Kara Sea

The Kara Sea lies east of Novaya Zemlya, its cold waters and shifting ice barring the way along the northern coast of Siberia. Russian traders knew a route towards the mouth of the Ob by the early sixteenth century, carrying small boats across the Yamal Peninsula between waterways. Dutch expeditions seeking a northeastern passage reached these seas in the 1590s, but ice frustrated their attempts to continue eastward. Navigation depended upon brief seasons and hard-won knowledge of channels and coasts.