Wrangel Island tundra – US NOAA photo, via Wikimedia Commons.

While parts of Wrangel Island appear today much as they would have in the early twentieth century when they featured prominently in Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s plans, humans have substantially changed other areas during the last hundred years. Attempts at settlement have left abandoned structures and piles of garbage and hazardous waste at various locations around the island. See more pictures and details at Siberian Rusty: Russia’s Despoiled Wrangel Island.