Wrangel Island: reserve, location on the map of Russia, climate, coordinates. Fauna and flora of Wrangel Island. Wrangel Island: an oasis in the ice Polar apple of discord

Today we will talk about the land of Wrangel. This island is very interesting. It was unsuccessfully searched for by a Russian traveler, but was discovered by a British and a German. Then the deserted island became an "apple of discord" 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 sinister Gulag was located here. But even without repressive camps, this land was deadly for a person. Not 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, flora and fauna - read in this article.

Wrangel Island on the map

This is a fairly large piece of land. Its area is approximately seven and a half thousand square kilometers, and most of it is occupied by mountains. The island itself is located in the Arctic Ocean. Even in the simple geographical location of Wrangel's land, its uniqueness is already hidden. It is a watershed between two large areas of the ocean, a natural boundary 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 180th meridian, the so-called "date line", divides the land into almost equal parts. At least 140 kilometers of water separate from the northern coast - the Long Strait. Since 1976, this land has been declared a nature reserve. The last permanent resident died in 2003. Since then, only polar explorers have lived here. Administratively, the island belongs to the district (Iultinsky district).

Discovery history

We can say with certainty that the Wrangel land was the first to be discovered by the Paleo-Eskimos. As archaeological excavations carried out in the ravine called Chertov prove, people stopped here for 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 a deserted and unkind shore. For a long time, the island was considered just a beautiful Chukchi legend. In 1820-1824, the Russian navigator and statesman Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel unsuccessfully searched for him. 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 Herald. This is how Kellett Land 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 foot. It was the German merchant Eduard Dallmann, who carried out merchant operations with the inhabitants of Chukotka and Alaska. But he was far from thinking of somehow calling the lands he visited. A year later, in 1867, American whaler Thomas Long landed on the island. By vocation, this brave man was a researcher, he knew a lot about the search for F. P. Wrangel. Therefore, he named the island he discovered in his honor. The territory was a 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 missing to conquer the North Pole in 1879 on the Jeanette ship. Captain Calvin Hooper landed part of the crew 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.

Formation of the archipelago

Until the 20th century, the governments of Russia and the United States were little interested in who owns the two patches of land lost in the Arctic Ocean. This attitude was facilitated by their "distant" geographical coordinates. Wrangel Island, for example, is the westernmost island in a small archipelago, located between 70° and 71° north latitude. The length along the meridian at this place is simply unique: from 179 ° W. up to 177 ° in. e. The archipelago is located very close not only to North America, but also to 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 mainland origin. That is why they are also called Beringia. This area was spared by ice ages, and during global warming, the islands did not go under water. This circumstance has preserved an amazing flora and fauna on the land of Wrangel.

polar apple of discord

With the advent of the twentieth century, and at the same time the century of industry, both applicants 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 autumn of 1911, a Russian hydrographic expedition aboard the Vaigach ship landed on Wrangel Island and hoisted the Russian flag on it. And in the summer of 1913, the Canadian brigantine Karluk was caught in ice and forced 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 reached the mainland (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 whaling off their coasts. 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. The geologist C. Wells and twelve Eskimos, among them women and children, came to Wrangel Island. Since professional hunters were engaged in the extraction of food, the colonists successfully survived the winter. But the government of the USSR sent the Krasny Oktyabr icebreaker equipped with guns to the shores of the island. His team forcibly took 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 died.

Wrangel Island is ours!

How did he finally become "domestic"? Although the Wrangel Islands appeared on the map of Russia, the government did not calm down until Russian colonists established themselves there. In 1926, a polar station was founded, led by researcher G. Ya. Ushakov. Together with him, another 59 Chukchi from the villages of Chaplino and Providence settled. In 1928, the Ukrainian journalist Nikolai Trublaini came there on the icebreaker Litke. He repeatedly described Wrangel Island and its harsh beauty in his books (in particular, “The Way to the Arctic through the Tropics”). Collective farms were supposed to be everywhere in the Land of Soviets, and the Far North was no exception. In 1948, a reindeer-breeding collective farm was founded - for this purpose, a small herd was brought from the mainland. And in the 70s, musk oxen were introduced from Nunivak Island. Although evil tongues claim that one of the Gulag camps was based on the archipelago, this is not true. The settlements 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 reserve on Wrangel Island. Later (1968) he was upgraded in status. But the Soviet government did not stop there either. The reserve of national importance in 1976 was transformed into the natural reserve "Wrangel Islands". The zone is still protected in accordance with the decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR under No. 189 of March 23, 1976. The plural in the name of the reserve is not a typo. The neighboring island of Herald, as well as about 1,430,000 hectares of water area, also came under protection. Ironically, the crisis of the late 1990s greatly contributed to the conservation of nature. Most of the inhabitants were taken to the mainland, since there were no means 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

A map of Wrangel Island shows that this piece of land is quite mountainous. Three almost parallel chains - the Northern, Middle and Southern ridges - are cut off by coastal cliffs. The highest point - Mount Sovetskaya - reaches 1096 meters above sea level. It is located almost in the center of the island. The low Northern Range passes into a swampy plain called the Tundra of the Academy. The low-lying shores of the island are dissected by lagoons. There are many lakes and rivers here. But there are no fish in them. Due to the harsh climate, these reservoirs freeze through in winter. However, global warming is noticeable here as well. In recent years, shoals of pink salmon began to actively enter the mouths of the rivers for spawning. The rugged terrain and polar location created a number of non-melting glaciers on the island.

The 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 set 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. Frequent snowfalls, drizzle and fog. Only in the abnormally hot summer of 2007 did the thermometer jump up 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 Pacific Ocean damp winds blow.

