Halvmåneøya
Halvmåneøya (English: Half Moon Island) is a small, uninhabited island off the southeastern coast of Edgeøya, part of the Svalbard archipelago. Halvmåneøya, as part of Edgeøya, has been a nature preserve since 1973, and visitation is strictly regulated.
The island was labelled as Abbots I. by the Muscovy Company’s map (1625), and St. Jacob by Willem Jansz. Blaeu (1662). Hendrick Doncker (1663) was the first to mark it Halvmaens eyl.. This last name has been retained to the present.
Four Russian sailors, Aleksei Inkov, Khrisanf Inkov, Stepan Sharapov, and Fedor Verigin, were marooned on either Halvmåneøya or Edgeøya for over six years from May 1743 until September 1749. Only three of them survived. Author David Roberts wrote a book sharing his research on this amazing survival story, Four Against The Arctic.[1] After years of research regarding the four Russians, Roberts was able to spend two weeks on the desolate Halvmåneøya to further pursue his research. He concluded, although not definitively, that the men were probably on Halvmåneøya and not Edgeøya.
References
- Conway, W. M. 1906. No Man’s Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country. Cambridge: At the University Press.
- Norwegian Polar Institute Place Names of Svalbard Database
Line notes
- ↑ Four Against the Arctic: Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World. (2003). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2431-0
Coordinates: 77°10′N 23°00′E / 77.167°N 23.000°E