Ferdinand von Wrangel
Baltic German explorer and Russian admiral (1797-1870)
Baron Ferdinand Friedrich Georg Ludwig von Wrangel (Russian: Фердинанд Петрович Врангель, romanized: Ferdinand Petrovich Vrangel; 9 January 1797 [O.S. 29 December 1796] – 6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1870) was a Russian statesman, naval officer and explorer of Baltic German origin. He was also an honorary member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences and a founder of the Russian Geographic Society. He is best known as the chief manager of the Russian-American Company and the governor of Russian settlements in Alaska.
Early life and education
Wrangel was born in Pskov, into the Baltic German nobility of the Wrangel family and was a distant nephew of Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich von Wrangel.
He graduated from the Naval Cadets College in 1815. He participated in Vasily Golovnin's world cruise on the ship Kamchatka in 1817–1819 and belonged to the cohort of Baltic-German navigators who were instrumental in Imperial Russia's maritime explorations.
Career
Kolymskaya expedition
He was appointed in 1820 to command the Kolymskaya expedition to explore the Russian polar seas. Sailing from St. Petersburg, he arrived at Nizhnekolymsk on 2 November 1820, and early in 1821 journeyed to Cape Shelagskiy on sledges drawn by dogs. He sailed afterward up Kolyma River, advancing about 125 miles into the interior, through territory inhabited by the Yakuts.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ferdinand von Wrangel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.