Flora

BN Gorodkov, who in 1938 studied the vegetation cover on the eastern coast of the Wrangel Land, mistakenly attributed the island to the zone. Further study of the flora led scientists to the idea that its territory lies in the polar tundra belt. And to be very precise, the classification is as follows: the Wrangel subprovince 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 poppy Gorodkov, beskilnitsa, Wrangel's ostrich and others. At present, it has been revealed that Wrangel Island has no equal in the polar zone in terms of the number of endemics. 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 a special species diversity. There are absolutely no amphibians, reptiles and freshwater fish on the island. But Wrangel Island, a photo of which is unlikely to be complete without a white bear in the foreground, holds the record for the density of these animals. Judge for yourself: on an area of ​​​​about seven and a half thousand square kilometers, four hundred she-bears coexist. And that's not counting males and cubs! This justifies the Chukchi name of the island - Umkilir. Moreover, the population of this animal is increasing year by year. The polar bear is the main owner of the island. In addition to it, there are introduced reindeer and musk ox. In summer, bumblebees, butterflies, mosquitoes and flies are blown in from the mainland. The world of birds 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 found itself on the front pages of scientific journals. And all because the remains of mammoths were discovered here by paleontologists. But it was not the discovery itself that was important, but its age. It turned out that on the island these elephants, overgrown with thick hair, lived and were healthy three and a half thousand years ago. But it is known that mammoths became extinct more than ten thousand years ago. What happens? When Greece was the heyday of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, and in Egypt reigned on Wrangel Island, a living mammoth walked around! True, the local subspecies was also distinguished by its small stature - the size of a modern African elephant.

Wrangel Island: an oasis in the ice

The bully fox drives away the goose from the nest: this clever distraction maneuver will allow him to steal the eggs. Snow geese arrive on the island in May, after spending the winter in North America.

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

Cutting through the icy waves of the Chukchi Sea, the Zodiac inflatable motor boat deftly maneuvers between 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 the cubs.

Although our guide assures us that there is a huge island right on our course, this is hard to believe. But suddenly the fog clears, and the outlines of the island appear in the air before our eyes, as if by magic. In the cold northern light, they seem unusually sharp and contrasting. Before us is a piece of land with a length of 146 kilometers, where mountain slopes rise high to the sky, shimmering with gold in the sun's rays and completely strewn with such bright colors that only exist in the tundra.

Back in 1881, the same picture was revealed to my compatriot, an American naturalist of Scottish origin, John Muir, who left the first description of the island. At the sight of his severe beauty, Muir was indescribably delighted. “This vast desert in its primordial freshness”, “an impregnable citadel beyond the distant expanses, by the will of the Creator fell under the onslaught of a merciless cold” - admiration led his pen.

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


A coastal spit 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 you have to sail on an icebreaker. At the pier in Rogers Bay, huntsman Anatoly Rodionov, a big man in a soldier's padded jacket, is waiting for us. In his hands he has 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 with bulls - much closer blood ties connect it with goats and sheep. Musk oxen were brought to Wrangel Island in 1975, and now their population is about 800 individuals. Recently, they have been increasingly gathering in herds to repel dangerous predators - wolves - that have returned to the island.

Along a pebbly shore littered with the bones of whales and walruses, Rodionov leads us to Ushakovskoye, a tiny Soviet-era ghost town. Mountains of rusty barrels rise everywhere. Two hundred meters away from us, a nimble bear cub draws air with interest through its nostrils. Anatoly glances at him as if he were an old acquaintance. The ground is covered with a continuous carpet of moss and lichen, in which the foot is buried.


The 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.

Wooden houses are piled on this carpet - some of them have already been almost completely taken away for firewood. Old, long-abandoned radar disks are about to capsize in the sea, and the howling wind, as if on strings, plays on the guys of the radio antennas. The barred windows of the Russian bath bristled with sharp 120-mm nails: this is how uninvited guests - bears - are met here.

The long pebbly shoals of Wrangel Island were chosen for rookeries by Pacific walruses - especially after the perennial drifting ice, the habitual habitat of these pinnipeds, began to thin out due to climate change. An adult healthy walrus - like this large female - will not let himself be offended in a fight with a polar bear.

Back in 1976, Wrangel Island was declared a state reserve - a specially protected natural area. He retains this status to this day. The island with an area of ​​7510 square kilometers, lying on both sides of the 180th meridian, is the northern twin of the 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 almost four hundred female bears come to its shores in winter to breed. And since the climate is gradually changing and the ice cover is becoming less durable, in recent years, polar bears often visit the island in the summer. In addition, the world's largest population of Pacific walruses and Asia's only nesting colony of white geese have settled here. They are adjacent to snowy owls, musk oxen, arctic foxes, reindeer, as well as large populations of lemmings and seabirds.

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


Two musk ox measure each other with an appraising look. In September, at the height of the mating season, males often arrange butting tournaments.

Wrangel Island was lucky: in the last ice ages it was never completely covered with ice, and during global warming it was not 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, biologist, WWF expert, lived on the island for 18 years before moving to Moscow. “When you get to Wrangel Island,” he says, “it’s as if you are transported into the past for hundreds of thousands of years. The biodiversity here remains as rich to this day as it was in antiquity. But it's a very fragile ecosystem."


