Kvi­tøya – 19 July 2018

Thu
19 Jul
2018

We ven­tu­red out to the remo­test parts of Spits­ber­gen, the island of Kvi­tøya in the nor­the­ast of the Sval­bard archi­pe­la­go, not far from Rus­si­an Franz Josef Land. This is whe­re Salo­mon August Andrée, Knut Fræn­kel and Nils Strind­berg rea­ched land for the first time again after a bal­loon flight of 3 days and more than 2 months of mar­ching across the drif­ting ice. They star­ted to get rea­dy for the win­ter, but died all after a short time for reasons which we will never real­ly find out for sure.

And­ree­ne­set

It needs a lot of luck to get to this place. Even today, Kvi­tøya is often sur­roun­ded by ice, and when this is not the case, then the surf is often going high on the expo­sed coast. And when this is not the case, then the­re are often some polar bears han­ging around. The way from the shore to the place whe­re Andrée, Fræn­kel and Strind­berg had their final camp is short, but not easy to walk.

Today, we are lucky! It is a bit fog­gy, which fits the atmo­sphe­re of this deso­la­te place per­fect­ly well.

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