Fri
8 Aug
2014

Some­ti­mes, 200 met­res are more than enough to have the world below you. And if this world is Sør­kapp Land with its wide gla­ciers and some of Spitsbergen’s finest moun­ta­ins, under a blue sky and a bright sun, then it is one of life’s bet­ter moments.

Stel­ling­fjel­let has one of the archipelago’s lar­gest guil­l­emot colo­nies, high up on the cliffs. Ten thou­sands of them. It would rival famous Alkef­jel­let in Hin­lo­pen Strait, but the first flo­or is unin­ha­bi­ted and the visitor’s lounge a bit more distant.

High surf on the beach. A polar bear is roa­ming around, loo­king for birds that have fal­len down from the colo­ny. Our first bear.

The­re is one gla­cier after the other on the east coast, sepa­ra­ted by steep, dark cliffs. Inhos­pi­ta­ble and wild.

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

We find a silent ancho­ra­ge in a bay that does not even exist. Vir­gin land, which appeared just very recent­ly under the retrea­ting gla­ciers. We don’t miss the chan­ge to explo­re it a bit just befo­re mid­night, fin­ding ammo­ni­tes and polar bear tracks with sur­pri­sin­gly lar­ge ice­bergs in beau­tiful evening light in the back­ground.