Arc­tic win­ter light in Tem­pel­fjord

Thu
21 Feb
2019

Some visit a temp­le to find enligh­ten­ment.

We visit Tem­pel­fjord and find the light.

View through Eskerd­a­len, Sas­send­a­len in the distance
in the dawn of the ear­ly polar day in Febru­ary.

The start of our litt­le excur­si­on was admit­ted­ly a bit bum­py. First we had to drag a car out of a deep snow hole that a sup­po­sed tur­ning around area had tur­ned out to be. It was not the first time that f§/%!”=g hole has foo­led someone. We should put up a sign …

View over outer Tem­pel­fjord towards Isfjord.

Also the snow mobi­les don’t want to do what we want them to do, some­thing the­se things quite often do. But final­ly we are off and on the road. It is a bit fresh today, well below -20°C around Lon­gye­ar­by­en and cer­tain­ly not far from -30 in Sas­send­a­len and Tem­pel­fjord. A col­leage who was on the east coast today said later that he esti­ma­ted the air tem­pe­ra­tu­re on the gla­ciers around -40°C … as men­tio­ned, it is fresh today.

View from Fjord­nib­ba into Tem­pel­fjord.

It is not just the air that is icy, so are the fjords as well. The­re is a con­ti­nuous lay­er of ice stret­ching from Fred­heim into Tem­pel­fjord. Also Sas­senfjord – the con­ti­nua­tion of Tem­pel­fjord towards Isfjord – shows clear signs of free­zing. If this only con­tin­ued! We will see what hap­pens the next weeks.

Lukas enjoys the ama­zing views over Tem­pel­fjord.

After enjoy­ing the ama­zing views from the litt­le moun­tain Fjord­nib­ba, we make a litt­le excur­si­on to Fred­heim, the famous hut built by the even more famous trap­per Hil­mar Nøis. He star­ted buil­ding Fred­heim in 1924 and tur­ned it into a real home during the years to come. In 2015, Fred­heim was moved a few met­res hig­her up and away from the coast that was slow­ly app­rach­ing the his­to­ri­cal huts due to coas­tal ero­si­on.

Fred­heim, the hut built by Hil­mar Nøis, in its new loca­ti­on.

We enjoy the place, the gre­at sce­n­ery, the cold, the ice, the light and last but not least some hot soup for a while befo­re we start moving back home. The days are still short, but it is ama­zing how quick­ly the light is coming back.

Ice on the shore of Tem­pel­fjord.

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