biography
| name: |
Barents, Willem
|
| |
also spelled Barentz
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pronunciation:
[baruhnts]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (c.1550–97)
|
| biography:
| Dutch navigator and cartographer. He was pilot to several Dutch expeditions in search of the Northeast Passage (1594, 1595) and responsible for the discovery and charting of the Spitsbergen group of islands. On his final journey (1596–7) his ship became trapped in the ice and the crew had to winter on the island of Novaya Zemlya in a hut built from parts of the ship (the ‘Behouden Huys’). He died on the return journey in 1597. His winter quarters were found undisturbed in 1871, and in 1875 part of his journal (now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam) was recovered by another expedition. The Barents Sea was named after him. |
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