Fridtjof Island
| Fridtjof Island | |
| Location | |
| Location: | 64°53’25"S, 63°21’4"W |
| Data | |
Fridtjof Island is an island lying in Gerlache Strait, a mile and a half north-east of Vázquez Island, off the south-east side of Wiencke Island in the Palmer Archipelago, which stretches along the west side of Graham Land in the British Antarctic Territory.
The island was discovered and roughly chartered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Gerlache in 1897–99. The Belgium expedition named the island Îlot Fridtjof, probably after Dr Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), the Norwegian Arctic explorer, who was famed as the leader of the trans-Greenland expedition of 1888-89, and of the Fram expedition that came close to the North Pole in 1893-96.
The island was recharted in 1959-67.