Edgeøya

Edgeøya, occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is a Norwegian island located in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; it is the third largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve, home to polar bears and reindeer. Its eastern side is covered by an ice field. The island is 5,073 square kilometres (1,960 sq mi) in area, making it the third largest in the Svalbard archipelago. The island is named after Thomas Edge (died 1624), an English merchant and whaler. It is seldom visited today.

History

The history of Edgeøya's discovery has been a matter of dispute. Thomas Edge, writing in 1622, claimed the island was discovered by one of his ships in 1616. However, Joris Carolus, in a map published in 1614 and allegedly based on discoveries made by him the same year, shows what appears to be Edgeøya's south coast. Carolus showed the coastline split into two parts: "Onbekende Cust" (meaning "Unknown Coast" in Dutch) in the west, and "Morfyn" in the east. Islands are shown offshore of Morfyn. Martin Conway argued in 1901 that Carolus' chart indicated he discovered Edgeøya, but, as Wielder points out, Conway was ignorant of a map (engraved in 1612) by the Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius, which illustrated a coastline to the east of Spitsbergen. The coastline, indented, with islands offshore, was labelled "Gerrits Eylant". Wielder believed this to be the first record of Edgeøya's south coast.