel Island is a maternity hospital not only for polar bears, but also for some other mammals and birds. The density of brood foxes and snowy owls' nests is much higher here than in other areas of Chukotka. Breeding of Arctic foxes and owls is usually highly dependent on the abundance of rodents: mice and lemmings. On Wrangel Island, these predators can also feed on the large number of nesting birds, so they reproduce well in years with a low number of lemmings. In the "fruitful" years for lemmings, the density of owl nests reaches 2-3 per square kilometer, and that of polar fox holes - 20 or more per 100 square kilometers. In Chukotka, owl nests and polar fox burrows are relatively rare. On Wrangel Island, there is the largest seabird breeding center in the Eastern Arctic - “bird colonies” at Waring Cape and the cape, which is called the Bird Market.

Fawn. Cape Blossom, May 1997

And, of course, one cannot but recall the only large colony of white geese in Eurasia in the valley of the Tundrovaya River. Pacific walruses breed in the Bering Sea, but migrate to Arctic waters in summer, forming clusters at the ice edge. In some years, two thirds of the entire Pacific walrus population gathers in the area of ​​Wrangel Island, with the bulk of the animals being females and young. Therefore, the island can deservedly be called a walrus "manger". In addition to walrus, the coastal waters are inhabited by ringed seals, bearded seals (sea hares), beluga whales, gray and bowhead whales, fin whales and minke whales regularly appear. In 1975, musk oxen were brought to the island from Alaska, which perfectly took root and reached the number of over six hundred heads. My friend French naturalist Pierre Vakoulon visited different Arctic regions, but, having twice visited Wrangel Island, said that he had never seen such a concentration of polar exoticism on such a limited area. It is not surprising that in 1976 the first Arctic reserve in Russia was formed here, which still exists today.

"Pearl of the Arctic"

Arrival of white geese in the valley of the Tundrovaya river. May 1997

This succinct definition of Wrangel Island, quickly picked up by journalists, belongs to the biologist Yu.A. Gerasimov. I think that there is no need to prove the validity of this name. The island combines the standard of the Arctic nature and a number of unique features that distinguish it from other polar territories. And the exciting story of search, discovery and development brightens its "pearl" brilliance.

Arctic foxes during the rutting season. Valley of the Dwarfs, March 1999

I had a chance to live and work on Wrangel Island for over ten years, to see the flowering of human activity and witness its gradual fading. In the late 1980s. there were more than 200 inhabitants on the island: military men, polar explorers and, of course, employees of the reserve, who lived and worked in the village of Ushakovsky on the shores of Rogers Bay. Economic crisis in the country could not but affect the fate of this most isolated village in Chukotka. During the 1990s. communication with the mainland became more and more problematic, for almost ten years no fuel and lubricants, construction materials and coal were brought to the island. Stocks of products accumulated in warehouses in 1991-1992 were removed from the island for a quick and profitable sale. Already in the mid-1990s. Due to the high cost of flight time and frequent breakdowns of an old helicopter based in the village of Mys Shmidta, long supply interruptions began to occur in Ushakovskoye. I remember a period when there was no flour on the island for several months, and the inhabitants baked semolina cakes. The lack of sugar and cigarettes was just chronic, not to mention canned food. For several years, the main food of the islanders was venison, since wild reindeer were shot every year. A few years later, and with this product, there were interruptions due to a shortage of ammunition. The post office, shop, kindergarten and school were closed back in the mid-1990s. People gradually left the island. In 1997, the doctor left, which was a big blow to the remaining residents, especially those who had children. The reserve office moved first to the regional center Cape Schmidt, then to Pevek. People born and raised on the island were taken there as well. In 1999 I left Wrangel Island and I ...

Pack Creek, June 1992

In 2002, the family of Lev Nanaun, the son of one of the first settlers who arrived with G.A. Ushakov in 1926. Now on the island there are only two permanent residents - reserve inspectors. Four more people work at the polar station. The reserve's researchers live in Moscow and St. Petersburg, visiting the island only for a short field season. So sadly ended the history of the village of Ushakovsky, another page in the amazing chronicle of Wrangel Island ...

But maybe it's not all that sad? After all, the history of Wrangel Island itself does not end there. The unique nature will do just fine without a man, who at first inflicted enormous damage on it, and only in the last 30 years tried to do it justice. The last reason for optimism: in 2004, Wrangel Island, along with the adjacent water area, was included in the List world heritage UNESCO. The "Pearl of the Arctic" continues to sparkle in the crown of polar ice ...

Today we will talk about the land of Wrangel. This island is very interesting. A Russian traveler was looking for it unsuccessfully, but a British and a German discovered it. Then the deserted island became a bone of contention between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. This land is surrounded by legends. There is even an opinion that one of the colonies of the ominous Gulag was located here. But even without repressive camps, this land was murderous for humans. More than one polar explorer died here. And today the island continues to amaze scientists with new sensational discoveries. How the island was formed, what is the relief, climate, animal and vegetable world- read this article.

Wrangel Island on the map

This is a fairly large area of ​​land. Its area is approximately seven and a half thousand square kilometers, and most of it is mountains. The island itself is located in the North Arctic Ocean... Even in the simple geographical location of Wrangel's land, its uniqueness is already hidden. It is a watershed between two large ocean areas, a natural border between the Chukchi and East Siberian seas. And on Wrangel Island there is a junction between the Eastern and Western hemispheres of our planet. The one hundred and eightieth meridian, the so-called "date line", divides the land area into almost equal parts. From north coast separated by at least 140 kilometers of water - the Long Strait. Since 1976, this land has been declared a nature reserve. The last permanent resident died in 2003. Since then, only polar scientists have lived here. Administratively, the island belongs to the district (Iultinsky district).

Discovery history

It is safe to say that the Paleo-Eskimos were the first to discover Wrangel's land. As prove archaeological excavations, spent in a ravine with the name Devil's, people stopped here at camps three and a half thousand years ago. The Russian pioneers were told about the existence of the distant land of Umkilir ("the island of polar bears") of the Chukchi. But two hundred years passed before the foot of a European set foot on the deserted and unkind coast. For a long time, the island was considered just a beautiful Chukchi legend. In 1820-1824 he was unsuccessfully searched for by the Russian navigator and statesman Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel. In 1849, British explorer and traveler Henry Kellett observed two pieces of land in the Chukchi Sea through a telescope. The discoverer named them after himself and his ship, the Herald. This is how the "Land of Kellett" and Herald Island (later Wrangel Island) appeared on the world map. But this is not all the adventures of our part of the land surrounded by the sea.

