Wiencke Island

Wiencke Island is the southernmost island of the Palmer Archipelago, a long stretch of islands in the northwestern part of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Wiencke sits between Anvers Island to the west and Graham Land on the Antarctic mainland to the east, separated by the Neumayer Channel and the Gerlache Strait respectively.

The snow covered island sports towering cliffs, large glaciers but also secluded bays like Port Lockroy.

The lands and waters in this area were named by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Baron Adriene de Gerlache who explored the region in 1897-1899.

Among the members of the expedition were Amundsen, Artowski and Cook, who all went on to become major players in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

The team was forced to spend winter in the area as their ship the Belgica got stuck in the ice. During the long polar night they suffered from hypothermia, famine and scurvy.

One Belgian had enough and staggered off to walk back to Anvers. But sofar he has not yet shown up.

At the end of the next summer the crew dynamited a channel through the ice to finally get to open waters and sail back to the civilized world.

De Gerlache named Wiencke Island to honor an unlucky Norwegian crew member who went overboard.

This part of Antarctica is frequently visited by cruise ships because of the majestic natural sceneries and the relative ease of access.