Wrangel Island

Wrangel Island (Russian: Ostrov Vrangelya) is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas, and belonging to the Russian Federation. Rocky, barren and frozen, the island has a weather station and a single permanent settlement. The island is a breeding ground for polar bears, seals and lemmings. During the summer it is visited by many types of birds. The island is named for Baron Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel who, after hearing of stories of an island at Wrangel Island's coordinates from some Chukchi, set off on an expedition (1820-1824) to discover the island, with no success. Thomas Long, an American whaling captain, finally discovered it and named it after Baron Wrangel. In 1911, a group of Russians made a landing on the island, and in 1921 Vilhjalmur Stefansson sent a small party to claim the island for the United Kingdom. In 1926 the Soviet Union established the settlement that survives to this day on the island, expelling the few Chukchi that inhabited the island. The Soviet government also used the island for a gulag labour camp. During the last Ice Age, it is thought that large numbers of mammoths lived on Wrangel Island.