Why the discovery was named after Wrangel

The island was considered unknown to Europeans (the opinion of the Chukchi about Umkilir was not taken into account). The right of the discoverer belonged to the one who not only saw the distant shore with the help of a telescope, but stepped on it with his own foot. It was a German merchant Eduard Dallmann, who conducted merchant operations with the inhabitants of Chukotka and Alaska. But he was far from thinking of naming the lands he visited. A year later, in 1867, a whaler from America Thomas Long landed on the island. By vocation, this brave man was a researcher, he knew a lot about the search for FP Wrangel. Therefore, he named the island he discovered in his honor. The territory was no man's land for about 14 years. In 1881, an American ship approached the Harold and Wrangel Islands. It was looking for members of De Long's polar expedition, which went to conquer the North Pole in 1879 on the ship Jeanette and went missing. Captain Calvin Hooper landed part of the team on the island. While the sailors were looking for traces of the missing, the captain hoisted the US flag on the shore. He named the island New Columbia.

Archipelago formation

Until the twentieth century, the governments of Russia and the United States had little interest in who owned two pieces of land lost in the Arctic Ocean. This relationship was facilitated by their "distant" geographic coordinates. Wrangel Island, for example, the westernmost in a small archipelago, is located between 70 ° and 71 ° north latitude. The length along the meridian of this place is simply unique: from 179 ° W. d. to 177 ° E e. The archipelago is located very close not only from North America, but also from Asia. This is all that remains of the once existing bridge between the two continents, when the Bering Strait had not yet separated them. Thus, these are islands of continental origin. That is why they are also called Beringia. This area was spared by the ice ages, and during the global warming, the islands did not go under water. This circumstance has preserved the amazing flora and fauna on Wrangel's land.

Arctic apple of discord

With the onset of the twentieth century, and along with centuries of industry, both claimants claimed their rights to the archipelago. After all, it does not matter where Wrangel Island is located, whether someone lives there and whether it is possible to carry out economic activities. The borders of adjacent states are shifted to the east or west, respectively, if someone takes possession of the archipelago. In the fall of 1911, a Russian hydrographic expedition aboard the Vaigach landed on Wrangel Island and raised the Russian flag on it. And in the summer of 1913, the Canadian brigantine "Karluk" was trapped in ice and had to drift towards the Bering Strait. Part of the team landed on Herald Island, and the other - a large party - on Wrangel. Two members of this expedition made it to big land(Alaska), but the rescue expedition came to those in distress only in September 1914.

Development of the archipelago

In 1921, the Canadians decided to stake out the archipelago in the Chukchi Sea. After all, this gave the state the opportunity to fish and whale off their shores. But the first settlers, consisting of four polar explorers and one Eskimo woman, did not survive the winter (only Ada Blackjack survived). Then the Canadians in 1923 formed a second colony. Geologist Charles Wells and twelve Eskimos, including women and children, came to Wrangel Island. Since professional hunters were engaged in the extraction of food, the colonists survived the winter successfully. But the Soviet government sent an icebreaker "Red October" equipped with cannons to the shores of the island. His team forcibly lifted the settlers on board and took them to Vladivostok, from where they later extradited them to their homeland. As a result of this trip, two children were killed.

Wrangel Island is ours!

How did it become “domestic” finally? Although the Wrangel Islands appeared on the map of Russia, the government did not calm down until the Russian colonists established themselves there. In 1926, a polar station was founded, headed by the researcher G. Ya. Ushakov. Together with him, another 59 Chukchi settled from the villages of Chaplino and Providence. In 1928, the Ukrainian journalist Nikolai Trublaini came there on the Litke icebreaker. He has repeatedly described in his books (in particular "The Way to the Arctic through the Tropics") Wrangel Island and its harsh beauty. Collective farms were supposed to be everywhere in the Land of Soviets, and the Far North was no exception. In 1948, a collective reindeer herding farm was founded - for this purpose, a small herd was brought from the mainland. And in the 70s, musk oxen were introduced from the island of Nunivak. Although evil tongues claim that one of the GULAG camps was based on the archipelago, this is not true. The villages of Ushakovskoye, Perkatkun, Zvezdny and the village. Cape Schmidt was inhabited either by polar explorers or by Chukchi tribes.

Reserved land

Back in 1953, the authorities decided to protect walruses and their rookeries on two islands in the Chukchi Sea. Seven years later, the Regional Executive Committee of Magadan, by its resolution, created a nature reserve on Wrangel Island. Later (1968) he was promoted in status. But the Soviet government did not stop there either. The reserve of national importance in 1976 was transformed into the nature reserve "Wrangel Islands". The zone is still protected according to the decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR No. 189 of March 23, 1976. The plural in the name of the reserve is not a slip of the tongue. I got under protection and neighboring island Herald, as well as about 1 430 000 hectares of water area. Ironically, the crisis of the late 1990s greatly contributed to the conservation of nature. Most of the residents were taken to the mainland, since there was no money to supply them with fuel and food. The last inhabitant of Vasilina Alpaun was killed by a polar bear in 2003. And in 2004, both islands were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Relief

The map of Wrangel Island shows that this land area is quite mountainous. Three almost parallel chains - the North, Middle and South ridges - are cut off by coastal cliffs. The highest point - Mount Sovetskaya - reaches 1,096 meters above sea level. It is located almost in the center of the island. The low North Ridge merges into a swampy plain called the Academy Tundra. The low-lying shores of the island are cut by lagoons. There are a lot of lakes and rivers here. But there are no fish in them. Due to the harsh climate, these reservoirs freeze through and through in winter. However, global warming is noticeable here as well. In recent years, shoals of pink salmon have begun to actively spawn at river mouths. The rugged terrain and polar position have created a number of non-melting glaciers on the island.

Climate of Wrangel Island

The polar night here comes in the second decade of November, and the long-awaited sun is shown at the end of January. The luminary does not go beyond the horizon from mid-May to the third decade of July. But even the fact that the sun constantly illuminates Wrangel Island does not add warmth to the local summer. The temperature even in July does not exceed +3 ° C. Snowfalls, drizzle and fog are frequent. Only in the abnormally hot summer of 2007 did the thermometer jump to +14.8 ° C (in August). Winters are very frosty, with frequent snowstorms. February and March are especially fierce. The temperature during this period does not rise above -30 ° C for many weeks. Cold air masses from the Arctic carry little moisture with them. But in the summer from the northern part The Pacific damp winds are blowing.

Flora

BN Gorodkov, who investigated the vegetation cover on the eastern coast of the Wrangel land in 1938, mistakenly assigned the island to the zone. Further study of the flora prompted scientists to believe that its territory lies in the polar tundra belt. And to be very precise, the classification is as follows: the Wrangel sub-province of the Western American zone of the Arctic tundra. The flora is distinguished by its ancient species composition. Three percent of the plants are subendemic. These are Gorodkov's poppy, helplessness, Wrangel's ostododnik and others. It has now been revealed that, in terms of the number of endemics, Wrangel Island has no equal in the polar zone. In addition to these plants, which are found only here and nowhere else in the world, more than a hundred rare species grow in the reserve.

