The famous Hau­de­gen-sta­ti­on in the remo­te Rijpfjord on the north coast of Nord­aus­t­land was a Ger­man mili­ta­ry wea­ther sta­ti­on from the Second World War. The sol­diers who man­ned the Hau­de­gen sta­ti­on were not picked up befo­re Sep­tem­ber 1945 and they were the last unit of the Wehr­macht (Ger­man mili­ta­ry during the war) which sur­ren­de­red offi­ci­al­ly (and very hap­pi­ly) on this occa­si­on. Rumors that they had sim­ply been for­got­ten are wrong: they had con­stant­ly been in touch with Nor­way after the end of the war, both about their pick­up and for sen­ding wea­ther data to the meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal net­work.

Sin­ce then, the buil­ding of the Hau­de­gen-sta­ti­on has been decaying. It is the only war wea­ther sta­ti­on in the arc­tic that still has a stan­ding buil­ding, but the so-cal­led “hard paper hut” has suf­fe­r­ed stron­gly from 70 years of arc­tic wea­ther. Melt­wa­ter see­ping through the roof was a men­ace alre­a­dy in spring 1945, and the mois­tu­re has not done the buil­ding any good sin­ce. As a reac­tion, access to the hut and its nea­rest sur­roun­dings was clo­sed in 2010. Per Kyr­re Rei­mert, then archeo­lo­gist at the Sys­sel­man­nen, said that due to a lack of resour­ces to repair the house, clo­sing it was the only alter­na­ti­ve.

In August 2015, major repair work was done on Hau­de­gen sta­ti­on for the first time sin­ce 1945. A team of craft­smen from the Sys­sel­man­nen was the­re to start the pro­ject. A small tem­po­ra­ry hut was estab­lished for accom­mo­da­ti­on. The Hau­de­gen sta­ti­on has got a new roof which is sup­po­sed to pro­tect the buil­ding from mois­tu­re. Fur­ther work remains to be done, but no more details are known at the time of wri­ting.

Pho­tos can sur­vi­ve for a long time in the ice. In 1930, film mate­ri­al from the Swe­dish Andrée expe­di­ti­on was found on Kvi­tøya, whe­re the three mem­bers had got maroo­ned and died in 1897. A sen­sa­ti­on after 33 years.

A bit less sen­sa­tio­nal, but nevert­hel­ess remar­kab­le is the sto­ry of a digi­tal memo­ry card that was found in Spits­ber­gen in August this year. It con­ta­ins more than 1200 pho­tos, taken with an Olym­pus came­ra. The files seem to be fine after 6 years in the arc­tic. The pho­tos were taken during a trip with the sai­ling boat Noor­der­licht in ear­ly July 2009.

But the sto­ry still needs a hap­py end, as the memo­ry card has not yet found its way back to the owner. He or she is pos­si­bly on the pho­to that is shown below. Who knows this woman? We would like to help to get the card back to the owner. Plea­se let us know in case you know any­thing of inte­rest (click here to get in touch).