[1] Willem Barentsz was born around 1550 in the village Formerum on the island Terschelling in the Seventeen Provinces, present-day Netherlands.

After shooting and wounding it with a musket when it tried to climb aboard the ship, the seamen decided to capture it with the hope of bringing it back to Holland.

Finding the task more difficult than they imagined, cold steel shattering against the tough hides of the animals, they left with only a few ivory tusks.

[1][8] Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and followed it northward before being forced to turn back in the face of large icebergs.

[13] In 1596, disappointed by the failure of previous expeditions, the States-General announced they would no longer subsidize similar voyages – but instead offered a high reward for anybody who successfully navigated the Northeast Passage.

[9] The Town Council of Amsterdam purchased and outfitted two small ships, captained by Jan Rijp and Jacob van Heemskerk, to search for the elusive channel under the command of Barentsz.

On 28 June they rounded the northern point of Prins Karls Forland, which they named Vogelhoek, on account of the large number of birds they saw there.

The ships once again found themselves at Bear Island on 1 July, which led to a disagreement between Barentsz and Van Heemskerk on one side and Rijp on the other.

Anxious to avoid becoming entrapped in the surrounding ice, he intended to head for the Vaigatch Strait, but their ship became stuck within the many icebergs and floes.

[7] After a failed attempt to melt the permafrost, the crew used driftwood and lumber from the ship to build a 7.8×5.5-metre lodge they called Het Behouden Huys (The Saved House).

[4] Dealing with extreme cold, the crew realised that their socks would burn before their feet could even feel the warmth of a fire – and took to sleeping with warmed stones and cannonballs.

By 8 November Gerrit de Veer, the ship's carpenter who kept a diary, reported a shortage of beer and bread, with wine being rationed four days later.

[8] In January 1597, the crew became the first to witness and record the atmospheric anomaly of a polar mirage, now coined the Novaya Zemlya effect due to this sighting.

[4] The raw flesh of the Arctic fox contains small amounts of vitamin C, which, unknown to the sailors, reduced the effects of scurvy.

[16] It took seven more weeks for the boats to reach the Kola Peninsula, where they were rescued by a Dutch merchant vessel commanded by former fellow explorer Jan Rijp who by that time had returned to the Netherlands and was on a second voyage, assuming the Barentsz crew to be lost, and found it by accident.

[7]The wooden lodge where Barentsz' crew sheltered was found undisturbed by Norwegian seal hunter Elling Carlsen in 1871.

[18] Captain Gunderson landed at the site on 17 August 1875 and collected a grappling iron, two maps and a handwritten translation of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman's voyages.

Gardiner also visited the site on 29 July where he collected 112 more objects, including the message by Barentsz and Heemskerck describing their settlement to future visitors.