The following years Norwegian authorities put much effort into annexing Victoria Island and Franz Josef Land. Norway was notified on 6 May and officially protested on 19 December, contesting the Soviet claim. Consequently, the island was considered Terra nullius, until a Soviet decree of 15 April 1926 that claimed a Soviet sector in the Arctic region that also included Franz Josef Land and Victoria Island. Nilsen of the steam yacht Victoria, owned by the English adventurer Arnold Pike, sighted the island and named it after the yacht.Īlthough Victoria Island is situated only less than 32 nautical miles (59 km 37 mi) off Kvitøya in the Svalbard archipelago, it lies east of the territories put under the sovereignty of Norway according to the Spitsbergen Treaty in 1920. The island was discovered on 20 July 1898 by two Norwegian sealing captains, Johannes Nilsen and Ludvig Bernard Sebulonsen. By 2012 the surface of the ice cap was only 6.1 km 2 (2.4 sq mi). Since then the ice cover has retreated and has remained a narrow strip of unglaciated shore stretching along the northwestern side. In the 1990s there was an area of about 10 hectares (25 acres) at the northern end of the island that was unglaciated.
Victoria Island has a surface area of 10.8 km 2 (4.2 sq mi) and was formerly almost completely covered by an ice cap where the highest point reached 105 m (344 ft) above sea level.
The Northwestern cape is known as Cape Knipovich ( Russian: Мыс Книповича Mys Knipovicha). The maximum height of Victoria Island is 105 m (344 ft). This westernmost of all Russian Arctic islands is administered as part of Franz Josef Land and belongs to the Arkhangelsk Oblast administrative division of the Russian Federation.
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