Fauna

Severe climatic conditions do not favor special species diversity. There are absolutely no amphibians, reptiles and freshwater fish on the island. But Wrangel Island, the photo of which hardly ever does without a white bear in the foreground, holds the record for the density of these animals. Judge for yourself: four hundred bears live on an area of ​​about seven and a half thousand square kilometers. And that's not counting the males and cubs! So the Chukchi name of the island is justified - Umkilir. Moreover, the population of this animal is increasing from year to year. The polar bear is the main owner of the island. In addition to it, there are imported reindeer and musk ox. In summer, bumblebees, butterflies, mosquitoes and flies are carried by the wind from the mainland. The bird world has about 40 species on the island. Of the rodents, Vinogradov's lemming is endemic. In addition to bears, there are other predators: polar fox, wolf, fox, wolverine, ermine. The local walrus rookery is the largest in Russia.

Unique discovery

In the mid-1990s, the Wrangel Island reserve appeared on the front pages of scientific journals. And all because paleontologists discovered the remains of mammoths here. But it was not the find itself that was important, but its age. It turned out that on the island these elephants overgrown with thick wool lived and flourished three and a half thousand years ago. But it is known that mammoths became extinct more than ten thousand years ago. So what happens? When Greece was flourishing Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, and in Egypt reigned on the island of Wrangel walking a living mammoth! True, the local subspecies was also distinguished by its small stature - the size of a modern African elephant.

Wrangel Island is washed from the western side by the East Siberian and from the eastern side by the Chukchi seas. Herald Island is a mountainous outlier located 60 km east of Wrangel Island in the Chukchi Sea.
Wrangel Island is located north of Chukotka, between 70-71 ° N. and 179 ° W. - 177 ° East An important feature of the geographical position of the island is the fact that it is the only large land mass located in high latitudes in the northeastern sector of the Asian Arctic, in the area of ​​the continental shelf, the boundary of which ends about 300 km north of the island. At the same time, Wrangel Island is located close not only to Asia, but also to North America, and to the Bering Strait dividing these continents, which serves as the only highway connecting the Pacific and Arctic oceans and a breeding ground for many species of marine animals.

The island is separated from the mainland by the Long Strait, the average width of which is 150 km, which provides reliable isolation from the mainland. At the same time, the area of ​​Wrangel Island is large enough to provide biological and landscape diversity. Other Arctic islands and archipelagos are separated from Wrangel Island by hundreds of kilometers.

Until the last rise in the world ocean level, Wrangel Island was part of the unified Beringian landmass.

The greatest length diagonally from northeast to southwest (between Waring and Blossom Capes) is about 145 km, and the maximum width from north to south (traverse Pestsovaya Bay - Krasin Bay) is slightly more than 80 km. Approximately 2/3 of the island's area is occupied by mountain systems with the highest altitude of 1095.4 m above sea level. (Soviet town).
Wrangel Island is one of the highest islands in the Euro-Asian sector of the Arctic and the highest ice-free island in the Arctic in general. The island is characterized by a strong dissection of the relief and a wide variety of geological and geomorphological structures.
The Wrangel and Herald Islands, in terms of climatic conditions, landscape features and vegetation cover, belong to the subzone of the Arctic tundra (the northernmost subzone of the tundra zone).

GEOGRAPHY OF WRANGEL ISLAND
Wrangel Island (Chuk. Umkilir - "island of polar bears") is a Russian island in the Arctic Ocean between the East Siberian and Chukchi seas. Named after the 19th century Russian navigator and statesman Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel.

It is located at the junction of the western and eastern hemispheres and is divided by the 180th meridian into two almost equal parts.
Administratively, it belongs to the Iultinsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.
It is part of the reserve of the same name. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2004).

Archaeological finds in the area of ​​the Devil's Ravine site indicate that the first people (Paleo-Eskimos) hunted on the island as far back as 1750 BC. NS.
The existence of the island was known to Russian pioneers from the middle of the 17th century from the stories of local residents of Chukotka, but on geographic Maps he got there only two hundred years later.

Opening
In 1849, British explorer Henry Kellett discovered in the Chukchi Sea new island and named it Herald Island after his ship Herald. West of the island, Gerald Kellett observed another island and marked it on the map. The island got its first name: "Kellett Land".

In 1866, the western island was visited by the first European - Captain Eduard Dallmann (German Eduard Dallmann), who conducted trade operations with the inhabitants of Alaska and Chukotka.
In 1867, an American whaler and explorer by vocation, Thomas Long - perhaps not knowing about Kellett's previous discovery, or misidentifying the island - named it after the Russian traveler and statesman Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel.
Wrangel knew about the existence of the island from the Chukchi and during 1820-1824 unsuccessfully searched for it.

In 1879, the route of the expedition of George De Long, who tried to reach the North Pole on the ship "USS Jeannette", lay near Wrangel Island. De Long's voyage ended in disaster and in 1881 the American steam cutter Thomas Corwin approached the island in search of him under the command of Calvin L. Hooper. Hooper landed a search party on the island and declared it a US territory.
In September 1911, the Vaigach icebreaker from the Russian hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean approached Wrangel Island. The Vaygach crew surveyed the coast of the island, landed and raised the Russian flag over it.

Herald Island, satellite of Wrangel Island

Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1916
On July 13, 1913, the brigantine of the Canadian Arctic expedition Karluk, led by anthropologist V. Stefanson, left the port of Nome (Alaska) to explore Herschel Island in the Beaufort Sea. On August 13, 1913, 300 kilometers from its destination, the Karluk was trapped in ice and began a slow drift westward. On September 19, six people, including Stefanson, went hunting, but due to ice drift, they were no longer able to return to the ship. They had to make their way to Cape Barrow. Later, accusations were made against Stefanson that he deliberately left the ship under the pretext of hunting in order to explore the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
On "Karluk" 25 people remained - a team, members of the expedition and hunters. The drift of the brigantine continued along the route of George De Long's barque Jeannette until, on January 10, 1914, she was crushed by ice.
The first batch of sailors, on behalf of Bartlett and under the command of Bjarne Mamena, set out for Wrangel Island, but mistakenly reached the Herald Island. On the island of Herald remained the chief mate of the "Karluk" Sandy Anderson with three sailors. All four died, presumably from food or carbon monoxide poisoning.
Another party, including Elistair McCoy (a member of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition in 1907-1909), undertook an independent trip to Wrangel Island (at a distance of 130 km) and went missing. The remaining 17 people under the command of Barlett managed to reach Wrangel Island and came ashore in Draghi Bay. In 1988, traces of their camp were found here and commemorative sign... Captain Barlett (who had experience participating in the expeditions of Robert Peary) and the Eskimo hunter Kataktovik went together across the ice to the mainland for help. In a few weeks they successfully reached the coast of Alaska, but ice conditions prevented an immediate rescue expedition.

The Russian icebreaking ships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" in the summer of 1914 twice (August 1-5, then August 10-12) tried to break through to help, but could not overcome the ice. Several attempts by the American Bear cutter also failed.

Of the 15 people remaining on Wrangel Island, three died: Mallok from a combination of reasons such as overwork, hypothermia, ganren and eating spoiled pemmican; Mamen as a result of kidney failure, apparently caused by the same pemmican; Braddy, according to some members of the group, was killed by Williamson, who faked an accident while cleaning a revolver. The reason is the difficult psychological atmosphere in the group camp. The murder was never proven, Williamson denied all charges. The survivors hunted for food and were rescued only in September 1914 by an expedition aboard the Canadian schooner King & Winge.

