Arctic Ocean over the Arctic Ocean (see Polar route). The Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about , almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is long. It is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is generally taken to include Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, White Sea and other tributary bodies of water. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the
Kara katorga Kara katorga Kara katorga (Russian: Карийская каторга, Kariyskaya katorga) was the name for a set of katorga prisons of extremely high security located along the Kara River in Transbaikalia (a tributary of the Shilka River, flowing into it at Ust-Karsk) and part of the system of Nerchinsk katorga. George Kennan noted in 1885, "The mines of Kara, which are the private property of his Imperial Majesty the Tsar, and are worked for his benefit, consist of a series of open gold placers." From south to north over 20 miles of the Kara River, they are Ust Kara, Lower Prison, Political