List of Arctic expeditions

Gerardus Mercator's 1595 map of the Arctic

This list of Arctic expeditions is a timeline of historic expeditions in, and explorers of, the Arctic.

Pre-expedition

Inuit, Greek, and Viking voyages in the far north (Faroes/Greenland/Novaya Zemlya)

1400s

1472 the Pining–Pothorst Expedition led by Didrik Pining and Hans Pothorst marks the first of the cartographic expeditions to Greenland
1496 Russian, G. Istoma venturing out of the White Sea explores the Murman Coast and the coast of northern Norway, also the western coast of Novaya Zemlya
1497 Russian Pomors, D. Zaytsev and D. Ralev venturing out of the White Sea follow the route of G. Istoma

1500s

The Death of Wiliam Barents

1553 English expedition led by Hugh Willoughby with Richard Chancellor as second in command searches for the Northeast Passage
1575–77 English expeditions led by Martin Frobisher reaches Baffin Island
1579 Danish expedition led by John Allday fails to reach Greenland due to ice
1585–87 English expeditions led by John Davis explore the Davis Strait–Baffin Bay region and reaches Upernavik
1596–97 Dutch expedition piloted by Willem Barentsz discovers Spitsbergen and registered the first recorded Farthest North

1600s

1605–07 Danish king, Christian IV of Denmark, sends three expeditions led by John Cunningham, Godske Lindenov and Carsten Richardson (all piloted by James Hall), to search for the lost Eastern Settlement, one of the Norse colonies on Greenland
1606 John Knight, who had captained the Katten in 1605 with John Cunningham, dies commanding a joint Muscovy Company/East India Company expedition in search of the Northwest Passage
1607 Henry Hudson explores Spitsbergen
1610 Jonas Poole thoroughly explores Spitsbergen's west coast, reporting that he saw a "great store of whales"; this report leads to the establishment of the English whaling trade
1610 Russian, K. Kurochkin explores mouth of the Yenisei River and adjoining coast
1612 James Hall and William Baffin explore southwest Greenland

Thomas Button

1612–13 British Button Expedition, commanded by Thomas Button, names Mansel Island
1613 Several whaling expeditions, consisting of a total of at least thirty ships, from England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands crowd Spitsbergen's west coast
1614 Dutch and French expeditions discover Jan Mayen
1615 Robert Fotherby, in the pinnace Richard, is the first English expedition to reach Jan Mayen
1616 English expedition piloted by William Baffin explores the Davis Strait-Baffin Bay region
1619–20 Danish expedition led by Jens Munk in Enhiörningen (Unicorn) and Lamprenen (Lamprey) to discover the Northwest Passage penetrated Davis Strait as far north as 69°, found Frobisher Bay, spent a winter in Hudson Bay
1633–34 I. Rebrov explores the mouth of the Lena River
1633–35 Ilya Perfilyev explores the Lena and Yana Rivers and intervening coast
1638 I. Rebrov explores coast between the Lena and Indigirka Rivers
1641 Dimitry Zyryan and Mikhail Stadukhin explore the mouth of the Indigirka River and adjoining coast
1646 I. Ignatyev explores the mouth of the Kolyma River and adjoining coast
1648 Ya. Semyonov explores the mouth of Kotuy River and adjoining coast
1648 Semyon Dezhnev and Fedot Alekseyevich Popov explore from the Kolyma River through the Bering Strait
1649 Mikhail Stadukhin explores the coast from the Kolyma River to the Bering Strait
1686–87 Bezvestnaya Expedition explores the coast of the Taymyr Peninsula

1700s

Vasily Chichagov

1712 Merkury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov explore the vicinity of the mouth of the Yana River and adjoining coasts, both were murdered by mutineering expedition members
1725–30 Vitus Bering leads the First Kamchatka expedition
1733–43 Great Northern Expedition (Second Kamchatka expedition) explores the coast from the Ob River to the Lena River
1751–53 Peder Olsen Walløe explores the east coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell in umiaks
1760–63 S.F. Loshkin explores Novaya Zemlya
1765–66 Vasily Chichagov explores the Kola Peninsula coast and Spitzbergen
1768–69 F.F. Rozmyslov explores Novaya Zemlya and the Matochkin Strait
1773 Ivan Lyakhov discovered Kotelny Island
1773 Captain Constantine Phipps in HMS Carcass and Commander Skeffington Lutwidge in HMS Racehorse reach 80° 37' N, with a young midshipman, Horatio Nelson among the crew.^[1]

