LOG BOOK Svalbard, 31 July 03 August, 2012
- 2 - Map of Svalbard with landing locations. In the log book you will find numbers on the sections. Those numbers refer to the locations on this ma
31 JULY LONGYEARBYEN 78 10 N, 015 20 E Longyearbyen is a Norwegian settlement and the capital of Svalbard. It s named after the American John Munroe Longyear who started the first coal production in Longyear valley in 1906. In 1916 the Norwegian state owned company Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani AS bought the mine. Today Longyearbyen is a modern town with a relatively good range of facilities, taking the location into consideration. The population amounts to app. 2000 people. Today mining, science and tourism comprises three major business fields. paintings on the school made by an artist from St. Petersburg. We had a guided tour around the settlement with local guides and then entertained by an enchanting folklore show in the culture house. During the night the MS Nordstjernen sailed out of Isfjorden and passed the island of Prins Karls Forland on our way north to many anticipated adventures. 01 AUGUST At 12:00 we embarked the MS Nordstjernen and the Spitsbergen Adventure Cruise started. The ship sailed out of Adventfjorden and westwards, towards Barentsburg, passing the former coal-mining settlement Grumant and its adjacent harbour facility Coles Bay. 50 MAGDALENEFJORDEN 79 30' N, 010 30' E Early morning 4 BARENTSBURG 78 00 N, 014 00 E Barentsburg is the only Russian settlement which is still inhabited. Previously there was activity also in Grumant (until the early sixties) and Pyramiden (1998). Barentsburg is a mining settlement and is located on the eastern side of Grønfjorden. The first house in Barentsburg was built in 1912 by a Norwegian company and then in 1932 sold to a Dutch company; the N.V. Nederlandsche Spitsbergen Compagnie (NESPICO). Barentsburg is run by Trust Arcticugol, a company owned by the Russian state, and the settlement is still today a company town. It is a family community of 350 inhabitants with about thirty children. This is one of the most well-known fiords in Svalbard and also one of the few places where large cruise ships are able to anchor. It is a small fjord surrounded by cathedral like mountains and glaciers that fall into the sea. These is what met Willem Barentsz when he rediscovered Svalbard in 1596 and hence he gave the name Spitsbergen (Peaky Mountains) to the new land. Entering the fiord, a long beach reaches out on the south side. The outer part of the beach is a small hill serving as a funeral site. This is Gravneset where Dutch, British and French whalers from NW Spitsbergen came to bury their dead in the 17 th and 18 th century. Stone-gatherings and wooden-coffins remain from the graves and there are about 130 of them. Down on the beach are remaining from two blubber-ovens where whale blubber was boiled. Towards the end of the beach lies a small cabin where Sysselmannen has two field inspectors accommodated. We continued the navigation towards our next activity; a landing in the bay Sallyhamna. As we sailed past the Amsterdamøya a Polar Bear was spotted at Gjøaneset. The recent years Barentsburg has enjoyed a quite massive renovation. Especially worth noting are the
40 SALLYHAMNA 79º48, 59 N, 11º25, 31 E WOODFJORDEN LIEFDEFJORDEN WORSLEYHAMNA 79 41 N, 13 26 E At the northwest corner of Spitsbergen, just before one starts to navigate eastwards along the northern coast of the island, many smaller islands are scattered around. This area is called Svenskgattet. On the southern side of Svenskgattet there is one of the best harbours for smaller boats, a small bay called Sallyhamna. In Sallyhamna several of the historical eras of the history of Svalbard overlaps, like the early whaling industry and the Norwegian over wintering trapping activity. When people first came to Svalbard (Wilhelm Barentsz 1596) it was to find the Northeast Passage to China and Southeast Asia. But instead he found Svalbard with fiords housing incredible amounts of whales. During the 17 th and 18 th century about 14 000 ships sailed to the Northwest of Spitsbergen to catch whales, produce oil from blubber and return to Europe with fully loaded ships. On this small peninsula there are remains of blubberovens, ovens used by the whalers to boil the blubber in order to extract the oil to bring it with them back to