Alk­hor­net, Rei­ni­usøya­ne

Tue
5 Aug
2014

It is nice when Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties do some­thing useful, just for the chan­ge, such as char­ting the fjords here. Until recent­ly we thought that you can walk rather than sail in the inner­most part of Trygg­ham­na. Now it has sud­den­ly tur­ned into a love­ly ancho­ra­ge for a calm night with a bril­li­ant gla­cier view, which could even get us out for a short mid­night walk at a time when most of us 12 here on board were actual­ly alre­a­dy slee­ping.

Alk­hor­net is a clas­sic. Spits­ber­gen in a nutsha­le, you could sell it like this. May­be some­thing for tou­rists from the far east, who never have enough time. Direct flight to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, speed boat to Trygg­ham­na, 2 hours walk at Alk­hor­net. And you have seen it all. Real­ly! Well, almost. That’s why we keep going now for ano­ther 16 days. I am sure we will find some­thing we haven’t seen this mor­ning.
But the tun­dra at Alk­hor­net is a green mea­dow. The bird cliff, high up, brings fer­ti­li­zer and back­ground music. Down on the tun­dra, the reinde­er are doing what they are good at: eating. Quite suc­cessful­ly so, as the dia­me­ter of the big ones makes unmist­aka­b­ly clear. Spitsbergen’s nicest and stron­gest reinde­er, and the cutest cal­ves, trea­ting their mothers’ bel­lies with a lot of gus­to to squeeze every drop of the rich milk out that the cows have pro­du­ced from the tun­dra.

Ano­ther Nøis hut at Alk­hor­net, built in 1920, now just a ruin. It was used during 5 win­ters by Ewald Schmutz­ler from Thu­rin­gia bet­ween 1923 and 1941. Old sto­ries.

Whe­re has the wind gone? But rather a calm after­noon with some engi­ne noi­se than thro­wing up under sails.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

A late evening walk on some tiny islands in nor­t­hern Bell­sund rounds the day nice­ly off. Wild coas­tal rocks, bea­ten by waves most of the time, rare­ly seen from clo­se distance, but nice and calm tonight.

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