For most of the year, polar bears rarely come together. But in the summer, walruses appear under the rocks of Cape Waring. The spirit of collectivism awakens in the bears, and they willingly share the 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 mammoths became extinct in all other corners of the planet. The whole island is dotted with spiraling mammoth tusks: they are full of them on the pebble banks and in the riverbeds - and in some places they even prop up the walls of the huntsmen's dwellings, like hunting trophies. “When the pyramids were being built in Egypt, elephants roamed the Wrangel Island,” says Alexander Gruzdev, director of the reserve. - 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 the formation of a unique ecosystem here. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.”


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

The land lying 140 kilometers from the coast of North-Eastern Siberia has haunted sailors 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. Cartographers were at a loss - some suggested that this was an "offshoot" of Greenland, stretching right across the pole.

Throughout the 19th century, almost every expedition that sought to approach the island was eventually awarded the epithet "ill-fated". In the early 1820s, Chukchi hunters on the northeast coast of Siberia informed the Russian traveler Ferdinand Wrangel of a mysterious land in the north that could only be seen on clear days. Wrangel sailed in the indicated direction, but ice blocked the ship's path: 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 a ghostly shape in the distance. Subsequently, the captains of whaling ships assured more than once that they also saw this island.

The American Arctic expedition of 1879, trapped in ice, got so close to the cherished land that the head of the team, George Washington De Long, was able to establish for certain that this was an island, and not a polar continent. He gave the island the name Wrangel. But, alas, De Long did not manage to land on the shore. 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 autumn and less and less often return to the hole where they were born and spent the first three months of their lives.

And only in August 1881, for the first time, a human foot set foot on Wrangel Island: the team of the American ship Thomas Corvin landed on it, plying the northern waters in search of the missing Jeannette. Members of the search party, including John Muir, hoisted the US flag on the island. The crew of the Corvina gave the island the name of New Columbia - the name, however, did not stick. In the same year, the first description of the island, compiled by John Muir, was published.

However, soon everyone forgot about this land at the end of the world again - no one visited the island for more than thirty years. And then swept the next wave of expeditions doomed to death. The first of their series was the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913. To get to the island, the crew of the Karluk brigantine crushed by ice overcame 130 kilometers on drifting ice. Rescue was waiting for eight months, and during this time 11 of the 25 unfortunates 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 claimed the lives of four more people. In 1924, the expedition of Boris Davydov raised the flag of the USSR over the island, and two years later a permanent settlement was founded here.

Island map:

Recently, getting into the protected area has become easier. 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 say that this relic tundra of the Pleistocene era beckons with irresistible force. “It feels like you are at the end of the world, and there is nothing further,” says Daniel Fisher, a mammoth specialist from the University of Michigan.

“This is a virgin environment,” says Irina Menyushina, who has been studying snowy owls and arctic foxes on the island for 32 seasons. - Here you feel close 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 its magical charms do not lose their power.

Text: Hampton Sides Photos: Sergey Gorshkov

The island got its name in honor of the Russian navigator and statesman Ferdinand Wrangel.

Russian military and statesman, navigator and polar explorer, admiral (1856), head of the Naval Ministry.

He came from an ancient family of Baltic Germans.

On the this moment Wrangel Island is part of the reserve of the same name and is included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.


Surprisingly, Wrangel Island is located exactly at the junction of the Western and Eastern hemispheres of our planet. It stretches for 150 km in width, 125 km in length, and an area of ​​7,600 square kilometers. Its central and southern parts are predominantly mountainous. The largest peak is located here, namely Mount Sovetskaya with a height of 1096 meters. Plain tundra with numerous medium-sized rivers and lakes prevails mainly in the north.

In 1926, a polar station was created on the island, and a permanent one, and a settlement called Ushakovskoye was created, which existed until 1994. Since this year, there is no permanent population on the island now. After all, times were not easy back then. Perestroika, lack of funding, the collapse of the USSR, as well as the country's complete loss of interest in the study and development of such northern villages and regions. But, by the way, it still had the best effect on the well-being of the island. After all, now there is a unique reserve, included in the UNESCO list in 2004.

The winter period on the island lasts 8 months. From November to January itself, there is a polar night. During this period, the island is dark, frosty and relatively quiet, except for the various howls of strong arctic local winds. True, by spring and summer this wonderful island begins to come to life. In the tundra you can see carpets of poppies, of which there are already more than 7 different species, colorful and beautiful colors. Near the coastal cliffs, one can observe thousands of birds, and polar bears with wonderful babies come out of the numerous lairs at this time. By the way, Wrangel Island serves as a home for polar bears in the Arctic. In addition, it hosts the only nesting territory of the last white Asiatic geese remaining on Earth, including the largest population of the unique Pacific walrus, approximately 100,000 individuals.

By the way, from Anadyr in July or August there is a great opportunity to take a cruise on a small but comfortable and cozy icebreaker to this amazing island, moreover, with a landing on it and even accommodation for 3 days. But most of the tourists here you can see Americans or Canadians. There are practically no Russians.

Since the middle of the 17th century, Russian explorers have heard from the inhabitants of Chukotka about a certain island in the Arctic Ocean, but it appeared on the maps only 200 years later. In 1911, the island was declared Russian territory, although after that there were several attempts by Britain to annex it to their lands. But the great remoteness, ice hummocks and nature itself protected this region from the encroachment of foreigners on this primordially Russian northern land.

In 1976, a reserve was created on Wrangel Island, which includes, in addition to the island itself, the territory of the nearby Herald Island and the adjacent 12-mile sea area. The main task of this reserve is the preservation and study of the fauna of the island part of the Arctic.

Marine hydrometeorological station Wrangel.

The climate of the reserve "Wrangel Island" is quite severe. From February to March, temperatures rarely rise above -30 degrees, and the wind that accompanies snowstorms reaches speeds of 40 meters per hour or more. Even in summer frosts and snowfalls occur here. Ice massifs on the islands are preserved almost all year round.

