This year’s Eas­ter brain­teaser brought a sur­pri­sing and inte­res­t­ing result – none of the ans­wers was right. May­be I have unde­re­sti­ma­ted the dif­fi­cul­ty of the ques­ti­on? It looks like it. Even seve­ral sea­so­ned col­le­agues who should have been the­re 10 times or more have not reco­gni­zed the place.

This is even more sur­pri­sing as the pho­to does not show an unknown bay, but one of Spitsbergen’s most famous places: Vir­go­ham­na on Dan­s­køya. It was Vir­go­ham­na whe­re the Swe­de Salo­mon August Andrée star­ted his tra­gic North Pole voya­ge in 1897, fol­lo­wed by the Ame­ri­can Wal­ter Well­man, who star­ted at the same place in 1906, 1907 and 1909, not get­ting any­whe­re near the pole eit­her, but with an out­co­me less tra­gic.

Becau­se of the histo­ry and the Har­bour seals that can some­ti­mes be seen the­re, Vir­go­ham­na is a popu­lar place to visit still today. Alre­a­dy the abo­ve-men­tio­ned expe­di­ti­ons attrac­ted curious tou­rists, who came on ships that were ancho­ring in Vir­go­ham­na, just stay­ing and wai­ting for the expe­di­ti­ons to take off. The old pho­to must have been taken on one of the­se occa­si­ons.

Still … no right ans­wer. The ans­wers sent in are sug­gest­ing Spitsbergen’s real coal har­bours: Barents­burg, Coles­buk­ta, Advent­fjord, Pyra­mi­den. This is cer­tain­ly due to the mis­lea­ding cap­ti­on. Vir­go­ham­na does not have any­thing with a coal har­bour to do, the­re is no coal any­whe­re in that area. The news­pa­per redac­tion which used the pho­to did pro­ba­b­ly not have a more appro­pria­te one, so they used Vir­go­ham­na, gues­sing nobo­dy would know the dif­fe­rence. They were obvious­ly right! This is, of cour­se, mean 🙁 but the land­scape fea­tures are cha­rac­te­ristic, and tho­se who have been the­re should have had a fair chan­ce 😉 or not? The view shown in the lower, recent image is seen every year by hundreds.

As the­re is no right ans­wer, but an Eas­ter brain­teaser wit­hout a win­ner would be a rather sad affair, a win­ner was drawn by lot. The pri­ce goes to Tom­my H. in the Net­her­lands – con­gra­tu­la­ti­ons! Tom­my will be cont­ac­ted.