Europe. The oil was used to make soap, as lamp oil and paint. In one of the ovens there is a grave dating from the whaling period. Also the baleens of the whales were of great value. They were used in women s underwear. When boiled the baleens get a different viscosity and was the equivalent of today s plastic. There are two cabins on the beach, both from early 1900. One of them is hardly standing. The other is still in use and is one of the few cabins that still have a hunting terrain. During lunch the MS Nordstjernen navigated further east towards the fiord Woodfjorden. Woodfjorden is a 65 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide fiord running in a north-south direction. Liefdefjorden and Bockfjorden are branches on the western side. The name derives from the Dutch name Hout Bay, Dutch for Wood Bay. On various sandy spits extending far into the fiord, drift wood is found, hence the name. At the entrance of Woodfjorden there is Reinsdyrflya (the plain of reindeer), and on the southern side of this plain there is a small bay called Worsleyhamna (the bay of Worsley). The bay is named after Commander Frank Arthur Worsley, a New Zealand born British naval officer who led a British expedition to Spitsbergen and Frans Josef Land in 1925. In the small bay there is a lonely cabin called Villa Oxford. The cabin was a satellite station built by one of the most famous Norwegian overwintering trappers Hilmar Nøis in 1924. Nøis spent 38 years in Svalbard as an overwintering trapper. The satellite stations were commonly a day s walk from the main station and functioned as a simple shelter when the trapper controlled the various traps. From the beach where we landed and towards the cabin the tundra was covered with flowers such as Moss Campion, Cinque Foil, Svalbard Poppy, Purple Saxifrage, Tufted Saxifrage, Spider Saxifrage and Dryas Octopetala. On the small islands scattered around in the area there are many Eider Ducks and Geese breeding, seeking protection from the foxes that cannot swim to the islands. On the other hand; the Polar Bear can. During dinner we navigated further into Liefdefjorden to have a look at the Monaco glacier which debouches at the head of the fiord. Due to a lot of calving activity we could not go very close, but the colours from the floating ice floes and icebergs were spectacular. Reaching the outer part of Woodfjorden we spotted two more Polar Bears, a female with a cub, on one of the islands. Around the ship there were also a lot of Minke Whales. It was a beautiful day with no wind and sunshine and quite warm. Hence, before we returned to the mother ship some chose to throw themselves into the chilly arctic water. -3-
38 MOFFEN 80 00 N, 014 26 E 02 AUGUST KROSSFJORDEN LILLIEHÖÖKBREEN 51 79 10 N, 11 30 E The island of Moffen is a peculiar ring-shaped atoll of about 4,5 km² and consists of sand and gravel. It is situated just above the eightieth parallel and lies just two to three meters above sea level. In the middle there is a lake. In whale hunter times one could navigate inside to find shelter from the sea when the weather was rough. Because of land upheaval this is not possible today. Moffen is a National Park, originally protected as a bird sanctuary, and there is a three hundred meter limit for ships, hence there is no possibility to do a landing. In addition to the nesting birds this is a popular haul-out place for walruses. The walruses are social animals and enjoy lying together in groups and enjoy the sun. They are cinnamon coloured when in the water but turn lighter when in the sun as the blood flushes to the surface to keep them cool. On land these creatures are almost comically clumsy but in the water, their true element, they turn into swift and strong swimmers. The shallow waters around Moffen offer them their favourite prey: clams and mussels. Moffen is also one of the few places were the Sabine s gull is regularly spotted. The name Moffen is originally Dutch and has its origin from the whale hunting period. It was a nick name for the Germans who worked onboard the Dutch vessels. During the night the MS Nordstjernen navigated southwards and we woke up in Lilliehöökfjorden, one of two fiord arms in Krossfjorden. The fiord is 10 kilometres long and 3 kilometres wide. The fiord was named after a member of the Swedish Spitsbergen Expedition under Otto Torell in 1861, Commander Gustaf Bertil