The relief of Wrangel Island is mountainous, mountains occupy more than half of the island's territory. At the sea they break off with rocks. In places where the coast is more gentle, there are sand and pebble spits. In addition, there are streams on the island - more than one and a half thousand, and about 900 lakes.

Herald Island is a high remnant, which on all sides breaks into the sea with rocky steep ledges.

Most representatives of the animal and plant world, which are under the protection of the Wrangel Island Reserve, are unique. The reason for this is the exceptional combination of historical and landscape-climatic conditions, as well as the inaccessibility of the island. Even relic species of animals are found here. On the islands, which are part of the ancient land that united the Eurasian and North American continents in ancient times, American and Euro-Asian species of flora and fauna are still preserved. Most of the flora of Wrangel Island belongs to the arctic tundra subzone. In some places of the island there is a real polar desert. In the southwest and in the center of the island, flowering plants grow quite safely. Here you can see real relic steppes.

Amphibians and reptiles are completely absent on the territory of the reserve, but 169 species of various birds nest here, for example, common eider and comb, Icelandic sandpiper, peregrine falcon and gyrfalcon.

By the way, the largest white goose colony in Eurasia is located on Wrangel Island.

Siberian and ungulate lemmings, as well as arctic foxes, common to this region, make up the bulk of land mammals. Occasionally, a wolverine, fox or wolf appears. Walruses often appear on the island - the largest rookery of these animals is located here. The island serves as a kind of "maternity hospital" for them. Polar bears are frequent guests at such rookeries.

A fairly large number of musk oxen live on the island. These huge, thickly furred animals, the local frosts do not care. This is their home and they feel great on the island.

Domestic reindeer were brought here on purpose. They took root perfectly, eventually became somewhat wild and now form part of the fauna of the island.

Gray whales, fin whales, and beluga whales are not uncommon in the local waters. Sometimes whales swim from Greenland.

The island is also of geological value - sites of an ancient man were found here, as well as traces of a small mammoth population that outlived its mainland relatives by almost 6 thousand years. By the way, mammoths lived on Wrangel Island relatively recently - only 3.6 thousand years ago.

Wrangel Island is washed by the East Siberian Sea on the western side and the Chukchi Sea on the eastern side. Herald Island is a mountain remnant 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°E An important feature of the geographical position of the island is the fact that it is the only large land located at high latitudes in the northeastern sector of the Asian Arctic, in the zone of the continental shelf, the boundary of which ends approximately 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 separating 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 ensure biological and landscape diversity. Other Arctic islands and archipelagos are separated from Wrangel Island by hundreds of kilometers.

Until the last rise in the level of the world's oceans, Wrangel Island was part of a single Beringian land.

The greatest length diagonally from northeast to southwest (between Capes Waring and Blossom) is about 145 km, and the maximum width from north to south (traverse Pestsovaya Bay - Krasin Bay) is a little more than 80 km. Approximately 2/3 of the area of ​​the island is occupied by mountain systems with the highest height of 1095.4 m above sea level. (Sovetskaya).
Wrangel Island is one of the highest islands in the Euro-Asian sector of the Arctic and the highest island without ice cover 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, according to climatic conditions, landscape features and vegetation cover, belong to the arctic tundra subzone (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 Chertov ravine site indicate that the first people (paleo-Eskimos) hunted on the island as early as 1750 BC. e.
The existence of the island was known to Russian pioneers since the middle of the 17th century according to the stories of local residents of Chukotka, but it only got on geographical maps two hundred years later.


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

In 1866, the first European visited the western island - Captain Eduard Dallmann (German: Eduard Dallmann), who conducted trade operations with the inhabitants of Alaska and Chukotka.
In 1867, Thomas Long, an American whaler by profession and explorer by vocation, - 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 unsuccessfully searched for it during 1820-1824.

In 1879, the path of the expedition of George De Long lay near Wrangel Island, who tried to reach the North Pole on the ship Jeannette (eng. "USS Jeannette"). De Long's voyage ended in disaster, and in 1881, the American steam cutter Thomas Corwin under the command of Calvin L. Hooper approached the island in search of him. Hooper landed a search party on the island and proclaimed it a US territory.
In September 1911, the Vaigach icebreaker from the Russian hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean approached Wrangel Island. The crew of the Vaigach 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" (born "Karluk"), led by anthropologist V. Stefanson, left the port of Nome (Alaska) to explore Herschel Island in the Beaufort Sea. August 13, 1913, 300 kilometers from the destination, "Karluk" was caught in the ice and began a slow drift to the west. On September 19, six people, including Stefanson, went hunting, but due to the drift of the ice, they could no longer return to the ship. They had to make their way to Cape Barrow. Later, allegations were made against Stefanson that he deliberately left the ship on the pretext of hunting in order to study the islands of the Canadian Arctic archipelago.
25 people remained on the Karluk - the team, members of the expedition and hunters. The drift of the brigantine continued along the route of George De Long's barque Jeannette until it was crushed by ice on January 10, 1914.
The first party of sailors, on behalf of Bartlett and under the command of Bjarne Mamen, set out for Wrangel Island, but mistakenly reached Herald Island. Sandy Anderson, the senior assistant to the captain of the Karluk, remained on Herald Island with three sailors. All four died, presumably due to food poisoning or carbon monoxide poisoning.
Another party, including Alistair 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 get to Wrangel Island and came ashore in Draghi Bay. In 1988, traces of their camp were found here and a memorial sign was erected. Captain Barlett (who had experience of participating in the expeditions of Robert Peary) and the Eskimo hunter Kataktovik together set off 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.

