Gerrit de Veer

Novaya Zemlya's west coast as depicted in De Veer's diary

Gerrit de Veer (c. 1570–c. 1598) was a Dutch officer on Willem Barentsz' second and third [1] voyages of 1595 and 1596 respectively, in search of the Northeast passage. He was one of the junior officers during the second and third voyages of Jacob van Heemskerck and Willem Barentsz around the North over Spitsbergen to find a shorter passage to the East Indies. In 1596, Barentsz managed to round the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya, but then got stuck in the ice. The crew members had to spend the winter in a shelter wich was named "Het behouden Huys" or "Kept House"built with planks from their ship and driftwood washed ashore.

In the spring, when the sea slowly became navigable again, the crew members repaired two sloops. These allowed the crew on board to return to civilization. Expedition leader Barentsz, however, died a week after departure. His men did return to Kola peninsula, where they were picked up by a Dutch trading ship under the command of their former fellow traveler Jan Cornelisz Rijp.

De Veer [2] kept a diary of the voyages and in 1597, was the first person to observe and record the Novaya Zemlya effect, and the first Westerner to encounter a polar bear. They suffered from scurvy because of insufficient vitamin. Also By eating the liver of a polar bearthis caused hypervitaminosis A [3]. He described in his journal, the journey and wintering on Novaya Zemlya and later published it in Holland with the publisher Cornelis Claesz, who also published the work of his father, the historian Ellert de Veer. De Veer also describes the return with the sloops along the coast from Novaya Zemlya to Kola Peninsula tundra in:

"Amazing descriptions of three `seylagien,` so bizar, never heard off in the world,"

"Waerachtighe beschryvinghe van drie seylagien, ter werelt noyt soo vreemt ghehoort."

It is the only detailed account of this third trip and describes the events from day to day. De Veer also noted the position of the sun, planets and stars. By keeping track of the movement of the heavenly bodies, the crew members knew what day it was and when they could reasonably attempt to sail back to Holland. He described a sunrise on Jan. 24, 1597, two weeks earlier than expected. This put him and Jacob van Heemskerk at odds with eachother after their return. [Robbert Robbertsz le Canu],a teacher from Hoorn who moved to Amsterdam to teach seafaring skills, challenged the possibility on theoretical grounds. An explanation for the phenomenon was found in 1604, an arctic mirage and known as the Noyava Zemlya effect.