Bell Island (Franz Josef Land)

Bell Island (Russian: Остров Белл) is a small island in the south-west of the Franz Josef Land archipelago in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. The island was named by the English explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith for its bell-shaped mountain which rises steeply from the island's southern coast with the Barents Sea.

Not to be confused with Graham Bell Island.
Bell Island
Russian: Остров Белл
Bell Island with Benjamin Leigh Smith's Eira lodge in foreground
Geography
LocationArctic Ocean
Coordinates80°00′24″N 49°15′49″E
ArchipelagoFranz Josef Land
Highest elevation343 m (1125 ft)
Highest pointBell Mountain
Administration
Russia

History

On July 11, 1880 John Gray's Hope and David Gray's Eclipse met up with the Eira and Leigh Smith. Photographer W.J.A. Grant took a photograph aboard the Eira of Arthur Conan Doyle along with Smith, the Gray brothers, and ship’s surgeon William Neale. This was the Smith exploration of Franz Josef Land that on August 18th resulted in the naming of Cape Flora, Bell Island, Nightingale Sound, Gratton ("Uncle Joe") Island, and Mabel Island.[1]

The island was the first among the Franz Josef archipelago to be visited by Benjamin Leigh Smith in his 1880 expedition. In his second expedition to the islands in 1881, Smith built a wooden lodge on the north side of the island which he used to winter. The lodge stands to this day. The island was later visited by the Svyataya Anna of the ill-fated Brusilov Expedition in 1914.[2]

References
  1. Capelotti, P.J. (2013). Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England's Forgotten Arctic Explorer. New York: University of Calgary. pp. 156–162. ISBN 978-1-55238-712-2. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
  2. "Bell Island, Camp EIRA - Franz-Josef-Land". Retrieved 19 December 2018.
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