Northern Lights over Wrangel Island

Stefanson expeditions 1921-1924
Inspired by the survival experience of the Karluk's crew and the prospects of sea fishing off Wrangel Island, Stefanson launched a campaign to colonize the island. To support his venture, Stefanson tried to get official status from the first Canadian and then the British government, but his idea was rejected. The refusal, however, did not prevent Stefanson from declaring his support of the authorities and then raising the British flag over Wrangel Island. As a result, this led to a diplomatic scandal.

On September 16, 1921, a settlement of five colonists was founded on the island: the 22-year-old Canadian Alan Crawford, the Americans Halle, Maurer (a member of the Karluk expedition), Knight and the Eskimo woman Ada Blackjack as a seamstress and cook. The expedition was sparsely equipped as Stephansson relied on hunting as one of his main sources of supply.
Having successfully overwintered the first winter and having lost only one dog (out of the seven available), the colonists hoped for the arrival in the summer of a ship with supplies and a change. Due to severe ice conditions, the ship could not approach the island and people stayed for one more winter.

In September 1922, the White Army gunboat Magnit (a former messenger ship armed during the Civil War) under the command of Lieutenant DA von Dreyer tried to pass to Wrangel Island, but the ice did not give her such an opportunity. Opinions differ about the purpose of the Magnit's campaign to Wrangel Island - this is the suppression of the activities of Stefanson's enterprise (expressed by contemporaries and participants in the events), or, on the contrary, rendering him assistance for a fee (stated in the FSB of Russia newspaper in 2008). Due to the military defeat of the White movement in the Far East, the ship never returned to Vladivostok, the crew of the "Magnet" went into exile.
After the hunt had failed and food supplies had come to an end, on January 28, 1923, three polar explorers went to the mainland for help. Nobody saw them again. Remaining on the Isle of Knight died of scurvy in April 1923.
Only 25-year-old Ada Blackjack survived. She managed to survive alone on the island until the arrival of the ship on August 19, 1923.

In 1923, 13 settlers stayed on the island for the winter - the American geologist Charles Wells and twelve Eskimos, including women and children. Another child was born on the island during the wintering period. In 1924, disturbed by the news of the establishment of a foreign colony on the Russian island, the USSR government sent to Wrangel Island gunboat"Red October" (the former Vladivostok port icebreaker "Nadezhny", on which the guns were installed).

"Red October" left Vladivostok on July 20, 1924 under the command of the hydrograph B. V. Davydov. On August 20, 1924, the expedition raised the Soviet flag on the island and took out the settlers. On the way back, on September 25, in the Long Strait near Cape Schmidt, the icebreaker was hopelessly trapped in ice, but the oncoming storm helped to free it. Overcoming heavy ice led to excessive consumption of fuel. By the time the ship dropped anchor in Providence Bay, there was 25 minutes of fuel left, and fresh water was not at all. The icebreaker returned to Vladivostok on October 29, 1924.

The Soviet-American and then the Sino-American negotiations on the further return of the colonists to their homeland through Harbin took a long time. Three did not survive to return - the leader of the expedition, Charles Wells, died in Vladivostok from pneumonia; two children died along the way.

DEVELOPMENT OF WRANGEL ISLAND
In 1926, a polar station was created on Wrangel Island under the leadership of G.A.Ushakov. Together with Ushakov, 59 people landed on the island, mainly Eskimos, who previously lived in the villages of Providence and Chaplino.
In 1928, an expedition was made to the island on the icebreaker "Litke", which was operated by the Ukrainian writer and journalist Nikolai Trublaini, who described Wrangel Island in a number of his books, in particular "To the Arctic - through the tropics." In 1948, a small group of domesticated reindeer was brought to the island and a branch of the reindeer herding state farm was organized. In 1953, the administrative authorities adopted a resolution on the protection of walrus rookeries on Wrangel Island, and in 1960, by decision of the Magadan Regional Executive Committee, a long-term reserve was created, which was transformed in 1968 into a reserve of republican significance.

LIES ABOUT THE GULAG
In 1987, former convict Yefim Moshinsky published a book in which he claimed that he was in a "forced labor camp" on Wrangel Island and met Raoul Wallenberg and other foreign prisoners there. In fact, contrary to legend, there were no GULAG camps on Wrangel Island.

Wrangel Island (nature reserve)
In 1975, musk oxen were introduced to the island from the island of Nunivak, and the executive committee of the Magadan region allotted the lands of the islands for a future reserve. In 1976, the Wrangel Island nature reserve was founded to study and protect the natural complexes of the Arctic islands, which also included the small neighboring Herald Island. In connection with the nature reserve, a reserve zone of the reserve with a width of 5 nautical miles was established around the islands. The total area of ​​the reserve was 795.6 thousand hectares. In 1978, the Scientific Department of the Reserve was organized, the staff of which began a systematic study of the flora and fauna of the islands.
In 1992, the radar station was closed, and the only one left on the island locality- the village of Ushakovskoye, which by 2003 was empty.
In 1997, at the suggestion of the Governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and the State Committee for Ecology of Russia, the area of ​​the reserve was expanded by including the 12 nautical miles surrounding the island, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation N ° 1623-r dated November 15, 1997, and in 1999, around the already protected water area, by the decree of the governor of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug N ° 91 of May 25, 1999, a protection zone with a width of 24 nautical miles was organized. Wrangel Island

Modernity
Various military exercises are regularly held on the island.
In 2014, the Eastern Military District, as part of the northern delivery, will for the first time deliver more than 2.5 thousand tons of various cargoes to Cape Schmidt and Wrangel Island.
On August 20, 2014, sailors of the Pacific Fleet under the command of Captain 3rd Rank Yevgeny Onufriev, who arrived on Wrangel Island to carry out hydrographic work on the Marshal Gelovani ship, raised the Naval Flag over the island, thus establishing the first basing point for the Russian Pacific Fleet on it.

NATURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND
The area of ​​the island is about 7670 km², of which about 4700 km² are mountains. Low-lying shores, dissected by lagoons, separated sand spits from the sea. In the central part of the island, the terrain is mountainous. There are small glaciers and medium-sized lakes, arctic tundra.

Climate
The relief of Wrangel Island determines significant thermal differences within its limits. Thus, at different points on the southern coast, the average July temperature ranges from 2.4 to 3.60 C, which corresponds to the range of the Arctic tundra subzone; on the northern coast, a similar indicator fluctuates around 10C (as in the polar deserts), and in the intermontane basins of the central part of the island, it reaches 8-100C, which is typical for the southern edge of the tundra zone.

The climate in the region of the islands is arctic with a significant influence of cyclonic activity. For most of the year, cold arctic air masses dominate here, which are characterized by low temperatures and low moisture and dust content. In summer they are forced out by warmer and wetter air masses from the Bering Sea. Dry, dusty or continental air masses from Siberia are not rare here either. The average annual air temperature is - 11.3 ° С. The coldest month is February (-24.9 ° С), the warmest is July (2.5 ° С).

