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
Environmental inequality in Europe by the Russian Empire to prevent Norwegian expansion. The traditional Nenets name for the archipelago, which lies within European continental borders, is Edey Ya. According to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, during the Cold War approximately 500 Indigenous persons were relocated from Novaya Zemlya to make way for nuclear testing. The reindeer living on the island either died or were relocated to the mainland. Between 1954 and 1990, 132 nuclear test explosions, ninety four percent of the aggregate yield of nuclear testing in the former Soviet Union, were conducted on the islands. On October 30, 1961,