Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskjold
Nordenskjöld, Nils Adolf Erik (1832-1901), a Swedish explorer. He was the first to complete the Northeast Passage by sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Nordenskjöld was born in Helsinki, Finland, of a Swedish family, and attended the university there. In 1858 he became curator of the mineralogical department of the Swedish Museum in Stockholm.
Nordenskjöld produced an improved map of Spitsbergen on the basis of surveys made in 1858, 1861, and 1864. In 1868 he reached 81° 42' north latitude by ship. This was the northernmost latitude reached to that date in the Eastern Hemisphere. During 1872-73 he tried unsuccessfully to reach the North pole by sledge.
In 1878 Nordenskjöld set out by ship from Tromsö, Norway, to cross the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific. He kept close to the Siberian coast, wintered near the Bering Sea because of ice, and then sailed into the Pacific the following summer. On his return to Sweden in 1880 he was made a baron. The Northeast Passage has since come into extensive use by Russian vessels.