Wiencke Island

Wiencke Island (coord|64|54|S|63|43|W) is an island 16 miles long and from 2 to 5 miles wide, about 67 km in area, the southernmost of the major islands of the Palmer Archipelago, lying between Anvers Island to its north and the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The island seems to have been discovered first by Edward Bransfield on board the brig "Williams" in January of 1820, but he named it a cape. In 1829 Henry Foster sailed around the island. In 1873 the German Eduard Dallmann was the first to land on the island, and reported it 'a lonely place'. The island was named by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, 1897-99, under Adrien de Gerlache, for Carl August Wiencke, a Norwegian seaman who fell overboard and lost his life on the expedition.

The rocky island is mostly covered by glaciers, snow and ice. Some small rocky beaches lie on the western and northern sides of the island. There, some tussock grasses and spare moss can be found. There are three mountain ridges, with Nemo Peak (864 m) to the north west, Nipple Peak to the north-east, and Luigi Peak (1435 m) to the south-west. Luigi Peak is probably the island's summit, although the island has never been completely surveyed. Minor islands surround it, such as Breakwater Island (33 m high), located 5 miles north of Cape Astrup, Wiencke Island's northernmost point. Near the south-east side is Fridtjof Island (136 m), connected to Wiencke by a chain of small rocks and islets. In the vicinity of Cape Willems, the southeasternmost extremity of Wiencke, are the Boby Islands, three in number, of volcanic origin (134 m high).

During World War II, the German Navy used the waters of the Palmer Peninsula and the sub- Antarctic islands as a base from which they attacked allied shipping. Great Britain set up a base on Deception and Wiencke Islands and at Hope Bay to fight the Germans. One such restored base is on Goudier Island, off Jougla Point, Wiencke's southwestern end.

In 1954 the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) built an automated weather station on the north side of Wiencke Island, but it was destroyed by a storm in 1956. Another scientific station was established in 1961 by the Chilean Navy on the west side of the island, in a small sheltered anchorage named Port Lockroy, discovered by Jean-Baptiste Charcot on 19 February 1904. Some emergency shelters were built several years later on the east coast of the island.