Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as far as Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea in his first two voyages...

Jacob van Heemskerk was a Dutch explorer and later admiral commanding the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Gibraltar. Van Heemskerk's early fame arose from an attempts to discover an Arctic passage from Europe to China. Two vessels sailed from...

Vitus Bering was a Danish explorer. Explored the Siberian Far East and Alaska and claimed it for Russia. The value of Bering's work was not fully recognized for many years, but Captain Cook was able to prove Bering's accuracy as an observer...