Wrangel Island
71°N · Chukchi Sea · UNESCO

Wrangel
Island

Last home of the mammoth. Dens of the polar bear.

An unglaciated Arctic sanctuary — among the richest wild places above the Circle.

A self-contained world that the ice age never fully claimed.

Between the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas, 140 kilometres off Chukotka, Wrangel rises from pack ice and fog. It was never buried by Quaternary glaciers, so ancient steppe and tundra survived here. Today the island, neighbouring Herald Island, and the surrounding waters form a strict nature reserve — quiet, almost uninhabited, and among the richest landscapes in the high Arctic.

Latitude
71° North
Area
7,608 km²
Reserve
Since 1976
World Heritage
2004
Polar bear walking across broken Arctic sea ice

Polar bears

Hundreds of females den here each winter. When the sea ice thins, the island becomes a summer refuge for the Chukchi Sea population.

Walrus resting on Arctic sea ice

Pacific walrus

Coastal rookeries can hold tens of thousands of animals — among the largest gatherings of Pacific walrus in the world.

Open Arctic tundra under a pale sky

High Arctic flora

More than 400 vascular plants — twice the richness of comparable Arctic tundra, including species found nowhere else.

Life-size woolly mammoth, the last of which survived on Wrangel Island
Until ~4,000 years ago

The last mammoths lived here.

After the mainland herds vanished, a small population survived on Wrangel — contemporaries of the first pyramids. Their tusks still surface on gravel bars and tundra. The island also feeds gray whales on the long migration from Mexico, shelters snow geese, muskox, Arctic fox, and more than a hundred nesting bird species.

Access is rare and tightly permitted. The land belongs to the animals.