The frost-free period on the islands usually does not exceed 20-25 days, often only about 2 weeks. During the year, an average of 152 mm of precipitation falls here, of which about half falls on the snowy months. The winter period is characterized by strong and prolonged northeastern winds, the speed of which often exceeds 40 m / s. At the same time, snowfalls are significantly redistributed depending on the landforms and wind direction, forming a very uneven snow cover - from its absence in blown areas to many meters thick in lowlands and on leeward slopes. A significant part of the snowfall is carried by the wind into the sea.

On the territory of Wrangel Island, meso-climatic differences are well pronounced. The central sector of the island is characterized by a more continental climate compared to the coastal (western and eastern sectors), which are characterized by lower summer temperatures, later snow melt and a much higher frequency of cloudy weather and fog.

Relief
Approximately 2/3 of the territory of about. Wrangel is occupied by mountains. In the central part of the island to the north and south of the Central Mountains, two longitudinal wide (up to 3 km) valleys are traced in the latitudinal direction. The most high point Islands Mount Sovetskaya 1096 m. The central mountainous part of Wrangel Island is a middle mountain, towering over the entire island.
The mid-mountain massif is strongly dissected by numerous valleys. The tops of the mountains, with the exception of a few of the highest with alpine-type outlines, are predominantly plateau-like. From the west, north and south, the middle mountains are surrounded by a strip of low mountains and hills, which are highly dissected peneplains with elevations ranging from 200 to 600 m. Mountain structures of the island from the north and south are bordered by accumulative plains, composed mainly of alluvial deposits, with ridges and ridges rising 10-15 m above the general level.

The northern valley is confined to a large latitudinal fault, and the southern valley is confined to the boundary of different-aged and different-facies strata. The northern and southern parts of the island are occupied by low-lying tundra. The northern lowland Tundra of the Academy is a slightly hilly lowland with absolute elevations from 5-10 to 30-50 m. The flat tundra in the southern part of the island is identical in terms of its surface to the Tundra of the Academy. The absolute marks of its heights at the foot of the Central Mountains reach 100 m. On the western side of the island there is a narrow seaside plain.

The flat shores of the island are mainly of the lagoon type and are characterized by an abundance of sand and pebble spits and bars. Where mountain structures go out to the sea, various types of abrasion shores develop, characterized by rocky cliffs up to several tens of meters high. The Herald Island is a high outlier, composed of granites and gneisses, cut off from all sides into the sea by steep rocky ledges up to 250 m high. Both islands are characterized by various cryogenic forms of nano- and micro-relief, among which various polygonal and spotted forms prevail. Thermokarst basins are also developed in the low-lying areas of the Wrangel Island plains, and in the intermontane valleys, Baidzharakh complexes formed as a result of melting of polygonal-veined ice.

In accordance with the landscape-ecological zoning of the territory of Russia (Isachenko, 2001), Wrangel Island is part of the Chukotka-Koryak group of provinces in the Far Eastern sector of the subarctic zone. However, most researchers (Aleksandrova, 1977; Khromov, Mamontova, 1974, etc.) attribute it to the Arctic zone. The island as a whole is characterized by the development of arctic-type landscapes, including polar-desert and arctic-tundra subtypes. In accordance with the botanical and geographical zoning of the Arctic (Aleksandrova, 1977), Wrangel Island belongs to the Wrangel sub-province of the Wrangel-West American province of the Arctic tundra. All major types of arctic landscapes are represented on Wrangel Island. Plains, abrasive and accumulative in origin, in morphological types, give a wide range, including low and high, flat, hilly and sloping.
On the territory of the island, Markov, (1952) and V.V. Petrovsky (1985) identified 5 regions characterized by relatively homogeneous geological and geomorphological conditions and features of plant communities: the tundra of the Academy, the South region, the Western region, the Central region and the Vostochny region.

Wrangel Island, Chukchi Sea coast

Hydrology and hydrography
In total, there are more than 140 rivers and streams on the island with a length of more than 1 km and 5 rivers with a length of more than 50 km. All watercourses are fed by snow. Of the approximately 900 lakes, most of which are located in the Akademiya Tundra (north of the island), 6 lakes have an area exceeding 1 km². On average, the depth of the lakes is no more than 2 m. By origin, the lakes are divided into thermokarst, which include the majority, oxbow (in the valleys of large rivers), glacial, dammed and lagoon. The largest of them are: Kmo, Komsomol, Gagachye, Zapovednoye. The entire surface of the island is dissected by an intensively developed river network. All more or less large rivers originate within large mountain ranges, where their valleys are usually narrow, with steep slopes and canyons in some areas. Mountain streams and rivers have a relatively shallow depth with a small channel width. Their valleys are deeply cut, differing in a still unsettled equilibrium profile. Mountain streams, which flow across the strike of structures, have steep rocky shores almost throughout their entire length. With the exit to the plains, the channels of the streams expand sharply: the streams are divided into several branches, meanders, stretches, rifts appear. The watercourses of the Tundra Academy are characterized by a calm current in winding channels. The erosional incision is weakly expressed in them. There is an abundance of old lakes, especially in the floodplain.

The water area of ​​the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas adjacent to the Wrangel and Herald Islands stands out as a separate Wrangel chemical-oceanographic region, characterized by special types of surface waters with low salinity, high oxygen saturation and an increased content of biogenic elements. From the Bering Sea, a stream of warm Pacific waters enters here, forming a distinct layer at a depth of 75-150. Warm Atlantic waters also penetrate into the northern part of the water area, at a depth of about 150 m.

The ice regime of the water area adjacent to the islands is characterized by an almost constant presence of ice in the summer. The edge of drifting ice, during the period of their minimum spread, is located in the immediate vicinity of the islands, or slightly northwest (in exceptional cases, far to the north). In the Long Strait, during the entire warm period, an ice massif known as the Wrangelsky ice mass is preserved. In the East Siberian Sea, not far from Wrangel Island, there is a spur of the Aion oceanic ice massif in summer. In winter, the Zavrangel stationary polynya functions to the north or northwest of the island.

East-Siberian Sea. Due to the shallow depths, the temperature is characterized by a uniform distribution from the surface to the depth. In winter, it is -1-20C, in summer + 2 + 50C, in bays up to + 80C. The salinity of water is different in western and eastern parts seas. In the eastern part of the sea near the surface, it is usually about 30 ppm. River runoff in the eastern part of the sea leads to a decrease in salinity to 10-15 ppm, and in the mouths of large rivers to almost zero. Near ice fields, salinity increases to 30 ppm. With depth, salinity rises to 32 ppm Chukchi Sea. The temperature in winter is -1.70C, in summer it rises to + 70C. From the southern part of the island, the ebb and flow are small, about 15 cm. In winter, an increased salinity (about 31-33 ‰) of the under-ice layer of water is characteristic. In summer, the salinity is less, increasing from west to east from 28 to 32 ‰. At the melting edges of ice, salinity is less, it is minimal at river mouths (3-5 ‰). Salinity usually increases with depth.
The Chukchi current flowing from west to east from the East Siberian Sea and the Herald and Long branches of the Bering Sea current flowing north, northwest and west into the Long Strait are described.

