Nansen Island (Kara Sea) especially during Operation Wunderland. In some maps Nansen Island is named simply as Nansena. This island should not be confused with another Russian island called Nansen Island, which is part of Franz Josef Land, in the Arctic Ocean. Both islands are named in the honor and memory of Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen. Nansen Island (Kara Sea) Nansen Island (), is a long and narrow island in the coast of the Kara Sea. Its length is and its average width about . This island is located in an area of skerries right off the western coast of the Taymyr Peninsula. Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen carried out researches in the northern Atlantic, and in 1912 he took his own yacht, "Veslemøy", to Bear Island and Spitsbergen. The main objective of the "Veslemøy" cruise was the investigation of salinity in the North Polar Basin. One of Nansen's lasting contributions to oceanography was his work designing instruments and equipment; the "Nansen bottle" for taking deep water samples remained in use into the 21st century, in a version updated by Shale Niskin. At the request of the Royal Geographical Society, Nansen began work on a study of Arctic discoveries, which developed into a two-volume history of the exploration