Willem Barentsz's Voyage (1596-1597): Winter on Novaya Zemlya

Willem Barentsz’s third Arctic voyage (1596-1597) was a Dutch attempt to find a Northeast Passage to Asia across the top of Russia. It discovered Bear Island and Spitsbergen, but Barentsz’s ship was trapped in ice off Novaya Zemlya, forcing seventeen men to spend the polar winter in a hut built from driftwood. Their survival, Barentsz’s death on the journey home and the published diary of the voyage made it one of the most famous stories of early Arctic exploration.

Background: the search for a Northeast Passage

In the 1590s the Dutch Republic was at war with Spain and keen to reach the spice markets of Asia directly. The usual route around Africa was long and dominated by the Portuguese. A sea lane along the Arctic coast of Russia, if it existed, promised a shorter way to China and the East Indies.

Willem Barentsz, a navigator and cartographer from the island of Terschelling, had already led two attempts. In 1594 he reached the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, the long Arctic archipelago north of Russia. In 1595 a larger fleet tried the southern route through the Vaigach Strait but was stopped by ice. After that failure the States General would no longer fund the search, though it offered a reward for anyone who found the passage. Merchants in Amsterdam backed a third, smaller voyage.

The voyage north

Two ships left the Netherlands in May 1596. Jacob van Heemskerck commanded one, with Barentsz on board as chief pilot; Jan Cornelisz Rijp commanded the other. Instead of hugging the Russian coast, they headed further north, hoping to find open water.

On 9 June 1596 the crews reached an unknown island; after killing a polar bear there a few days later, they named it Bear Island (Bjørnøya). On 17 June they sighted a mountainous land with sharp peaks, which they called Spitsbergen (“pointed mountains”). They believed it was part of Greenland. It was the first recorded European sighting of the archipelago now called Svalbard.

The two captains then disagreed about the route. Rijp sailed north again, while Heemskerck and Barentsz turned east towards Novaya Zemlya. They rounded the northern tip of the islands in August, but by late August the sea ice closed around the ship at a bay the crew called Ice Haven. The pressure of the ice lifted and damaged the hull. It was clear that the ship would not sail again that year.

Winter in the Behouden Huys

The seventeen men decided to build a shelter on shore. Using driftwood found on the beach and timber taken from the ship, they put up a wooden house with a chimney in the roof and box beds along the walls. They moved in during October 1596 and called it the Behouden Huys, the “Saved House”.

The polar night began in early November. Temperatures were so low that, according to the crew’s diary, ice formed on the inside walls and on their bedding. They burned driftwood and coal from the ship, trapped Arctic foxes for meat and fur, and fought off polar bears that came close to the hut. Smoke from the fire, poor ventilation and lack of fresh food made many of the men ill, probably with scurvy. Two men died during the winter.

One episode became famous in science. On 24 January 1597 the crew saw the edge of the sun above the horizon, about two weeks earlier than they had calculated. The effect, caused by unusual refraction of light in very cold air, is still known as the Novaya Zemlya effect.

The escape in open boats

By June 1597 the ship was still held fast. The men prepared the ship’s two open boats, loaded what food and goods they could, and on 13 June 1597 set off along the coast. Before leaving, Barentsz wrote an account of the voyage and left it in the hut.

Barentsz was by then very weak. He died on 20 June 1597, a week into the journey, off the northern coast of Novaya Zemlya. Another crew member died around the same time. The survivors rowed and sailed southward for more than two months, a journey of well over 1,500 km, through ice and open sea.

Late in July, still off Novaya Zemlya, they met Russian traders, who gave them food. In late August they reached the Kola Peninsula, where by chance they found Jan Cornelisz Rijp, whose ship had returned to the Arctic for trade. Twelve survivors arrived back in the Netherlands in the autumn of 1597, still wearing the fox-fur caps they had made on Novaya Zemlya.

Key people

• Willem Barentsz (c. 1550-1597): navigator and mapmaker from Terschelling, the leading Dutch Arctic explorer of his time.
• Jacob van Heemskerck (1567-1607): commander of the ship that wintered on Novaya Zemlya. He later became an admiral and was killed at the Battle of Gibraltar in 1607.
• Jan Cornelisz Rijp: captain of the second ship, who parted from Barentsz and later rescued the survivors.
• Gerrit de Veer: officer whose diary of the three voyages, published in 1598, is the main source for the expedition.

Consequences and legacy

The voyage did not find a Northeast Passage, and the Dutch soon turned to the route around the Cape of Good Hope, especially after the founding of the Dutch East India Company in 1602. The idea of an Arctic route did not die, however: in 1609 Henry Hudson was sent by the company to search for it again before he turned west on his Half Moon voyage.

The discovery of Spitsbergen had lasting economic effects. Its waters were rich in bowhead whales, and in the 17th century Dutch, English and other whalers made the archipelago a major centre of Arctic whaling.

De Veer’s account was translated into several languages and widely read. It gave Europeans one of their first detailed descriptions of an Arctic winter, much as the earlier Arctic voyages of Martin Frobisher had introduced readers to the far north-west. The Barents Sea is named after Barentsz.

In 1871 the Norwegian skipper Elling Carlsen found the remains of the Behouden Huys, still containing tools, weapons, books and household objects. More items, including Barentsz’s written account, were recovered in 1875. Many of these finds are now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Barentsz was the ship’s captain. In fact Jacob van Heemskerck commanded the ship. Barentsz was the chief pilot and navigator, though he was the expedition’s guiding figure.
• Myth: the crew wintered on Spitsbergen. They discovered Spitsbergen, but the winter was spent on the north-east coast of Novaya Zemlya, several hundred kilometres to the south-east.
• Fact: the crew did not touch the merchants’ trade goods, including cloth, even when cold and hungry. This honesty was praised in later Dutch accounts and is often cited as a point of national pride.

Timeline

• 1594: Barentsz’s first voyage reaches the northern part of Novaya Zemlya.
• 1595: A second, larger fleet is stopped by ice in the Vaigach Strait.
• 1596, May: Two ships under Heemskerck (with Barentsz) and Rijp leave the Netherlands.
• 1596, 9 June: The expedition discovers and names Bear Island.
• 1596, 17 June: First recorded sighting of Spitsbergen.
• 1596, late August: The ship is trapped by ice at Ice Haven, Novaya Zemlya.
• 1596, October: The crew move into the Behouden Huys.
• 1597, 24 January: The sun reappears early, the “Novaya Zemlya effect”.
• 1597, 13 June: The crew leave in two open boats; Barentsz dies on 20 June.
• 1597, autumn: Twelve survivors return to the Netherlands with Rijp.

Why it matters

Barentsz’s last voyage marked the high point of the early Dutch search for a northern route to Asia. It added Bear Island and Spitsbergen to European maps, opened the way to Arctic whaling and left a detailed eyewitness record of survival through a polar winter, centuries before modern polar expeditions.