1800s

1800 Yakov Sannikov charts Stolbovoy Island
1809–11 Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom explore the New Siberian Islands
1818 Royal Navy expedition led by captain David Buchan^[2]
1818 Royal Navy expedition led by John Ross, with his nephew, James Clark Ross, to search for the Northwest Passage extended north along the west coast of Greenland to Pituffik and met the Inughuit (Greenlandic Inuit) of Cape York
1819 Royal Navy expedition aboard HMS Hecla and HMS Griper led by William Edward Parry^[3]

Ferdinand von Wrangel

1819–22 The Coppermine Expedition, led by John Franklin, included George Back and John Richardson
1820–24 Ferdinand von Wrangel and Fyodor Matyushkin explore the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea areas
1821–24 Fyodor Litke explores the eastern Barents Sea and the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, including Matochkin Strait
1821–23 Pyotr Anjou continues exploration of New Siberian Islands
1822 William Scoresby lands in east Greenland near the mouth of the fjord system that would later be named for him – Scoresby Sound
1823 Douglas Clavering and Edward Sabine explores East Greenland northwards to Clavering Island, where they get in contact with the now extinct Northeast Greenland Inuit
1826 Frederick William Beechey aboard HMS Blossom explores the Alaskan coast from Point Barrow to the Bering Strait
1827 First Norwegian expedition to the Arctic, led by Baltazar Mathias Keilhau
1827 Royal Navy expedition to Spitsbergen led by William Edward Parry reaches 82°45’N^[4]
1828–30 Danish expedition led by Wilhelm August Graah tries to locate the Eastern Settlement in southeast Greenland, but does not reach Ammassalik Island.
1829–33 Royal Navy expedition led by John Ross to search for the Northwest Passage became the first European to explore James Ross Strait and King William Land, located the North Magnetic Pole at 70°05′N 96°44′W / 70.083°N 96.733°W / 70.083; -96.733
1833 P.K. Pastukhov explores the southern half of the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya
1833–35 Royal Navy expedition led by George Back going from Fort Reliance, became the first European to see the Back River and then on to the mouth at Chantrey Inlet^[5]
1836 George Back attempts to ascertain if Boothia Peninsula is an island or a peninsula but his ship, HMS Terror, is trapped by ice near Southampton Island^[6]
1838–40 La Recherche Expedition, under the command of Joseph Paul Gaimard, was a purely scientific nature, rather than a colonial venture
1845 Franklin's lost expedition led by Sir John Franklin in HMS Erebus, captained by James Fitzjames with Francis Crozier in HMS Terror is sent to map the remaining Northwest Passage
1848 John Richardson and John Rae lead the Rae–Richardson Arctic Expedition and searched overland for Franklin's lost expedition

John Rae

1850 McClure Arctic Expedition led by Robert McClure, a British search for the members of Franklin's lost expedition
1850–51 First Grinnell Expedition led by Edwin De Haven, first American search for the members of Franklin's lost expedition and found the graves of crew members John Torrington, William Braine and John Hartnell on Beechey Island
1852 Edward Augustus Inglefield in the Isabel and sponsored by Jane Franklin, Franklin's widow sets out to search for Franklin's ill-fated expedition
1853–55 Second Grinnell Expedition led by Elisha Kane looks for Franklin searching Grinnell Land^[7]
1857–59 British expedition led by Francis Leopold McClintock was the fifth expedition sponsored by Lady Franklin and found artefacts, a crew members skeleton and the final written communications from the last survivors of the Franklin expedition
1860–61 American expedition led by Isaac Israel Hayes who claimed to have seen the Open Polar Sea
1860–62 First expedition led by American Charles Francis Hall
1864–69 Second expedition led by Charles Francis Hall
1868 First German North Polar Expedition led by Carl Koldewey along the east coast of Greenland
1869–70 Second German North Polar Expedition (Germania and Hansa) led by Carl Koldewey reaches Sabine Island
1871–73 Third expedition led by Charles Francis Hall the Polaris expedition
1872–74 Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition led by Captain Karl Weyprecht
1875–76 British Arctic Expedition led by Captain George Nares
1876–78 Norwegian Northern Seas Expedition in Vøringen explored the Northern Atlantic up to 80°N
1877–78 Henry W. Howgate leads the Howgate Preliminary Polar Expedition to promote scientific experiments, and whaling as a source of revenue
1878 J. A. D. Jensen explores the inland ice sheet from west Greenland