Geology
The island is composed of various sediments (metamorphic, sedimentary, igneous, etc.) of a wide age range - from the Late Precambrian to the Triassic, which are overlain by Neogene-Quaternary sediments filling depressions in the north and south. Excellent exposure, easy passability of the tundra and, in most cases, moderate elevations, good decipherment of objects make the island convenient for geological exploration. In addition, contacts between strata of different ages are in most cases well pronounced in the relief.

Wrangel Island is composed of two main complexes: metamorphic formations and deposits of the Paleozoic-Mesozoic cover.

METAMORPHIC FORMATIONS are exposed in the axial part of the Central and Mammoth Mountains. Sedimentary and volcanic rocks, strongly dislocated and metamorphosed in greenschist and epidote-amphibolite facies, broken by dikes and small intrusions of basic and felsic composition, are distinguished as the Wrangel complex [Ivanov, 1969], the lower part of the Berry Formation [Tilman et al., 1970; Ganelin et al. 1989; Bogdanov, 1998], the Gromovskaya and Inkala formations (Kameneva, 1975). The total thickness is estimated at 2000 m. Based on microfossils, Kameneva attributed the Gromovskaya Formation to the Middle and Upper Riphean, and the Inkala Formation to the Vendian. ON. Bogdanov, S.M. Tilman and V.G. Ganelin et al. Are inclined to consider these formations as a result of dynamometamorphism of Devonian or Early Paleozoic rocks, which is confirmed by K-Ar dates of 457 ± 25 Ma. During the work of the Soviet-Canadian expedition, definitions of zircons were obtained, indicating a Late Proterozoic age: 699 ± 1 Ma (zircons from mafic rocks), as well as 609 ± 10, 633 ± 21, and 677 ± 163 Ma (zircons from granites). Our field observations (2006) most likely indicate that the metamorphic complex contains both ancient and Paleozoic formations.

PALEOZOIC-MESOZOIC COVER is composed of sediments of the Silurian-Devonian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic. The contact of the Wrangel complex with the unmetamorphosed cover is most likely tectonic. In the upper reaches of the river. Predators, it is clearly expressed in the relief of a ledge and a conjugate saddle, covered with vegetation with numerous outbursts of black clay shales.

Silurian-Devonian. Terrigenous and carbonate deposits of this age are known only in the northern part of the island. The total thickness is 400-500 m.

Devonian. It is represented by sandstones, often quartzites and shales with horizons of conglomerates, gravelstones and limestones. M.K. Kosko et al. Describe an unconformable stratigraphic contact of the Devonian with conglomerates at the base of the rocks of the Wrangel Complex. Thickness 600-2000 m.

Lower Carboniferous. In the upper reaches of the river. Predators, the lower part of the section is composed of dark gray and black clay shales with interlayers of dark organogenic limestones. Above, there is a member of alternating greenish-gray and brown calcareous sandstones, siltstones and shales. The gradation layering is clearly visible. Along the strike, there are marly-calcareous members, interlayers and lenses of carbonate rocks and dolomites with gypsum. This part of the section is characterized by variegated brown, yellow, gray, green and pinkish colors.

Carbon. Pelitomorphic and organogenic limestones with terrigenous horizons, the number of which increases in the northern direction. The total thickness of the deposits is 500 -1500 m. In the middle reaches of the river. Unknown are outcrops of volcanic rocks of acidic and basic composition with relics of spherical separation and lenses of jasper.

Permian. Argillaceous shales with interlayers of bituminous limestones and sandstones. The southern part is dominated by clay shales, while the northern, shallower part has lenticular conglomerate horizons. The thickness of the deposits is 800 m in the southern part and 1200 m in the northern part [Kos'ko et al., 2003].

Triassic. Terrigenous deposits, distributed mainly in the southern part, where they can be traced in a wide strip from Cape Bird Bazaar to the eastern coast. The Triassic is characterized by turbidites and an internal folded-flaky structure.

Triassic turbidites overlap various horizons of Paleozoic deposits. Some researchers tend to consider this relationship as an unconformable stratigraphic contact, others as a thrust. In the places studied by the authors (Khishnikov River, Doubtful Brook, Cape Zanes), the contact is tectonic. At the same time, a long history of contact formation cannot be ruled out.

Initially, stratigraphic relationships could have existed, then a thrust with a general northern vergence typical of Wrangel was formed, and faults, including along the thrust plane, could occur at the latest stages, due to the general extension and formation of young sedimentary basins on the shelf south of the island.

Soil cover
The entire territory of the reserve is located in the zone of permafrost. The soil cover of the islands is relatively well formed. Arctic-tundra soddy and tundra or arctic gley soils prevail. In the most continental central regions of the island, soils are completely uncharacteristic for the Arctic islands - steppe cryoarid and tundra-steppe, characteristic of sharply continental regions of Siberia and the north. Of the Far East... Typical salt marshes of lithogenic origin, i.e. owing their existence to the effluent water regime, which is typical for arid territories and completely atypical for the Arctic. In the central regions of the island, a type of carbonate arcto-tundra soils is quite widespread, which is endemic to Wrangel Island.

On the Herald Island, near the colonies of seabirds at an altitude of 100-200 m, peat-humus zoogenic soils are well formed, on which the vegetation cover is unusually richly developed.

Flora
The first researcher of the vegetation of Wrangel Island, B.N.Gorodkov, who studied the eastern coast of the island in 1938, assigned it to the zone of arctic and polar deserts. After a complete exploration of the entire island from the 2nd half of the XX century. it belongs to the subzone of the arctic tundra of the tundra zone. Despite the relatively small size of Wrangel Island, due to the sharp regional features of its vegetation, it stands out as a special Wrangel sub-province of the Wrangel-Western American province of the Arctic tundra.

The vegetation of Wrangel Island is distinguished by its rich ancient species composition. The number of vascular plant species exceeds 310 (for example, there are only 135 such species on the much larger New Siberian Islands, about 65 on the Severnaya Zemlya islands, and less than 50 on Franz Josef Land). The flora of the island is rich in relics and is relatively poor in plants widespread in other circumpolar regions, of which, according to various estimates, no more than 35-40%.
About 3% of the plants are subendemic (rangel, Gorodkov's poppy, Wrangel's poppy) and endemic (Wrangel's bluegrass, Ushakov's poppy, Wrangel's poppy, Lapland poppy). In addition to them, another 114 species of rare and very rare plants grow on Wrangel Island.

