Elling Carlsen Carlsen made his first voyage out of Hammerfest in Finnmark, Norway. In 1859, Carlsen discovered the island group that would later be named Kong Karls Land in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Although Carlsen is credited with the finding, the islands may have been first sighted by the whaler Thomas Edge in 1617. In 1863, Carlsen completed the first circumnavigation of Spitsbergen. During a voyage to the Arctic Ocean in 1871, Carlsen discovered the lodge of Willem Barentsz on the north-eastern shore of the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. This winter camp had been used as shelter by Barentsz
Severnaya Zemlya the islands, but adverse weather conditions forced them to turn southward when only an hour or two from viewing the archipelago's coastline. In the spring of 1931 Georgy Ushakov, accompanied by the geologist Nikolay Urvantsev, the veteran surveyor Sergei Zhuravlev, and the radio operator Vasily Khodov thoroughly surveyed Severnaya Zemlya during a two-year expedition to the archipelago. Ushakov and his team established a small base at Golomyanny – the western end of Sredniy Island, off October Revolution Island's western coast. From there they made multiple surveying trips into the interior and the coastlines of the larger islands. The first detailed