J. A. D. Jensen

1878–81 different voyages with Dutch polar schooner Willem Barents in the area around Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya, organised by Royal Dutch Geographical Society. Goals were 1) placing memorial stones for 17th century Dutch discoveries and 2) scientific research.
1878–79 Swedish Vega Expedition, led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld
1879–82 Jeannette Expedition with Lt. George W. De Long (commander) and George W. Melville (chief engineer), their ship the USS Jeannette was trapped and crushed in ice^[8]
1880 Henry W. Howgate leads the Howgate Arctic Expedition to do scientific and geographical exploration of Greenland
1881–84 Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, US Army Signal Corps expedition led by Adolphus Greely
1882–83 As part of the First International Polar Year the Danish Dijmphna expedition travels to the territory between Russia and the North Pole
1883–85 Umiak Expedition led by Gustav Holm and Thomas Vilhelm Garde along the southeastern coast of Greenland in the shallow waters between the coast and the sea ice.
1883 Failed attempt by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld to cross Greenland from the west
1886 Failed attempt by Robert Peary (USA) to cross Greenland
1888–89 First successful crossing of the Greenland inland ice by the Norwegian expedition led by Fridtjof Nansen (from east to west)
1891–92 The East Greenland Expedition on the Hekla led by Carl Ryder fails to get through the sea ice of east Greenland, but explores the Scoresby Sound system in detail
1891–92 Third US Greenland expedition led by Peary to discover if Greenland is an island or a peninsula
1892 Björling-Kallstenius Expedition led by Alfred Björling was eventually wrecked on the Carey Islands
1893–95 Fourth US Greenland expedition led by Peary
1893–96 Nansen's Fram expedition by Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen on the Fram and over ice towards the North Pole
1894–97 Jackson–Harmsworth expedition, led by Frederick George Jackson

Salomon August Andrée

1897 Salomon August Andrée leads a failed three man Arctic balloon expedition on an attempt to reach the Pole, Andrée along with Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg die
1898–1902 Second Fram voyage under Otto Sverdrup
1898–1900 The Carlsbergfund Expedition to East Greenland led by Georg Carl Amdrup explores the Blosseville Coast
1899 Alfred Gabriel Nathorst explores the fjords of northeast Greenland, in particular the King Oscar Fjord system
1899 Attempt to ski to the North Pole from Franz Josef Land by Walter Wellman
1899 The Swedish-Russian Arc-of-Meridian Expedition was a five summer season and one winter season measuring of the meridian arcs
1899–1900 Italian North Pole expedition led by Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi on the renamed Stella Polare captained by Umberto Cagni

1900s

1898, 1899, 1906, 1907 Albert I, Prince of Monaco leads four Arctic expeditions with Princesse Alice
1900–03 Russian polar expedition of 1900–02 on-board Zarya is led by Eduard Toll
1901–02 First North Pole expedition financed by US industrialist William Ziegler, led by Evelyn Baldwin
1902–04 The Literary Expedition led by Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen together with Knud Rasmussen explores the northwest Greenland coast between Uummannaq and Thule
1903–06 Amundsen's ''Gjøa'' Expedition when Roald Amundsen on the Gjøa traversed the Northwest Passage for the first time
1903–05 Ziegler Polar Expedition overland, led by Anthony Fiala
1905–06 North Pole expedition led by Robert Peary, from Ellesmere Island
1906–08 The Danmark Expedition led by Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen reaches Nordostrundingen, but ends fatally
1906, 1907, 1909 The airship America and Walter Wellman
1906–08 Anglo-American Polar Expedition (Mikkelsen–Leffingwell Expedition)

