Wrangel Island

Wrangel escaped glaciation during the last ice age, which is why it holds an unusually rich Arctic flora - over four hundred plant species, roughly twice any comparable Arctic island - and why it was listed by UNESCO in 2004. It has the highest density of polar bear dens anywhere, with several hundred females coming ashore to give birth each winter; the largest Pacific walrus haul-outs, in tens of thousands; the only Russian breeding colony of snow geese; and a substantial muskox and reindeer population. Its most remarkable fact is palaeontological: an isolated mammoth population survived on Wrangel until around 2000 BC, thousands of years after mainland extinction and centuries after the Egyptian pyramids were built, probably the last mammoths anywhere. There is no settlement, access is by expedition ship in a window of a few weeks, and every landing is governed by bear protocols and armed rangers.

History

Wrangel is generally accepted as the last place on Earth where an isolated population of woolly mammoths lived, until their extinction about 2000 BC according to radiocarbon dates on their bones; once thought to be a dwarf form, they fall within the size range of mainland Siberian mammoths. A 2017 study saw a genetic meltdown in the last animals, while a 2024 study found that many harmful mutations had been purged, suggested a sudden catastrophe instead, and concluded that the mammoths were gone several centuries before people arrived. The earliest and only known pre-modern human site on the island is Chertov Ovrag on the south coast, a Paleo-Eskimo hunting camp of about 3,600 years ago, where bones of snow geese, seals, a walrus and a polar bear lay with stone tools and a walrus-tusk harpoon head (Wikipedia, Wrangel Island).

The landscape

• The bear denning - the highest density of polar bear dens on earth.
• The walrus haul-outs - Pacific walrus in tens of thousands on the beaches.
• The mammoth record - an isolated population surviving here until around 2000 BC.
• The unglaciated flora - over four hundred plant species, twice the Arctic norm.

When to go

August to early September, the only navigable window. Two weeks aboard an expedition ship. Landings depend entirely on ice, fog and swell.

Things to know

Expedition cruise only, expensive, and booked a year or more ahead. Ice conditions cancel landings and sometimes whole voyages. Polar bear protocols govern every step ashore and rangers are armed. Permits and border paperwork are handled by operators and are not negotiable.

Nearby

Chukotka's mainland coast is south; Pevek is the nearest port.

Key facts