White Island (photo). Where is the White Island?

The name White carries more than one island. There is it in the Kara Sea, there are in the Spitsbergen archipelago and in the mouth of the Neva, there are legends about the legendary White Island, which was once in the Gobi desert.

Two islands of the Arctic Ocean

White Island, part of Spitsbergen, was opened in 1707 by the Dutch Cornelis Giles. It was mapped by the last of the major islands of the archipelago, is the most eastern of them. Refers to Norway.

White - an island located in the Kara Sea, belongs to the Russian Federation and is part of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. From the peninsula of Yamal , White Island separates the shallow Malygin Strait, which in its narrowest part does not exceed 9 km.

History pages

To get to the island from the Big Land is not difficult either in summer or in winter, when the strait is covered with ice. However, the permanent residents, except the Boatswain Dog, which became popular due to the Internet, was never on the island. In our time, when the regions of the Arctic are beginning to engage in more than subject-matter, new data on the history of this region appear. By the war period is the message that the German submarine August 12-13, 1944 sank 60 miles from the island of the Arctic convoy BD-5. In 2009, a memorial sign was erected on the island - a marble slab dedicated to all the dead participants of the convoy, and in 2015 the victims of this tragedy of the Great Patriotic War were buried.

In the most general terms

The White Island (the Kara Sea) is widely reported lightly: its area is 1900 square kilometers, the highest point rises to a height of 12 meters above sea level.

It is reported that the island is covered with tundra vegetation, that there are many lakes on it - a typical characteristic of the northern edge. You can add that the north-eastern coast of the island is gently sloping and sandy, the sand is white, its color and gave the name to the island. The south-western coasts are precipitous, the height of which sometimes reaches 6 meters.

Flora of the island

However, special attention should be paid to the fact that the White Island is one of the most important components of the entire ecological Arctic system - the habitat of polar bears. In addition to these, walrus and wild deer, fox and wolverine live on this territory. There are rare rare animals from the Red Book, such as a small swan, an Atlantic walrus and a white-beaked loon. And as for polar bears, in some articles the island of Bely (photo with its chief resident attached) is called the maternity home of these animals. Pregnant females arrange lairs on the island, in which they produce offspring.

Arctic dump

What attracted attention to these days in this northern edge of the earth? First of all, its tremendous rubbish. It would seem, where did it come from on an uninhabited island? Took up, and moreover in such a size that attracted the attention of the country's leadership. Perhaps everyone had heard of the dispatch of the northern convoys with cargo to the Arctic, but no one had heard of the convoys that would return with the packagings from these cargoes, which included fuel and industrial oil. And all these barrels, abandoned technology accumulated for 100 years, especially active at the end of the last century.

Bridgehead

But not only the pollution of the island made it an object of close attention to the management of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. The territory of the Kara Sea, on the shelf of which active marine activity is developing, where the White Island is part of the infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route, is considered as a testing ground for environmental monitoring and research. The island is one of the springboards for the development of the Arctic. The importance attributed to the island of Beloy is evidenced by the following fact: at the beginning of the coming 2016, work should be completed on compiling a 3D model of the island, which is manufactured from the data of unmanned aerial vehicles. The map will be posted on the website of the Russian Center for Arctic Development.

Specific benefits

Since 1933 a polar hydrometeorological station has been operating here, on which a regular shift of 4 employees is constantly working. There are barracks of border guards on the island, useful to participants of annual summer ecological expeditions, the first of which started in 2012. The border guards themselves left ice silence in the 90s. It should be noted that since 2010 there is a state project "Purification of the Arctic". But the island of Bely leads in a kind of a kind of volunteers, traveling here from all parts of the country and near abroad, although the expeditions conducted annually are one of the components of the overall ecological strategy of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. 13 volunteers of the first expedition removed 1000 metal barrels, took out 65 cubic meters of garbage. Their efforts in total removed 85 tons of metal.

The island is settling

And in August 2014, the Internet came to Bely Island. In April 2015, a scientific research expedition set off here, which will work here for quite a long time (fuel and food for the next shifts were delivered to the island) and to study cryogenic and ecological systems of the Arctic tundra. In a word, the places where the White Island is located began to receive very close attention, it became active actively: winter expeditions are already planned, and the island itself is called a place of great hopes. Here there was a small felled Orthodox church.

More and more expeditions

In August-September 2015, the expeditionary group of the Russian Academy of Sciences arrived here, the object of study of which are polar bears. According to the information received, only in the area where people are on the island, 5-7 bears live permanently. One of the tasks of the expedition is the fixation of satellite collars on bearish individuals. The program for the group that went to the White Island is very extensive. A separate point in it is the relationship between the polar bear and man.

True hosts of the island

In 1984 there was only one fact of the attack of this animal on humans. The employee of the meteorological station MV Popova went to the darkness to take readings of the devices (this procedure is carried out every three hours, the data is transferred to Moscow), and she was attacked by a bear. Popova slipped out of the larger jacket, and the attacking predator with its prey disappeared into the darkness. But in 2013 the young male settled near the weather station and maintains peaceful neighborly relations with the employees.

Many have become aware of the touching story of saving an 8-month-old bear cub, who was found near the station with a pierced paw. He went out and sent to the Perm Zoo. And the name of the bear cub was interesting - Sariko. Sir-ngo Iriko, or the White Old Man, known as the Old Man of the Ice Island - is the main spirit and protector of this land. On the southern coast, where the White Island is washed by the waters of the Malygina Strait, there are remains of Nenets altars dedicated to the White Old Man.