Lilliehöök. The 25 kilometre long Lilliehöökglacier debouches at the head of the fiord. The glacier front is estimated to be approximately 8 kilometres wide. After breakfast we went for a tender cruise in the bay in front of the glacier. The glacier had been calving a lot and also as we were tendering there were a couple of very nice calvings. In the fiord there were some rather nice and blue icebergs between all the calving ices. There was for a while a bearded seal lying on one of the ice floes. During lunch we set sail towards Ny Ålesund. Just before we arrived at Moffen we all gathered on deck and celebrated our crossing of the eightieth parallel with a glass of champagne. Interesting to think that between the North Pole and us on the ship there was probably nobody else! - 5 -
57 NY ÅLESUND 78 50 N, 11 30 E There are about 25 people living here the year round, running the facility. Ny Ålesund was the focal point for the world s attention several times during the 1920 s. In 1925 Roald Amundsen attempted to reach the North Pole from Ny Ålesund with the seaplanes N24 and N25. In 1926 Amundsen returned to Ny Ålesund, accompanied by the American Lincoln Ellsworth and the Italian Umberto Nobile, to set out on a joint expedition with the airship 'Norge'. The airship flew over the North Pole as planned and landed in Teller, Alaska. In 1928 Umberto Nobile was back with the airship 'Italia'. The airship crashed on the pack ice northeast of the second largest island of the Svalbard archipelago and the biggest rescue operation in the Arctic until today took place, also from Ny Ålesund. More than 1 700 people from 7 nations participated. In Ny Ålesund today there are a small shop, a self serviced post-office, an information centre and a small museum. All of these are of course the northernmost of its kind. Ny Ålesund is the world s northernmost community. The English whale hunter Jonas Poole discovered the first pieces of coal on the riverbank on the South side of Kongsfjorden in 1610. Another three hundred years were to pass before commercial exploitation on the coal deposits started. Ny Ålesund was a coal mining settlement between 1917 1962. Due to the downwards direction of the coal layer the conditions for coal mining were difficult and there were many accidents due to the development of methane gas in the mines. Late at night on November 5, 1962 there was a big explosion in the Esther Mine and 21 miners lost their life. A committee made an investigation and they concluded that the Norwegian State should have been more concerned about the safety in Ny Ålesund. Since Kings Bay was a state enterprise the public blamed the government. In August 1963, Prime Minister Gerhardsen and his government resigned as a result of this tragedy. More than 70 people have lost their lives in the mines in Ny Ålesund. After the coal mining ended there were different attempts to try to find new activity. Research activity started in 1964 and during the 1990 s research increased from 4,100 man-days in 1990 to 10,031 in 2000. Every year scientists from at least fifteen nations run more than 120 research projects. FAREWELL GATHERING We gathered with the ship s crew and the guides for a farewell gathering. Certificates were handed out for passing the 80ºN latitude, and the true heroes amongst us received a certificate proving that they took a swim in the chilling Arctic water! Clean-Up-Svalbard pins were handed out to those who deserved it. During the evening we set sail southwards and reached Longyearbyen the next morning, and that was end of the Svalbard summer adventure for this time. Are you sad to leave Svalbard? Are you curious about what it is like in winter? Grab a copy of our catalogue or visit www.spitsbergentravel.com. We hope to see you again for another Arctic adventure. The ship s crew, the staff, Spitsbergen Travel and Hurtigruten wish you a safe and pleasant journey back home. Best regards, Cruise guides; Gro, Remi, Simon, Kyrre, Helene and Ingunn. The previous mining company is to day running Ny Ålesund as a scientific research platform and about ten different nations are running year open research stations here. The research is mainly on the atmosphere and ozone layer but also geological, biological and glacial research is carried out here. The settlement has an airport and twice a week there are scheduled departures to and from Longyearbyen. -3-