Our Lost Explorers:: The Narrative of the Jeanette Arctic Expedition : Digital Scanning : 9781582182827 : 1582182825 : 01 Oct 2000 : Lieutenant George Washington De Long was an American explorer whose disastrous Arctic expedition in July of 1879 he set sail from San Francisco taking the Jeannette through the Bering Strait and heading for Wrangel Island, off the northeast coast of Siberia. On September 5th, the ship became trapped in the pack ice near Herald Island (now Gerald Island), east of Wrangel. With crewman George Melville's engineering skill, the boat was kept afloat for almost two years until it was finally crushed on June 12, 1881. The crew, including De Long, escaped with most of their provisions and three small boats. Their destination, the Siberian coast, lay some 600 miles away. They endured extreme hardships for the next two months as they crossed the ice. After reaching open water, one of the boats and the men aboard were lost. The remaining two boats became separate