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

Of the 15 people who remained on Wrangel Island, three died: Malloch from a combination of such causes as overwork, hypothermia, gunren and eating spoiled pemmican; Mamen due to kidney failure, apparently caused by the same pemmican; Braddy, according to some members of the group, was killed by Williamson, who staged an accident while cleaning a revolver. The reason is the difficult psychological atmosphere in the camp of the group. The murder was never proven, Williamson denied all charges. The survivors earned their livelihood by hunting and were only rescued in September 1914 by an expedition on the Canadian schooner King and Wing (eng. King & Winge).

Northern Lights over Wrangel Island

Expeditions Stefanson 1921-1924
Encouraged by the experience of the survival of the crew of the Karluk and the prospects for marine fishing off Wrangel Island, Stefanson launched a campaign to colonize the island. To support his enterprise, Stefanson tried to get official status from first the Canadian and then the British government, but his idea was rejected. The refusal, however, did not prevent Stefanson from declaring support for the authorities and then raising the flag of Great Britain 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: 22-year-old Canadian Alan Crawford, Americans Galle, Maurer (a member of the expedition on the Karluk), Knight and an Eskimo woman Ada Blackjack as a seamstress and cook. The expedition was sparsely equipped, as Stefanson 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 seven available), the colonists hoped for the arrival of a ship with supplies and a change in the summer. Due to severe ice conditions, the ship could not approach the island and people stayed for another winter.

In September 1922, the Magnit gunboat of the White Army (a former messenger ship armed during civil war) under the command of Lieutenant D. A. von Dreyer, but the ice did not give her such an opportunity. Opinions differ about the purpose of the Magnit’s trip to Wrangel Island - this is the suppression of the activities of Stefanson’s enterprise (spoken by contemporaries and participants in the events), or, on the contrary, providing him with assistance for a fee (expressed in the newspaper of the FSB of Russia in 2008). Due to the military defeat of the White movement in the Far East, the ship never returned to Vladivostok, the Magnit crew went into exile.
After the hunt failed and food supplies ran out, on January 28, 1923, three polar explorers went to the mainland for help. Nobody else saw them. Remaining on Knight Island, he 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 remained 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 winter. In 1924, worried about the news of the creation of a foreign colony on the Russian island, the government of the USSR sent the gunboat Krasny Oktyabr (the former Vladivostok port icebreaker Nadezhny, on which guns were installed) to Wrangel Island.

"Red October" left Vladivostok on July 20, 1924 under the command of hydrographer B.V. Davydov. On August 20, 1924, the expedition raised the Soviet flag on the island and evacuated the settlers. On the way back, on September 25, in the Long Strait near Cape Schmidt, the icebreaker was hopelessly trapped in ice, but a storm helped it free itself. Overcoming heavy ice led to excessive fuel consumption. By the time the ship anchored in Providence Bay, there was 25 minutes of fuel left and no fresh water at all. The icebreaker returned to Vladivostok on October 29, 1924.

Soviet-American, and then Chinese-American negotiations on the further return of the colonists to their homeland through Harbin took a long time. Three did not live to return - the leader of the expedition, Charles Wells, died in Vladivostok from pneumonia; two children died during the ensuing journey.



DEVELOPMENT OF WRANGEL ISLAND
In 1926, a polar station was established on Wrangel Island under the leadership of G. A. Ushakov. Together with Ushakov, 59 people landed on the island, mostly Eskimos, who previously lived in the villages of Providence and Chaplino.
In 1928, an expedition was made to the island on the Litka icebreaker, the boiler room on which the Ukrainian writer and journalist Nikolai Trublaini worked, who described Wrangel Island in a number of his books, in particular “To the Arctic - through the tropics”. In 1948, a small group of domestic reindeer was brought to the island and a department of a reindeer-breeding 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.

LIE ABOUT THE GULAG
In 1987, former prisoner Yefim Moshinsky published a book in which he claimed that he was in a "corrective 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 (reserve)
In 1975, musk oxen from the island of Nunivak were introduced to the island, and the executive committee of the Magadan Region assigned the lands of the islands to the future reserve. In 1976, to study and protect the natural complexes of the Arctic islands, the Wrangel Island nature reserve was founded, which also included the small neighboring island of Herald. In connection with the reserve, a 5 nautical mile wide buffer zone 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, whose employees began a systematic study of the flora and fauna of the islands.
In 1992, the radar station was closed, and the only settlement remained on the island - the village of Ushakovskoye, which was empty by 2003.
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 in its composition the water area surrounding the island with a width of 12 nautical miles, by order of the government of the Russian Federation N ° 1623-p dated November 15, 1997, and in 1999, around the already protected water area, by decree of the governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Region N ° 91 of May 25, 1999, a buffer zone 24 nautical miles wide was organized. Wrangel Island

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

NATURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND
The area of ​​the island is about 7670 km², of which about 4700 km² are mountains. The shores are low-lying, dissected by lagoons, separated by sandy spits from the sea. The central part of the island 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 3.60С, which corresponds to the range of the arctic tundra subzone; on the northern coast, the same indicator fluctuates around 10С (as in the polar deserts), and in the intermountain basins of the central part of the island, it reaches 8-100С, which is typical for the southern margin 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 a low content of moisture and dust. In summer, they are forced out by warmer and more humid 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°C. 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 being 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 northeast winds, the speed of which often exceeds 40 m/s. At the same time, the fallen snowfall is significantly redistributed depending on the landforms and wind direction, forming a very uneven snow cover - from its absence in blown areas to multi-meter thicknesses in lowlands and on leeward slopes. Much of the snowfall is carried by the wind to the sea.