Such a composition of the flora allows us to conclude that the original arctic vegetation in this area of ​​ancient Beringia was not destroyed by glaciers, and the sea prevented the penetration of later migrants from the south.
The modern vegetation cover on the territory of the reserve is almost everywhere unclosed undersized. Sedge-moss tundra predominates. In the mountain valleys and intermontane basins of the central part of Wrangel Island, there are areas of willow thickets (Richardson's willow) up to 1 m high.

bird colony, Wrangel Island

Quite often, birds from North America fly into or are carried by the wind into the reserve, including the Canadian cranes, which regularly visit Wrangel Island, as well as Canadian geese and various American small passerines, including finches (myrtle songbirds, bush buntings, gray and Oregon junco, black-browed and white-headed zonotrichia).
The fauna of mammals in the reserve is poor. The endemic Vinogradov lemming, which was previously considered a subspecies of the hoofed leming, the Siberian lemming and the Arctic fox, live here permanently. Periodically, and in significant numbers, a polar bear appears, whose maternity dens are located within the boundaries of the reserve. From time to time, wolves, wolverines, ermines and foxes enter the reserve. Together with people, sled dogs settled on Wrangel Island. A house mouse has appeared and lives in residential buildings. For acclimatization, reindeer and musk ox were brought to the island.

Reindeer lived here in the distant past, and the modern herd comes from the domesticated deer introduced in 1948, 1954, 1967, 1968, 1975 from the Chukotka Peninsula. The deer population is maintained in the amount of up to 1.5 thousand heads.
There is evidence that musk oxen lived on Wrangel Island in the distant past. In our time, a herd of 20 heads was brought in April 1975 from the American island of Nunivak.
The island has the largest walrus rookery in Russia. Seals live in coastal waters.

In the mid-1990s, in the journal Nature, one could read about an amazing discovery made on the island. Reserve employee Sergei Vartanyan discovered here the remains of woolly mammoths, whose age was determined from 7 to 3.5 thousand years. Despite the fact that, according to popular opinion, mammoths died out everywhere 10-12 thousand years ago. Subsequently, it was discovered that these remains belonged to a special relatively small subspecies that inhabited Wrangel Island even at a time when there had long been Egyptian pyramids, and which disappeared only in the reign of Tutankhamun and the heyday of the Mycenaean civilization. This makes Wrangel Island one of the most important paleontological monuments of the planet.

the remains of the village of Doubtful

Settlements
Ushakovskoe (non-residential)
Star (non-residential)
Perkatkun (non-residential)

Population
Officially, the village of Ushakovskoye on Wrangel Island was declared non-residential in 1997. However, several people refused to leave.
The last 25-year-old female islander named Vasilina Alpaun was killed by a polar bear in 2003.
After her, only the man Grigory Kaurgin, a practicing shamanism, remained on the island. The re-presence of people on the island was ensured by the Russian military from the troops of the Eastern Military District (VVO), who on October 1, 2014, populated the military town created for them.

WRANGEL ISLAND RESERVE
"Wrangel Island" is a state nature reserve, occupies the most northern position (located mainly to the north of 71 ° N) of the protected areas of Russia.
The state natural reserve "Wrangel Island" was established by the decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR dated March 23, 1976 No. 189. The total area is 2,225,650 hectares, including the water area - 1,430,000 hectares. The area of ​​the security zone is 795,593 hectares. It occupies two islands of the Chukchi Sea - Wrangel and Herald, as well as the adjacent water area, and is located on the territory of the Shmidtovsky district of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.
This northernmost of the reserves of the Far East occupies two islands of the Chukchi Sea - Wrangel and Herald, as well as the adjacent water area, and is located on the territory of the Eastern region of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Landscape
Approximately 2/3 of the territory of about. Wrangel is occupied by mountains. Arctic tundra and mountains are the predominant landscape. The hydrographic network of Wrangel Island is made up of about 150 relatively small rivers and streams, only 5 of which are over 50 km long, and about 900 medium-sized shallow lakes.

The flora of Wrangel Island has no analogues in the Arctic in terms of its richness and level of endemism. To date, 417 species and subspecies of vascular plants have been identified in the reserve. This is more than is known for the entire Canadian Arctic Archipelago and is 2-2.5 times higher than the number of species in other Arctic tundra areas of similar size. About 3% of the flora of Wrangel Island are subendemic species. Among the vascular plants, 23 taxa are endemic to the island. In terms of the number of endemics, Wrangel Island has no equal among the Arctic islands, including Greenland. A number of endemic plants (Ushakov's pusher Oxytropis ushakovii, Papaver multiradiatum poppy and Papaver chionophilum snow-loving poppy) are common on the island. The endemic species also include a variety of rattle, a subspecies of the Lapland poppy, Gorodkov and Ushakov's poppies, and Wrangel's cinquefoil. The number of known species of mosses (331) and lichens (310) on Wrangel Island also exceeds other territories in the Arctic tundra subzone.
Sedge-moss tundra predominates, the middle and lower mountain belts are occupied by herb-lichen and shrub-forb tundras. There are bogs with the participation of sphagnum, low and creeping willow thickets. In the upper belts of the mountains there are vast stony placers.
Natural conditions are not conducive to the richness of the fauna.

There are absolutely no amphibians and reptiles in the reserve; fish (Arctic cod, capelin and some others) can be seen only in coastal waters. On the other hand, there are 169 bird species on the island, most of which are vagrant, nesting has been registered for 62 species, of which 44 species nest on the islands regularly, including 8 species of seabirds. For example: gulls, guillemots, etc. Among the birds, we should first of all mention the white goose, which forms its only large autonomous nesting colony of several tens of thousands of pairs that has survived in Russia and Asia. Black geese regularly nest (moreover, non-breeding geese fly here in thousands to molt from mainland Chukotka and Alaska), common eider and comb eider, in very small numbers Siberian eider, pintail and waders. On the steep sea coasts there are bird colonies, which in the 60s, according to the famous explorer of the North S.M. Uspensky, numbered 50-100 thousand thick-billed guillemots, 30-40 thousand kittiwakes, 3 thousand cormorants. V. V. Dezhkin in his book "In the world of nature reserves", published in 1989, writes "Now there are fewer of these birds", and on the official website of the reserve the total number of seabird colonies is estimated at 250-300 thousand nesting individuals.

The bulk of the bird population is made up of tundra species, most of which have circumpolar ranges and are common in all Arctic tundras. These are the Lapland plantain, snow bunting, tules, turnbones, Icelandic sandpiper and a number of other species. At the same time, there have been cases of nesting of species uncharacteristic for the Arctic, such as turukhtan, ruby-necked sandpiper, ipatka and hatchet, talovka warbler, for which Wrangel Island is the most northern nesting point. In recent years, the Ipatka has begun to nest regularly on the Wrangel Island seabird colonies, and its numbers are growing.

The world of mammals is poorer, and its most typical representatives are the Siberian lemming and Vinogradov's lemming, which in the years of high abundance are very important in the ecosystems of the reserve. Arctic fox, ermine, wolverine, wild reindeer, wolves live, red foxes wander. But the most famous inhabitant of both islands is the polar bear. The Wrangel and Herald Islands are known as the world's largest concentration area for polar bear ancestral dens. V. V. Dezhkin writes: "In some years, up to 200-250 she-bears were set up in the reserve." On the site of the reserve there is information that “annually on the islands from 300 to 500 she-bears lie in dens. Approximately 100 of this number of ancestral dens are arranged on a small island. Herald ". In the spring, with slightly stronger offspring, they embark on a journey across the expanses of the Arctic.

