Willem Barents

The Dutch navigator Willem Barents (died 1597) was his country's renowned Arctic explorer, having discovered Spitsbergen and the Barents Sea.

Willem Barents was born on the island of Terschelling off the Friesland coast of the Netherlands. He became the pupil of Petrus Plancius (Peter Platevoet), a theologian-cartographer whose sermons are often said to have been lessons in geography and astronomy.

Barents took part in two unsuccessful Arctic voyages before his memorable discovery. In 1592 Jan Huyghen van Linschoten of Enkhuizen returned from a voyage to Goa with a Portuguese fleet and wrote a widely read Itinerary. This stimulated Dutch interest in the Orient, though at the time it seemed dangerous to contest the Portuguese monopoly of the route around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1595 Amsterdam merchants, undiscouraged by the English failure to find a Northeast Passage 40 years earlier, decided to resume the search. They prepared two ships, placing one under Jacob van Heemskerck and the other under Jan Corneliszoon Rijp. Barents, who as pilot sailed with Heemskerck, became the acknowledged leader of the expedition.

The ships left Vlieland, a small port near Amsterdam, on May 18, 1596, and about three weeks later discovered Bear Island, south of the then-unknown Spitsbergen; they so named the island because of an encounter with a polar bear whose hide did not prove vulnerable to Dutch blunderbusses. Pressing northward, the Dutch ships came on June 17 to Spitsbergen, uninhabited islands. During the rest of June the Dutch explored the western coast of the main island, thinking it a part of Greenland.

After a return to Bear Island, the ships separated, Rijp to resume exploration of Spitsbergen, and Barents and Heemskerck to cross the Barents Sea to Novaya Zemlya, previously discovered but not explored to its northern limit. Barents and Heemskerck rounded the northernmost point, naming it Hook of Desire, and sailed eastward, at first believing, from the open water encountered, that they had discovered the Northeast Passage. By November, however, the ice had grown thick and it finally imprisoned the ship. Barents and Heemskerck were 81°N at their highest latitude, beyond any point previously reached. Still close to Novaya Zemlya, realizing that they must build a solid shelter ashore in order to survive, they made one of logs and driftwood and moved into this "Safe House" in October. They lived there until June 1597, suffering but at first in good spirits, calling themselves "burghers of Novaya Zemlya." At Epiphany they had a cheerful party on their remaining liquor and crowned one man "king" of Novaya Zemlya.

Conditions then deteriorated; the firewood gave out, and the ship was crushed by ice. The men began to construct two small boats. Scurvy had been present for months, and one of the worst sufferers was Barents. He left with the rest as they slowly worked down Novaya Zemlya, but he grew so weak that he could take no part in manipulating the craft. Barents died at the end of June, soon after asking Gerrit de Veer, chronicler of the expedition, to lift him up for a final look at Novaya Zemlya. Heemskerck and the other survivors reached the Kola Peninsula and were rescued there by Rijp, who had returned to Holland and come back for trade.

In the 1870s European ships visited Safe House and found it partially caved in by snow. Objects left there by the Dutch explorers are in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Further Reading

A translation of Gerrit de Veer, The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions, was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1876. Hendrik Willem van Loon, The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators (1916; rev. ed. 1938), provides a racy but accurate account of Barent's voyages and many others. Edward Heawood, A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1912), is also accurate. Some information on Plancius and his influence on Barents is contained in George Masselman's study of Dutch discovery and expansion, The Cradle of Colonialism (1963). □

Barents, Willem (c.1550–97), Dutch navigator and explorer, born on the island of Terschelling. A Spanish decree forbidding the Netherlands to trade with Portugal turned the eyes of the Dutch towards the discovery of a North-East Arctic Passage to India and the Spice Islands (Moluccas), and in 1594 Barents, with two ships, sailed from Amsterdam to try and find it, though earlier English expeditions had failed to do so. He reached the coast of Novaya Zemlya, a Russian island in the Arctic Circle which divides what would become the Barents and the Kara Sea, and followed it northward until ice prevented him from going further. The following year he repeated the attempt with seven ships but failed to reach the Kara Sea, being held up by ice off Vaygach Island, situated between the mainland and Novaya Zemlya. During a third voyage undertaken with two ships in 1596, he discovered Spitsbergen and Bear Island, before the two ships separated. It was these discoveries that sparked the whaling industry in Arctic waters.

Barents made for the north point of Novaya Zemlya, which this time he succeeded in rounding into the Kara Sea before being beset by ice and compelled to winter there. The following spring, as the ship was still held fast, it was decided to abandon it. This was done in two open boats, but Barents, already suffering from the hardships of an Arctic winter, died seven days later, on 20 June. Part of his journal was found four years later, but it was not until 1871 that his headquarters on Novaya Zemlya were discovered and the contents removed to The Hague. His name was perpetuated when the Murmean Sea to the eastward of North Cape was renamed the Barents Sea in 1853.

See also exploration by sea.

Willem Barentz , d. 1597, Dutch navigator. He made three voyages (1594, 1595, 1596-97) in search of the Northeast Passage to Asia. He reached Novaya Zemlya on the first two expeditions. On the third he accidentally discovered Spitsbergen, rounded the north point of Novaya Zemlya, and was caught in the ice. After the arctic winter the crew started for the mainland in two small boats. Barentz died on the way. The extent of his explorations and the accuracy of his charts made him one of the most important of all arctic explorers. The meteorological data that Barentz collected are still consulted today.

Barents, Willem (c.1550–97) Dutch explorer and leader of several expeditions in search of a NORTH-EAST PASSAGE to Asia, south of the Arctic Ocean. He discovered Spitsbergen and reached the Novaya Zemlya archipelago north of European Russia. His accurate charting and valuable meteorological data make him one of the most important of the early Arctic explorers. The Barents Sea, north of Russia, is named after him.

Barents, Willem (d.1597) Dutch navigator and Arctic explorer. He made three expeditions (1594–97) in search of the Northeast Passage. On his third voyage, he discovered Svalbard and, crossing the sea now named after him, reached Novaya Zemlya. His ship was trapped by ice, and the crew built a shelter – most survived until the following year's thaw, but Barents died before they reached safety.

Barents, Willem (d. 1597), Dutch explorer. The leader of several expeditions in search of the North-East Passage to Asia, Barents discovered Spitsbergen and reached Novaya Zemlya, off the coast of which he died; the Barents Sea is named after him.