Meso-climatic differences are well expressed on the territory of Wrangel Island. 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 snowmelt, and a much greater frequency of cloudy weather and fogs.

Relief
Approximately 2/3 of the territory of. 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 from 200 to 600 m. The low mountains are also densely dissected by valleys, among which several especially large ones stand out, forming vast intermountain basins. The 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 one is confined to the boundary of strata of different ages and different facies. 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 plain tundra in the southern part of the island is identical in character 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 seaside narrow plain.

The flat shores of the island are predominantly of the lagoonal type and are characterized by an abundance of sand and pebble spits and bars. Where mountain structures go to the sea, they develop Various types abrasion shores, characterized by rocky cliffs up to several tens of meters high. Herald Island is a high remnant, composed of granites and gneisses, ending on all sides in the sea with 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 spotty forms predominate. In the lowlands of the plains of Wrangel Island, thermokarst basins are also developed, and in the intermountain valleys - complexes of baidzharakhs, formed as a result of the melting of polygonal vein 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 subprovince of the Wrangel-West American province of the Arctic tundra. All the main types of Arctic landscapes are represented on Wrangel Island. Plains, abrasion and accumulative in origin, give a wide range of morphological types, including low-lying and elevated, flat, hilly and sloping.
On the territory of the island, Markov (1952) and V.V. Petrovsky (1985) identified 5 areas characterized by relatively homogeneous geological and geomorphological conditions and features of plant communities: the tundra of the Academy, South District, Western region, Central region and Eastern region.

Wrangel Island, coast of the Chukchi Sea

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 streams are fed by snow. Of the approximately 900 lakes, most of which are located in the Academy 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 lagoonal. The largest of them are: Kmo, Komsomol, Gagachye, Zapovednoe. 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 incised, they are distinguished by an equilibrium profile that has not yet been established. The mountain streams that flow across the stretch of the structures have steep rocky shores for almost their entire length. With access to the plains, the channels of watercourses expand sharply: the streams are divided into several branches, meanders, reaches, and rifts appear. The watercourses of the Academy Tundra are characterized by a calm current in meandering channels. Erosion incision in them is weakly expressed. There is an abundance of oxbow lakes, especially in the floodplain.

The water area of ​​the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas adjoining 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 high content of biogenic elements. From the Bering Sea, a stream of warm Pacific waters enters here, forming a clearly defined layer at a depth of 75-150. In the northern part of the water area, at a depth of about 150 m, warm Atlantic waters also penetrate.

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

East-Siberian Sea. Due to shallow depths, the temperature is characterized by a uniform distribution from the surface to depth. In winter it is -1-20С, in summer +2+50С, in bays up to +80С. The salinity of the water is different in the western and eastern parts of the sea. 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 -1.70С, in summer it rises to +70С. From the southern part of the island, the tides are small, about 15 cm. In winter, an increased salinity (about 31-33 ‰) of the under-ice water layer is characteristic. In summer, salinity is less, it increases from west to east from 28 to 32 ‰. The salinity is lower near the melting ice edges; it is minimal at the mouths of the rivers (3–5 ‰). Salinity usually increases with depth.
The Chukchi Current, which runs from west to east from the East Siberian Sea, and the Gerald and Longovskaya branches of the Bering Sea Current, which run north, northwest, and west into the Long Strait, are described.

Geology
The island is composed of various deposits (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 traversability of the tundra and in most cases moderate elevations, good decipherability of objects make the island convenient for geological study. In addition, contacts between strata of different ages are in most cases well expressed 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 deformed and metamorphosed in greenschist and epidote-amphibolite facies, intruded 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 Gromov and Inkala formations (Kameneva, 1975). The total thickness is estimated at 2000 m. G.I. Based on the finds of microfossils, Kameneva attributed the Gromov Formation to the Middle and Upper Riphean, and the Inkala Formation to the Vendian. ON THE. Bogdanov, S.M. Tilman and V.G. Ganelin and co-authors tend to consider these formations as the result of dynamo-metamorphism of Devonian or Early Paleozoic rocks, which is confirmed by K-Ag dates of 457 ± 25 Ma. During the work of the Soviet-Canadian expedition, zircons were identified, indicating a Late Proterozoic age: 699 ± 1 Ma (zircons from mafic), 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.

The Paleozoic-Mesozoic cover is composed of Silurian-Devonian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic deposits. The contact of the Wrangel complex with the non-metamorphosed cover is most likely tectonic. In the upper reaches of the river Predators, it is clearly expressed in the relief by a ledge and a conjugated saddle covered with vegetation with numerous outcroppings of black 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 on 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 shales with interlayers of dark organogenic limestones. Above is a member of alternating greenish-gray and brown calcareous sandstones, siltstones, and shales. Gradation layering is clearly visible. Marl-calcareous members, interlayers and lenses of carbonate rocks and dolomites with gypsum occur along the strike. This part of the section is characterized by variegated brown, yellow, grey, green and pinkish colors.

Carbon. Pelitomorphic and organogenic limestones with horizons of terrigenous rocks, the number of which increases in the north 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 jasperoids.

Permian. Shales with interlayers of bituminous limestones and sandstones. The southern part is dominated by shales, while the northern, shallower part contains lenticular horizons of conglomerates. The thickness of the deposits is 800 m in the southern part and 1200 m in the northern part (Kosko et al., 2003).