Johan Peter Koch

1907 Johan Peter Koch and Aage Bertelsen report seeing Fata Morgana Land, a phantom island off the coast of northeast Greenland
1907–09 US North Pole expedition led by Frederick Cook
1909–12 The Alabama Expedition to northeast Greenland led by Ejnar Mikkelsen in an operation to recover bodies and logs of the fatal Danmark expedition
1908–09 expedition led by Robert Peary
1910–15 Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition in Taymyr and Vaigach
1912 First Thule Expedition – Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen explores North Greenland
1912–13 Johan Peter Koch and Alfred Wegener cross the inland ice in north Greenland
1912–15 Brusilov Expedition, ill-fated expedition led by Captain Georgy Brusilov
1913 Crocker Land Expedition to search for Crocker Island, a hoax reported by Robert Peary
1913–14 Russian expedition aboard Foka, led by Georgy Sedov
1913–18 Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913–1916 led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, initially in HMCS Karluk which was lost in 1913 and explored land that was unknown to the Inuit^[9]
1916–18 Second Thule Expedition – Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen explore north Greenland and establishes that Peary Land is not an island
1918–25 Roald Amundsen traversed the Northeast Passage with Maud
1919 Third Thule Expedition – Knud Rasmussen explores north Greenland and lays out depots for Roald Amundsen's polar drift in Maud
1919–20 Fourth Thule Expedition – Knud Rasmussen explores east Greenland
1921–23 Bicentenary Jubilee Expedition (commemorating Hans Egede's landing in Greenland) led by Lauge Koch explores north Greenland
1921–23 Wrangel Island Expedition – a land claim and colonisation attempt conceived, but not led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson – all members died apart from Iñupiat seamstress and cook Ada Blackjack
1921–24 Fifth Thule Expedition led by Knud Rasmussen crossed the Northwest Passage on dog sledges from Thule across Arctic Canada to Nome, Alaska demonstrates how Inuit culture could spread rapidly

Knud Rasmussen

1925 Flying boat expedition led by Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth
1926 Aircraft flight by Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett
1926 The airship Norge (Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and Lincoln Ellsworth)
1928 Eielson–Wilkins Arctic Ocean crossing (powered flight Alaska-Spitsbergen)
1928 The airship Italia (Umberto Nobile)
1930–31 Alfred Wegener's German Expedition to Greenland that led to his death at Clarinetania, Greenland halfway between Eismitte and West Camp
1930 Bratvaag Expedition, led by Gunnar Horn to Franz Josef Land, found long lost remains of Salomon August Andrée's expedition
1930–31 British Arctic Air Route Expedition was an expedition, led by Gino Watkins, that aimed to draw improved maps and charts of poorly surveyed sections of Greenland's coastline
1931 Sir Hubert Wilkins with submarine Nautilus (failed 800 km (500 mi) south of the pole)
1931 Sixth Thule Expedition led by Knud Rasmussen explores northeast Greenland
1931–34 The Three-year Expedition to East Greenland led by Lauge Koch explores northeast Greenland
1932 Icebreaker A. Sibiryakov makes the successful crossing of the Northern Sea Route in a single navigation without wintering
1932–33 1932–33 East Greenland expedition, also known as the Pan Am expedition, a four-man expedition to continue the work of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition
1933 Russian steamship SS Chelyuskin managed to get through most of the Northern Route before it was caught in the ice in September

Georgy Ushakov

1935 Ushakov Island, the last piece of undiscovered territory in the Soviet Arctic, was found by Georgy Ushakov aboard the Sadko
1937 Soviet aircraft Tupolev ANT-25 made several transpolar flights
1937–present Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations are, as of 2017, 41 scientific drift stations operating or were operating on drift ice
1937–38 MacGregor Arctic Expedition was led by Clifford J. MacGregor and overwintered at Etah, Greenland
1938–39 Mørkefjord expedition was an exploratory expedition to northeast Greenland led by Eigil Knuth
1946 Operation Nanook was a US cartographic mission to Thule and to erect a radio and weather station
1948 Russian scientific expedition led by Aleksandr Kuznetsov lands aircraft at Pole making them the first undisputed team to reach the Pole
1952–54 British North Greenland expedition was a British scientific mission, led by Commander James Simpson
1958 USS Nautilus passes under the Arctic ice
1959 Discoverer 1, a prototype with no camera, is the first satellite in polar orbit^[10]
1960 TIROS-1, is the first weather satellite in polar orbit; eventually returned 22,952 cloud cover photos^[11]
1968 Ralph Plaisted and three others reach the North Pole by snowmobile and are the first confirmed overland conquest of the Pole
1968–69 Wally Herbert, British explorer, reaches Pole on foot and traverses the Arctic Ocean
1971 Former football player Tony Dauksza becomes the first person to traverse the Northwest Passage in a canoe
1977 Arktika, nuclear-powered icebreaker, reaches the North Pole
1979–82 Kenichi Horie in Mermaid, was the first person to sail the Northwest Passage solo
1982 As part of the Transglobe Expedition Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton cross the Arctic Ocean in a single season
1986 Will Steger and party reach the north pole by dog sled without resupply