Ungulates are represented in the reserve by two species - reindeer and musk ox. Reindeer were brought to Wrangel Island in the late 1940s and early 1950s: they were brought in in two batches of domesticated reindeer from the coast of Chukotka. At present, they represent a unique in history and biological characteristics island population of feral reindeer, the number of which in certain periods reached 9-10 thousand individuals. In 1975, a year before the establishment of the reserve, 20 musk oxen caught on the American island of Nunivak were brought to Wrangel Island. The period of adaptation of musk oxen on the island and the development of the entire territory by them passed with difficulties and was extended for several years, after which the survival of the original herd was no longer in doubt and the population began to grow actively. Currently, the number of musk oxen on the island is about 800-900 individuals, according to the position in autumn 2007 - possibly up to 1000. According to paleontological data, both species of ungulates lived on the territory of Wrangel Island in the late Pleistocene, and reindeer and much later - only 2 -3 thousand years ago.

Finally, walruses, the most interesting and valuable sea animals, are found on the coasts of the reserve. Their protection and study is the task of the local scientists. The Pacific walrus lives here, for which this water area is the most important summer feeding area. In certain years, in the summer-autumn period - from July to late September - early October, most of the females and young animals of the entire population accumulate near the islands. Walruses keep at the edge of the ice and prefer to crawl out to rest on the ice floes, as long as they are in the water area. With the disappearance of ice near the most feeding shallow areas, walruses approach the islands and form the largest coastal rookeries in the Chukchi Sea on certain spits. At the same time, up to 70-80 thousand animals were recorded at the coastal walrus rookeries on Wrangel Island, and taking into account the animals swimming in the water, up to 130 thousand walruses were gathered here. For wintering, walruses migrate to the Bering Sea.

Ringed seals and bearded seals are common in the coastal waters throughout the year. The ringed seal is the main food for polar bears throughout the year, providing the full life cycle of a predator.
In the summer-autumn period, the water area adjacent to the Wrangel and Herald Islands is a feeding and migration area for cetaceans. The most abundant here is the gray whale. In recent years, the number of gray whales in the summer-autumn period off the coast of Wrangel Island has increased markedly. Every year, large herds of beluga whales pass along the shores of Wrangel Island during the autumn migration. According to satellite tagging data, it was found that beluga whales approach Wrangel Island in autumn and gather for childbirth in the Mackenzie River Delta (Canada).
The purpose of creating the reserve is to preserve and study the typical and unique ecosystems of the insular part of the Arctic, as well as such animal species as the polar bear, walrus, the only nesting population of the white goose in Russia, and many other species of the Beringian flora and fauna with a high level of endemism. In 1974 a musk ox was acclimatized on the island.

Especially valuable natural objects

Thomas Creek Valley with adjacent slopes
high concentration of family dens of polar bears, high density of family groups and female polar bears in autumn

Cape Blossom area
walrus rookery on the spit; high concentration and activity of polar bears in the autumn; concentration of rose and ivory gulls during autumn migration; area of ​​concentration of walruses and feeding of gray whales in the coastal water area

Scythe Doubtful
walrus rookery; place of high activity and concentration of polar bears in autumn

South coast in the area of ​​the Doubtful Bay
cryophyte-steppe and tundra-steppe plant communities; rare and endemic plant taxa; nesting places of the yellow-throated; the area of ​​concentration on the passage of rose and ivory gulls; area of ​​high activity of polar bears in autumn

Mammoth River estuary and Jack London Lake
high concentration of molting brent geese; concentration of waders during the autumn migration; large colony of the Fork-tailed Gull; area of ​​high activity of polar bears in autumn

Middle course of the Mamontovaya river
cryophyte-steppe and tundra-steppe plant communities; relict communities of arctic continental halophytes; high density of snowy owl nests and Arctic fox reproductive burrows; numerous small colonies of white goose and other lamellar-billed owls around the nests of snowy owls; nesting places of yellow-toothed and bydov sandpiper; high density and variety of types of lemmings settlements

Gusinaya river valley
relict tundra-steppe communities, willow growth; high nesting density of the snowy owl; numerous colonies of white goose around the nests of snowy owls; nesting places of the Baird sandpiper; high concentration and variety of types of lemmings settlements

Kit mountain range
nesting area of ​​the red-breasted sandpiper, yellow-toothed goose, concentration of molting brent geese; large colony of the Fork-tailed Gull; high diversity of lemmings

Western coast (section from Cape Thomas to the mouth of the Sovetskaya River)
high concentration of polar bear ancestral dens on the coastal slopes of the mountains, high activity of polar bears in the autumn; large colonies of seabirds (kittiwakes, thick-billed guillemots, bering cormorants, ipats); nesting places of the Baird sandpiper; unique and highly aesthetic geological structures (I-VI); arctic continental halophytes

Cape Warring area
high concentration of polar bear ancestral dens; high activity of polar bears in autumn; large colonies of seabirds (kittiwakes, thick-billed guillemots, bering cormorants, ipats); the highest density of the byrd sandpiper, webbed-toed necktie; the location of rock crystal and calcite; unique geological structures

Upper reaches of the Unknown River (key site "Upper Unknown")
the most stable and densely populated reproductive settlement of the snowy owl known in the range of the species; mixed reproductive settlements of the snowy owl and arctic fox; very high concentration of lamellar-billed colonies around snowy owl nests; high concentration of micropopulations and communities of relict, endemic and rare plant taxa; sprouting of willows

The main nesting colony of the white goose in the upper reaches of the Tundrovaya River
the only large colony of white geese that has survived in Eurasia; with an accompanying unique ecosystem formed in this habitat under the influence of zoogenic factors

Herald Island
the highest concentration of generic polar bear dens known in the range of the species; walrus rookery; the largest seabird colonies in this sector of the Arctic with a community of related species; unique and highly aesthetic geological structures

Dream Head mountain ranges, Western Plateau, Waring, a section of the Eastern Plateau near Cape Pillar
main areas of concentration of polar bear ancestral dens on Wrangel Island, areas of high concentration and activity of polar bears in autumn

Lower reaches of the Tundrovaya river
high concentration of white geese with chicks during molting; the most stable and densely populated reproductive colony of Arctic foxes known in the range of the species; area of ​​high density of nesting of the Fork-tailed gull; high concentration and variety of types of lemmings settlements

Lake basins in the Tundra Academy from the Medvezhya River to the Hydrografov River and the lower reaches of the Unknown, Pestsovaya, Red Flag and Hydrografov rivers
areas of concentration of white geese with chicks during the post-nesting molt; main nesting sites of the Fork-tailed gull

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTOS:
Team nomad
Leontiev V.V., Novikova K.A.Toponymic dictionary of the north-east of the USSR. - Magadan: Magadan Book Publishing House, 1989, page 384.
Wikipedia website.
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photo: S. Anisimov, V. Timoshenko, A. Kutsky.