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

Triassic turbidites overlap various horizons of Paleozoic deposits. Some researchers tend to consider these relationships as unconformable stratigraphic contact, others as a thrust. In the places studied by the authors (R. Khishchnikov, brook Doubtful, cape Zanes), the contact is tectonic. At the same time, a long history of contact formation cannot be ruled out.

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

ground cover
The entire territory of the reserve is located in the zone of permafrost rocks. The soil cover of the islands is relatively well formed. Arcto-tundra soddy and tundra or arctic gley soils predominate. In the most continental central regions of the island, soils that are completely uncharacteristic of the Arctic islands are common - steppe cryoarid and tundra-steppe, characteristic of the sharply continental regions of Siberia and the north. Far East. Under the name of arctic-tundra saline soils, typical solonchaks are also described on the island, moreover, of lithogenic origin, i.e. owing their existence to the effusion water regime, which is typical for arid territories and is completely atypical for the Arctic. In the central regions of the island, the type of arctic-tundra carbonate soils, which is endemic to Wrangel Island, is quite widespread.

On 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 luxuriantly developed.

Flora
The first researcher of the vegetation of Wrangel Island, B. N. Gorodkov, who in 1938 studied the eastern coast of the island, attributed it to the zone of arctic and polar deserts. After a complete study of the entire island from the 2nd half of the 20th century. it belongs to the arctic tundra subzone 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 subprovince of the Wrangel-West American province of the Arctic tundra.

The vegetation of Wrangel Island is distinguished by a 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 relatively poor in plants common in other polar regions, which, according to various estimates, are no more than 35-40%.
About 3% of the plants are subendemic (beskilnitsa, Gorodkov's poppy, Wrangel's poppy) and endemic (Wrangel's bluegrass, Ushakov's poppy, Wrangel's Potentilla, Lapland's poppy). In addition to them, another 114 species of rare and very rare plants grow on Wrangel Island.

Such a composition of the plant world 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 open and undersized almost everywhere. Sedge-moss tundra prevails. In the mountain valleys and intermountain basins of the central part of Wrangel Island, there are areas of thickets of willow (Richardson willow) up to 1 m high.

bird market, Wrangel Island

Quite often, birds from North America fly into the reserve or are blown by the wind, among which are sandhill cranes that regularly visit Wrangel Island, as well as Canada geese and various American small passerines, including finches (myrtle songbirds, savannah buntings, gray and Oregon juncos, black-browed and white-breasted zonotrichia).
The mammalian fauna of the reserve is poor. The endemic Vinogradov's lemming, previously considered a subspecies of the hoofed lemming, 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 penetrate the reserve. Together with people, sled dogs settled on Wrangel Island. The house mouse appeared and lives in residential buildings. Reindeer and musk ox were brought to the island for acclimatization.

Reindeer lived here in the distant past, and the modern herd comes from domestic deer brought 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 imported in April 1975 from the American island of Nunivak.
On the territory of the island is the largest walrus rookery in Russia. Seals live in coastal waters.

In the mid-1990s, you could read about a startling discovery made on the island in Nature magazine. An employee of the reserve Sergey 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 belief, mammoths died out everywhere 10-12 thousand years ago. Subsequently, it was discovered that these remains belong to a special relatively small subspecies that inhabited Wrangel Island back in the days when the Egyptian pyramids, and which disappeared only in the reign of Tutankhamun and the heyday of the Mycenaean civilization. This puts Wrangel Island among the most important paleontological monuments of the planet.

remains of the village Doubtful

Settlements
Ushakovskoye (non-residential)
Zvezdny (non-residential)
Perkatkun (non-residential)

Population
Officially, the village of Ushakovskoye on Wrangel Island was declared uninhabitable 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, who practices shamanism, remained on the island from the civilians. The presence of people on the island was again ensured by the Russian military from the troops of the Eastern Military District (VVO), who on October 1, 2014 settled in the military camp created for them.


RESERVE WRANGEL ISLAND
"Wrangel Island" is a state nature reserve, occupies the northernmost position (located mainly to the north of 71 ° N) from the protected areas of Russia.
The Wrangel Island State Nature Reserve was established by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR No. 189 dated March 23, 1976. The total area is 2,225,650 hectares, including the area of ​​the water area - 1,430,000 hectares. The area of ​​the protected 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 Gerald, 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. Wrangel is occupied by mountains. Arctic tundra and mountains are the predominant landscape. The hydrographic network of Wrangel Island consists of about 150 relatively small rivers and streams, only 5 of which have a length of more than 50 km, 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 (Oxytropis ushakovii, Papaver multiradiatum, and Papaver chionophilum) are common on the island. Endemic species also include a variety of beskilnitsa, a subspecies of the Lapland poppy, poppies Gorodkov and Ushakov, Potentilla Wrangel. The number of known species of mosses (331) and lichens (310) on Wrangel Island also exceeds other areas in the Arctic tundra subzone.
Sedge-moss tundras predominate, the middle and lower belts of the mountains are occupied by grass-lichen and shrub-forb tundras. There are swamps with the participation of sphagnum, low and creeping willow thickets along the ground. In the upper belts of the mountains there are extensive stony placers.
Natural conditions do not favor the richness of the fauna.