David Scott Cowper

1986–89 David Scott Cowper became the first person to have completed the Northwest Passage single-handed as part of a circumnavigation of the world
1988 Will Steger completes first south-north traverse of Greenland
1988 Soviet-Canadian 1988 Polar Bridge Expedition a group of thirteen Russian and Canadian skiers set out from Siberia skiing to Canada over the North Pole aided by satellites.
1992 Scientific environmental expedition; crossing of the Greenland inland ice by a Japanese expedition led by Kenji Yoshikawa (from east to west)
1993–94 Pam Flowers dog sledded alone2,500 mi (4,000 km) from Barrow, Alaska to Repulse Bay (Naujaat), Canada^[12]
1994 Shane Lundgren led expedition that began in Moscow and proceeded north of the Arctic Circle across Siberia to Magadan
1995 Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center joined Shane Lundgren in a flying expedition to chronicle indigenous peoples from Yakutsk to Alaska across the Bering Straits and Discovery Online was launched through this expedition
1995 Marek Kamiński unsupported walked to the North Pole on 23 May 1995 (27 December 1995, he reached the South Pole alone)
1996 Brazilian expedition by Marco Brotto

2000s

Alex Hibbert

2000 Ukraine - North Pole - 2000 Ukraine parachute expedition to the North Pole. It consisted of two parts: the flight on the Kyiv-Khatanga-North Pole-Khatanga-Kyiv route and the landing of parachutists from the Il-76 aircraft on the drifting ice of the North Pole among the boundless waters of the Arctic Ocean and the flight of the An-28 aircraft on a similar route with a landing on the same iceberg
2003 Pen Hadow makes solo trek from Canada to North Pole without resupply^[13]
2004 Together to the Pole – a Polish four-man expedition led by Marek Kamiński, with Jan Mela (a teenage double amputee, who in the same year reached also the South Pole)
2004 Five members of the Ice Warrior Squad reach the Geomagnetic North Pole, including the first two women in history to do so.
2006 Start of the French Tara expedition
2007 Arktika 2007, Russian submersible descends to the ocean floor below the North Pole from the Akademik Fyodorov
2007 Top Gear: Polar Special, BBC's Top Gear team are the first to reach the magnetic North Pole in a car
2007 The Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition uses Mars analog sites on Svalbard for testing of science questions and payload instruments onboard Mars missions
2008 Alex Hibbert and George Bullard complete the Tiso Trans Greenland expedition. The longest fully unsupported land Arctic journey in history at 1,374 mi (2,211 km)
2009 MLAE-2009 traversed the Arctic waters and ice between Ostrov Sredniy island of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago and the North Pole
2009 David Scott Cowper becomes the only person to have sailed the Northwest Passage solo in a single season
2011 MLAE-2011 led by Vasily Igorevich Yelagin travelled from Dudinka, Russia – North Pole – Resolute, Nunavut, Canada
2011 Edna Elias, at the time Commissioner of Nunavut and five other women, including the mayor of Cambridge Bay walked 220 km (140 mi) from Umingmaktok (Bay Chimo) to Cambridge Bay^[14]
2011 Old Pulteney Row To The Pole, a publicity stunt sponsored by Old Pulteney whisky, organised by Jock Wishart who also operated the Polar Race
2013 MLAE-2013
2013 Babouchka, a combination ice boat and sailing catamaran set out for the Pole. It was halted by ice. The two-man crew was rescued by a Russian icebreaker.^[15]
2015 Interdisciplinary Arctic Expedition "Kartesh" – complex arctic expedition, organized by the Polar Expedition Gallery project (later rebranded as Polar Expedition "Kartesh") in collaboration with the LMSU Marine Research Center. Research tasks: assessing the Arctic coastline vulnerability towards human impact; marine and coastal ecosystem and Arctic seas landform condition monitoring; West Arctic biodiversity research; oil oxidizing microorganism activity research; testing new methods of water areas remote sensing.
Fiann Paul, Alex Gregory and Carlo Facchino ocean rowing aboard Polar Row.
2017 Arctic Mission of two 15m sailboats led by Pen Hadow made it to 80° 10' N, sailing from and returning to Nome, Alaska.^[16]
2017 Polar Row, led by world's fastest ocean rower Fiann Paul, is the most record-breaking man-powered expedition (11 Guinness World Records). The team covered 1440 miles measured in a straight line in the Arctic Ocean in a row boat and pioneered ocean rowing routes from Tromsø to Longyearbyen, from Longyearbyen to Arctic Ice Shelf (79º55'500 N) and from the Arctic Ice Shelf to Jan Mayen.^[17]