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22-753: Naval officer Frederick William Beechey named the river in 1826 for a geology professor at the University of Oxford in England. Other 19th-century names for the river included Russian translations of the Inuit as Kanyk and the Koyukon Indian as Kotsokhotana. Another translation of the Inuit was Kung-uk. This article about a location in the Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska

44-561: A long way and inflict a sharp puncture without making any noise. The end of the church was occupied by a guard of soldiers under arms with fixed bayonets." In July 1826, he named the three islands in the Bering Strait. Two were the Diomede Islands that Vitus Bering had named in 1728: "Ratmanoff Island" (Big Diomede) and "Krusenstern Island" (Little Diomede). Beechey called the uninhabited third islet " Fairway Rock ", which

66-630: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to a river in Alaska is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Frederick William Beechey Rear-Admiral Frederick William Beechey FRS (17 February 1796 – 29 November 1856) was an English naval officer , artist, explorer, hydrographer and writer. He was the son of two painters, Sir William Beechey , RA and his second wife, Anne Jessop . Born in London on 17 February 1796, his brothers included

88-467: Is centered on the west side of the island at the village of Diomede . Big Diomede Island is the easternmost point of Russia. The Diomede Islands are often mentioned as likely intermediate stops for the hypothetical bridge or tunnel ( Bering Strait crossing ) spanning the Bering Strait . During winter, an ice bridge usually spans the distance between these two islands. At these times, it

110-399: Is still its contemporary name. One of his crew, Petty Officer John Bechervaise, gave a detailed account of the voyage in his Thirty-six Years of a Seafaring Life by an Old Quartermaster , published privately in 1839. (The crewmember's namesake and great-great-grandson John Béchervaise (1910–1998) was a noted explorer of Antarctica.) In 1831, there appeared Beechey's Narrative of a Voyage to

132-575: Is theoretically possible (although not legal, since travel between the two islands is forbidden ) to walk between the United States and Russia. The first European to reach the Bering Strait was the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev in 1648. He reported two islands whose natives had bone lip ornaments, but it is not certain that these were the Diomedes. Danish navigator Vitus Bering re-discovered

154-643: The Alaska Purchase uses the islands to designate the boundary between the two nations: the border separates "equidistantly Krusenstern Island, or Ignaluk, from Ratmanov Island, or Nunarbuk, and heads northward infinitely until it disappears completely in the Arctic Ocean." During the Cold War , that gap constituted the border between the United States and the Soviet Union , and became known as

176-587: The International Date Line , Big Diomede is almost a day ahead of Little Diomede, but not completely; due to locally defined time zones, Big Diomede is only 21 hours ahead of Little Diomede (20 in summer). Because of this, the islands are sometimes called Tomorrow Island (Big Diomede) and Yesterday Island (Little Diomede). The islands are named for the Greek Saint Diomedes ; Danish-born Russian navigator Vitus Bering sighted

198-566: The " Ice Curtain ". In 1987, however, Lynne Cox swam from one island to the other, and was congratulated by both Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan for her feat. In summer 1995, British television actor and documentary presenter Michael Palin started his counterclockwise circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim , encompassing 18 countries, on Little Diomede Island, as part of the BBC series Full Circle . He intended to set foot on it again at

220-625: The British admiral and painter Richard Brydges Beechey , the portraitist Henry William Beechey and the painter George Duncan Beechey . Frederick entered the Royal Navy at the age of 10 under the command of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent . He was promoted to midshipman on February 8 1807 and saw active service during the War of 1812 . He served in the Battle of New Orleans . Because of this, he

242-603: The Diomede Islands on 16 August ( O.S. , 27 August N.S. ) 1728, the day on which the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the saint. The islands are separated by an international border, which also defines the International Date Line in that area, about 2 km (1.2 mi) from each island, at 168°58'37"W. At their closest points, the two islands are about 3.8 km (2.4 mi) apart. The small habitation on Little Diomede Island

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264-490: The Diomede Islands while leading a Russian expedition on 16 August (O.S., 26 August N.S.) 1728, the day when the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the martyr St. Diomede (hence, the name of the islands). In 1732, a Russian geodesist , Mikhail Gvozdev , determined longitude and latitude for the two islands. The text of the 1867 treaty between the United States and Russia which finalized