There are absolutely no amphibians and reptiles in the reserve; fish (cod, capelin and some others) can only be seen in coastal waters. On the other hand, there are 169 species of birds on the island, most of which are vagrant, nesting is registered for 62 species, of which 44 species nest regularly on the islands, including 8 species of seabirds. For example: gulls, guillemots, etc. Among birds, we must 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, thousands of non-breeding geese come here to molt from mainland Chukotka and Alaska), common eider and comb eider, in very small numbers Siberian eider, pintails and sandpipers. On the steep sea shores there are bird colonies, numbering in the 60s, according to the well-known explorer of the North S. M. Uspensky, 50-100 thousand thick-billed guillemots, 30-40 thousand kittiwakes, 3 thousand cormorants. V. V. Dezhkin in the book “In the world of protected nature”, 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 basis of the bird population is tundra species, most of which have circumpolar ranges and are common to all arctic tundras. These are Lapland plantain, snow bunting, tules, turnstone, 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, rubythroat, puffin, puffin, talovka, for which Wrangel Island is the northernmost nesting point. Ipatka in recent years began to nest on the colonies of seabirds of Wrangel Island regularly 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, feral reindeer, wolves live, red foxes wander. But the most eminent inhabitant of both islands is the polar bear. The Wrangel and Herald Islands are known as the world's largest concentration of polar bear birth dens. V. V. Dezhkin writes: “In some years, up to 200-250 she-bears were set up in the reserve.” On the website of the reserve there is information that “from 300 to 500 she-bears annually lie in dens on the islands. Approximately 100 ancestral lairs of this number are arranged on a small about. Gerald". In the spring, with slightly stronger offspring, they embark on a journey through 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: domestic reindeer were brought in two batches from the coast of Chukotka. At present, they represent a unique island population of feral reindeer in terms of history and biological characteristics, 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 their development of the entire territory 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 rapidly. At present, the number of musk oxen on the island is about 800-900 individuals, according to the situation in the autumn of 2007 - perhaps 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 marine animals, haul out on the coasts of the reserve. Their protection and study are the task of 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 the end of September-beginning of October - most of the females and young of the entire population accumulate near the islands. Walruses stay at the ice edge and prefer to crawl out to rest on ice floes, as long as they are in the water area. When the ice disappears near the most forage 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 up to 130 thousand walruses gathered here, taking into account the animals swimming in the water. For wintering, walruses migrate to the Bering Sea.

Throughout the year, ringed seals and bearded seals are common in coastal waters. The ringed seal is the main food for polar bears throughout the year, providing a complete predator life cycle.
In the summer-autumn period, the water area adjacent to the Wrangel and Herald Islands is an area for feeding and migration of cetaceans. The gray whale is the most numerous here. 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 coast of Wrangel Island on their autumn migration. According to satellite tagging data, it was found that beluga whales approach Wrangel Island in autumn, which gather to give birth in the Mackenzie River Delta (Canada).
The purpose of the reserve is to preserve and study the typical and unique ecosystems of the island part of the Arctic, as well as such animal species as the polar bear, walrus, the only breeding 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.

Particularly valuable natural objects

Thomas Creek Valley with adjacent slopes
high concentration of polar bear birth dens, 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 autumn; concentrations of pink and white gulls on autumn migration; walrus concentration area and gray whale feeding area in coastal waters

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

Southern coast near the Doubtful Bay
cryophyte-steppe and tundra-steppe plant communities; rare and endemic plant taxa; yellow-throated nesting sites; area of ​​concentration on migration of pink and white gulls; area of ​​high activity of polar bears in autumn

Mouth section of the Mammoth River and Jack London Lake
high concentration of molting black geese; concentrations of waders on autumn migration; a large colony of fork-tailed gulls; 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 reproductive burrows of arctic fox; numerous small colonies of white goose and other lamellar-beaked birds around nests of snowy owls; nesting sites for yellow-throated sandpiper and Baird's sandpiper; high density and diversity of lemming colony types

Gusinaya river valley
relic tundra-steppe communities, growths of willows; high density of snowy owl nesting; numerous white goose colonies around snowy owl nests; nesting sites of Baird's Sandpiper; high concentration and diversity of lemming colony types

Kit mountain range
nesting area of ​​Baird's sandpiper, yellow-breasted goose, concentration of molting black geese; a large colony of fork-tailed gulls; high diversity of lemming colonies

West coast (section from Cape Thomas to the mouth of the Sovetskaya River)
high concentration of polar bear ancestral dens on the coastal slopes of mountains, high activity of polar bears in autumn; large colonies of seabirds (kitti, thick-billed guillemots, Bering cormorants, ipatki); nesting sites of Baird's Sandpiper; unique and highly aesthetic geological structures (I-VI); arctic continental halophytes

Cape Warring area
high concentration of polar bear birth dens; high activity of polar bears in autumn; large colonies of seabirds (kitti, thick-billed guillemots, Bering cormorants, ipatki); the highest density of Baird's sandpiper, membranous tie; location of rock crystal and calcite; unique geological structures

The headwaters of the Neizvestnaya River (the key section "Upper Neizvestnaya")
most stable and densely populated snowy owl breeding colony known in species range; mixed reproductive populations of 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; overgrowth of willows

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

Herald Island
the highest concentration of polar bear birth dens known in the species range; 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 Ranges, Western Plateau, Warring, part 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 Tundrovaya River
high concentration of white geese with chicks during molting; the most stable and densely populated breeding colony of arctic foxes known in the species range; an area of ​​high density nesting fork-tailed gulls; high concentration and diversity of lemming colony types

Lake basins in the Tundra of the Academy from the Medvezhya River to the Hydrographov River and the lower reaches of the Neizvestnaya, Pestsovaya, Red Flag and Hydrographov rivers
areas of concentration of white geese with chicks during the period of post-nesting molting; main nesting sites of the fork-tailed gull

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:
Team Nomads
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photo: S. Anisimov, V. Timoshenko, A. Kutsky.