Newly discovered Yaya, bound in sea ice, is shown in this NASA image from June 2013. /Credit: NASA/Cryopolitics

Russia has been ramping up its military presence in the Siberian Arctic this fall. And they’ve had to do so around a new point on the map: a small island, discovered just south of the Northern Sea Route.

The speck of land was first spotted last year, by two helicopter pilots flying equipment north to the New Siberian Islands. The even newer island is known as Yaya -- the Russian word for I, repeated twice. That’s as in two pilots saying “I found it first,” according to Arctic news blog Cryopolitics.

Yaya was put on the map in September 2013, the first full month of the year when the Northern Sea Route was free of sea ice. Usually, the little island is stuck in that ice -- but Cryopolitics reports that Yaya still sticks out on satellite imagery year-round.

Now, Yaya and the seas around it are part of Russia’s territory. It’s the latest addition to the map in region that's still not fully charted -- even as melting ice clears the way for new shipping traffic.