286-566: The International Date Line was moved to the east of Kiribati and that country's easternmost time zone ( GMT+14 ) is now the world's earliest. After they established a military base there in 1948, the Soviet government relocated the indigenous population of Big Diomede Island to mainland Russia. The island is now inhabited only by military units. Little Diomede had an Inupiat population of 170, which had declined to 115 at

308-721: The Pacific and Bering's Strait to Co-operate with the Polar Expeditions, 1825-1828 . In 1835 and '36, Captain Beechey was employed on the coast survey of South America , and from 1837 to 1847, carried on similar work along the Irish coasts, and in the North Sea and English Channel . He carried out detailed tidal surveys during this period, which were published, with charts, in two Royal Society papers in 1848 and 1851. This

330-519: The course of it, Beechey discovered several islands in the Pacific , and an excellent harbour near Cape Prince of Wales . In 1826, he visited a Catholic mission in California. He wrote, "...with whips, canes and goads or sharp, pointed sticks to preserve silence and maintain order, and what seemed more difficult than either, to keep the congregation in their kneeling posture. The goads would reach

352-666: The end of his eight-month trek, but was unable to do so because of rough seas. Big Diomede Island was traditionally the easternmost landmass before the International Date Line, and the first landmass to ring in a new year, if using local solar time . When using official time, however, a large area in eastern Russia and New Zealand also share the same time zone. New Zealand also has daylight saving time in effect during late December, but Russia does not (see time in New Zealand and time in Russia ). This became moot in 1995, however, when

374-528: The middle of the Bering Strait between mainland Alaska and Siberia . If marginal seas are considered, then they are the northernmost islands within the entire Pacific Ocean. To the north is the Chukchi Sea and to the south is the Bering Sea . Fairway Rock , 9.3 km (5.8 mi) to the southeast, is also Alaskan, but generally not seen as part of the Diomede Islands. Because they are separated by

396-660: The survey of the Mediterranean coast of Africa under the direction of Captain William Henry Smyth . His brother, Henry William Beechey, and he made an overland survey of this coast and published a full account of their work in 1828 under the title of Proceedings of the Expedition to Explore the Northern Coast of Africa from Tripoly [ sic ] Eastward in 1821-1822 . In 1825, Beechey

418-512: Was appointed to command HMS  Blossom . His task was to explore the Bering Strait in concert with Franklin and Parry operating from the east. In the summer of 1826, he passed the strait and a barge from his ship reached 71°23'31" N., and 156°21'30" W. near Point Barrow , which he named, a point only 146 miles west of that reached by Franklin's expedition from the Mackenzie River . The whole voyage lasted more than three years, and in

440-717: Was painter Frances Anne Hopkins , who lived in Canada for 12 years and painted many scenes of canoe travel. His parents and three of his brothers were painters: admiral and painter Richard Brydges Beechey , portraitist Henry William Beechey , and portraitist George Duncan Beechey . Diomede Islands The Diomede Islands ( / ˌ d aɪ . ə ˈ m iː d iː / ; Russian : острова́ Диоми́да , romanized :  ostrova Diomida ), also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands ( Russian : острова́ Гво́здева , romanized :  ostrova Gvozdeva ), consist of two rocky, mesa -like islands: The Diomede Islands are located in

462-548: Was promoted to 2nd lieutenant on March 10 1815 In early 1818, and now a lieutenant, Beechey sailed on HMS Trent under Lieutenant John Franklin in David Buchan 's Arctic expedition, of which at a later period he published a narrative. In the following year he accompanied Lieutenant W. E. Parry in HMS ; Hecla , sailing as far north as Melville Island . In 1821, as an officer on HMS Adventure , he took part in

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484-618: Was the first published work of its kind since Edmond Halley 's tidal chart appeared in about 1702. He was appointed in 1850 to preside over the Marine Department of the Board of Trade . In 1854, he was made rear admiral , and in the following year was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society . Beechey Island , where Sir John Franklin wintered, was named by him after his father. His daughter

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