Willem Barentz, a Dutch navigator, died June 20, 1597. He was appointed chief pilot of the vessel fitted out by the city of Amsterdam in the expedition which sailed from Holland June 5, 1594, in search of a passage to China and India northward of Asia. The ship in which Barentz sailed explored Nova Zembla, sailed to the N. E. extremity of the island, reaching lat. 77°, and then turned Lack (Aug. 1). The next year the government of Holland equipped a second expedition of seven vessels, spending half the summer in loading them with rich merchandise for the East. Barentz was appointed head pilot of the whole expedition, but it started so late in the season that nothing of importance was accomplished. The city of Amsterdam despatched a third expedition, consisting of two ships, under Jacobus van Heemskerk and Jan Cornelisz Ryp, May 18, 1596. Barentz was the pilot on one of them. The two vessels visited Spitzbergen together, and afterward parted company. Ba-rentz's vessel sailed in the direction of Nova Zembla, and succeeded in doubling its N. E. extremity, but then encountered ice, and being unable to continue its voyage eastward, turned southward Aug. 25. On Sept. 1 it was frozen up in Ice Haven, and the crew were forced to spend the winter there "in great cold, poverty, misery, and grief," and with no sun from Nov. 4 to Jan. 24. The crew, with the exception of two who had died, quitted Ice Haven June 14, 1597, in two open boats, and Barentz died a few days afterward.

The survivors after two and a half months reached the N. E. shore of Lapland, and were there rescued by Cornelizs.