"Wrangel: Cradle of the Polar Bears No. 2" — Cruise No. 12

Port of Anadyr is a federally significant seaport located in the northern part of the Bering Sea, on the northwestern coast of Anadyr Bay. It is the largest seaport in Chukotka.

Photo: AlGaman, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Transfiguration Bay of the Sea of Japan is located in the southeast of Lazovsky District, east of Cape Ostrovnoy Bay, bounded to the northwest by Cape Matveeva and to the southeast by Cape Ovsyankina. On the landward side stretches the vast Lazovsky Nature Reserve for many kilometers. On the shore of the bay lies the large fishing village of Preobrazhenie. The village is named after the Orthodox holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord, as it was founded on that very day.

Photo: Vera. vvo, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Wrangel Island is a Russian island in the Arctic Ocean, located between the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea. It is named after the 19th-century Russian explorer and statesman Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel.

The Wrangel Island Nature Reserve was established to preserve and study the typical and unique ecosystems of Arctic island territory. During the last glacial periods, the island’s soil cover and fauna remained untouched by ice, preserving a landscape and biodiversity largely unchanged since the Pleistocene era hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Wrangel Island is also famously known as a maternity denning site for polar bears. Each year, hundreds of female bears come here to give birth in dens, emerging with their cubs in March or April and remaining on the island until the young are ready to face the harsh Arctic environment.

"Wrangel Island" is the northernmost nature reserve in Russia, located within the Iultinsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The reserve includes two islands in the Chukchi Sea: Wrangel and Herald.

Herald Island is a remote landmass in the Chukchi Sea, located about 70 kilometers east of Wrangel Island. It is a granite-gneiss outcrop covering an area of 11.3 square kilometers. The island reaches a maximum elevation of 364 meters above sea level. Together with Wrangel Island, it forms part of the Wrangel Island State Nature Reserve, one of Russia’s most important Arctic protected areas. Administratively, the island belongs to the Iultinsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

The climate is harsh and Arctic: for most of the year, cold, dry air masses from the Arctic dominate the region. In summer, warmer, more humid air from the Pacific can reach the area, while occasionally, hot and dry air arrives from Siberia. The polar day lasts from mid-May to late July, while the polar night sets in from mid-November to late January.

Herald Island was discovered in 1849 by British naval officer Henry Kellett during a search for the lost Franklin Expedition. It was named after his ship, the brig HMS Herald.

Gilmymyl Bay is home to a hot thermal spring that is famous throughout Chukotka.

Photo: Vera.vvo, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Cape Dezhnev is the easternmost point of the Chukchi Peninsula, making it the easternmost mainland point of Russia and the entire Eurasian continent.

It is a flat-topped, isolated mountain massif rising up to 740 meters and descending steeply into the sea.

Cape Dezhnev was first reached in the autumn of 1648 by a Russian expedition led by Semyon Dezhnev. In doing so, he became the first in history to navigate the Bering Strait (in effect discovering it) and round the Chukchi Peninsula. This achievement solved a major geographic mystery, providing proof that America is a separate continent and that it is possible to sail from Europe to China via the northern seas around Siberia.

Photo: Public domain

A large bay in the Chukchi Sea, located on the northern coast of the Chukotka Peninsula. Its original name was Kolyuchinskaya Guba.

In 1793, the bay was named Count Bezborodko Bay in honor of Russian statesman Alexander Bezborodko. However, local residents did not adopt the name, and it was later renamed Kolyuchinskaya Bay after the nearby Kolyuchin Island.

The bay stretches for 100 kilometers, with depths ranging from 7 to 14 meters. Kolyuchinskaya Bay is covered with ice for most of the year. Its mouth lies only 2.8 km from the Arctic Ocean, separated by the Serykh Gusey Islands and the Belyaka Spit. The width of the bay increases to 37 kilometers as it extends southward into the mainland.

Kolyuchin Island is located in the Chukchi Sea, in the northern part of the Iultinsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, near the Indigenous village of Nutepelmen. The shortest distance to the mainland across the Sergievsky Strait is 11.3 km. The island is a rocky remnant of a mountain massif, with a maximum elevation of 188 meters above sea level.

Its Russian name comes from a distorted Chukchi word Kuvlyuchin, meaning "round." In the Chaplino Eskimo language, the island is known as Kulusik, or "separate ice floe." When British explorer James Cook visited the region, he marked it on his maps as Burney’s Island.

From 1943 to 1992, Kolyuchin was home to a Soviet polar research station. In 2022, photographer Dmitry Kokh captured a haunting scene with a drone: more than 20 polar bears roaming the ruins of the long-abandoned station. A photo of one of the bears peering through a window frame won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022 award in the "Urban Wildlife" category.

Photo: Dmitry Kokh, Dmitry Kokh / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Uelen is a rural locality in the Chukotsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. It is the easternmost inhabited settlement in both Russia and the entire continent of Eurasia. The village occupies a narrow strip of land just 300 meters wide — with a lagoon on one side and the Chukchi Sea on the other. Houses are built on stilts, a necessity in permafrost regions. During storms, waves sometimes reach and flood the stairways of the buildings. From time to time, walrus and whale carcasses wash ashore, attracting bears with their scent.

The village is home to about 600 residents, mostly Chukchi and Eskimos. The main occupations are fishing and marine mammal hunting.

According to archaeological excavations, the area of modern-day Uelen was originally settled by Eskimos. However, by the late 17th and early 18th centuries, they were gradually displaced by the Chukchi. Uelen first appeared on European maps in 1792 during the Billings-Sarychev expedition.

The Bering Strait is a narrow, intercontinental and interoceanic waterway connecting the Arctic Ocean with the Pacific and separating Asia (at its easternmost continental point—Cape Dezhnev in Russia’s Chukotka) from North America (at its westernmost continental point—Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska, USA).

In anthropology, the Bering Strait as it existed over 10,000 years ago is considered part of the now-submerged Bering Land Bridge, which early humans—Paleo-Indians—used to migrate into the Americas, becoming the ancestors of Indigenous peoples. Recent studies suggest that the first migrants arrived in the Americas from Siberia in a single wave no earlier than 23,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The strait is named after Russian explorer Vitus Bering, who sailed through it in 1728. However, 80 years before Bering’s voyage, in 1648, the Russian expedition led by Semyon Dezhnev crossed from Chukotka to Alaska, also visiting the Ratmanov and Kruzenshtern Islands located in the middle of the strait.

Crossing the strait is strictly prohibited, as it forms part of the international border between Russia and the United States.

Photo: NASA, Public Domain