Wed
11 Aug
2021

Today’s wea­ther is a bit grey. We star­ted the day with a tun­dra walk in Engelskbuk­ta.
 
Flowers, some gra­ves and a blub­ber oven from the days of the ear­ly wha­lers.
 

Later, we visit Ny-Åle­sund, Spitsbergen’s nor­t­hern­most sett­le­ment with ever­y­thing that beongs to it: old sto­ries and modern sci­ence, Kongsfjord­bu­tik­ken and coal ming, polar histo­ry and a gui­ded city walk.

Kongsfjord is grey and will remain so the next cou­ple of days, so we lea­ve and head north befo­re we get the nor­t­her­ly wind that the fore­cast indi­ca­tes.

Tue
10 Aug
2021

For­lands­und tur­ned out to be fog­gy and a bit win­dy today, so we deci­ded to have a look at St. Jons­fjord. Talk about right place and right time! Full suns­hi­ne on the beau­tiful gla­cier sce­n­ery in the inner part of the fjord. Many ber­gy bits on the water from the 2 pret­ty acti­ve gla­ciers in the area. One of them is curr­ent­ly advan­cing; the posi­ti­on that we had rea­ched in 2019 is cover­ed by the gla­cier now. The other, neigh­bou­ring one is, howe­ver, retrea­ting, as most of Spitsbergen’s gla­ciers the­se days.

We mar­vel­led at this stun­ning sce­n­ery from all per­spec­ti­ves we could think of: from a per­fect­ly pla­ced moun­tain ridge, from sea level and from a litt­le island that has only very recent­ly emer­ged from the gla­cier. Bet not too many peo­p­le had been the­re befo­re us!

Mon
9 Aug
2021

It is still Mon­day, 09 August, and the day is not over yet. After a short stretch with fog and swell, For­lands­und wel­co­mes us with suns­hi­ne and dozens of fin wha­les!

Later in the evening, at Prins Karls For­land, the fog has caught up again with us. Nevert­hel­ess, we take the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a late evening mee­ting with a herd of wal­rus.

Mon
9 Aug
2021

The sun was hiding behind a low cloud lay­er, but calm wea­ther and good visi­bi­li­ty tempt­ed us to hike across Erd­mann­flya, a wide tun­dra plain with many reinde­er, various birds, lakes, wet­lands and low rocky rid­ges with love­ly views. The crossing took a lar­ge part of the day and was com­ple­ted with clo­se-up views of Esmark­breen from the ship. Now ever­y­thing around us has dis­ap­peared in the fog as we lea­ve Isfjord. Soon we will turn nor­thwards.

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

Sun
8 Aug
2021

Final­ly, after almost 2 years, we can set sail again in Spits­ber­gen! We can hard­ly belie­ve it, but we are moving, skip­per Hein­rich, my col­le­ague Hel­ga and nine who are keen to see a lot of Spits­ber­gen the upco­ming 18 days.

The first evening brings a walk in Bore­buk­ta on the north side of Isfjord, a wal­rus and gre­at views over wide tun­dra are­as in the gol­den light of the mid­night sun.

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

Thu
5 Aug
2021

As I men­tio­ned recent­ly – we spend a lot of time out­side, and the­re is always some­thing to do in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. So the lap­top is clo­sed most of the time, wri­ting is not the main thing here and now. But the hiking boots are some­ti­mes steam­ing, and at other times the out­board engi­ne of our litt­le Zodiac and at yet other times the came­ra. And that is how it should be.

SV Anti­gua final­ly back in Spits­ber­gen

Anti­gua in Ymer­buk­ta.
We went out the­re for a love­ly ren­dez­vous.

Good old Anti­gua is back in Spits­ber­gen! Gre­at! We went by Zodiac to Ymer­buk­ta to meet the good ship and her crew the­re, whe­re the ship was ancho­red for a rest after the crossing. It was good to see Cap­tain Mario and the crew again! We took the oppor­tu­ni­ty tog­e­ther to take a detour into Coles­buk­ta on the way to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, whe­re the crew is now get­ting the ship rea­dy for the first depar­tu­re next week. I am loo­king for­ward to join them in late August. First, I’ll be out with SY Arc­ti­ca II soon.

With Mario, Cap­tain on SV Anti­gua, in Coles­buk­ta, cele­bra­ting the occa­si­on.

Pyra­mi­den and Dick­son Land

Now it has alre­a­dy been a while sin­ce we spent some days in and around Pyra­mi­den in July. We went to look for – and found – a fos­si­li­sed forest, which was cover­ed with mud by a flood in a flu­vi­al plain almost 400 mil­li­on years ago. Most of the trees (sigil­la­ria) just kept stan­ding as they had been gro­wing, and the still stand the day today. We had seen ano­ther part of this forest last year; flu­vi­al ero­si­on keeps brin­ging other parts to the light of day for a geo­lo­gi­cal split-second, befo­re they dis­ap­pear and get lost fore­ver. If you hap­pen to be in the area during this geo­lo­gi­cal moment, then you just have to take the oppor­tu­ni­ty.

And any­way, Dick­son Land is just one of Spitsbergen’s most beau­tiful are­as, if you ask me.

Gal­lery – In and around Pyra­mi­den

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

Wed
28 Jul
2021

The Arc­tic! Spits­ber­gen! Natu­re! Being out the­re! Fan­ta­stic …

That the sum­ma­ry 🙂 and that is what it is all about here the­se days, in and around Lon­gye­ar­by­en. I have spent alre­a­dy far too much time on the com­pu­ter this year, that has to wait now. Other­wi­se I could alre­a­dy have writ­ten a lot here on my arc­tic tra­vel blog.

But today is a day of rest, time to catch up a bit.

The pre­sen­ta­ti­on series “Arc­tic Wed­nes­day” was a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to dig deeper in sto­ries and sub­jects that are important to me, and the best thing is, of cour­se, to do that in situ. Who remem­bers my pre­sen­ta­ti­on about Mar­tin Conway’s first crossing of Spits­ber­gen in 1896? (That was online last April, in Ger­man).

Now we were fol­lo­wing Conway’s foot­prints at least for a short bit of is path. Con­way and his com­pa­n­ion Gar­wood wan­ted to find a way from Advent­da­len to Van Mijenfjord in the south. Due to a lack of geo­gra­phic infor­ma­ti­on (this lack of know­ledge was their reason to get out in the first place, obvious­ly), they star­ted on a rou­te that appears rather absurd today. The who­le thing ended up as an impres­si­ve forced march until they had found what they were loo­king for and made it back to their camp in Advent­da­len.

Con­way and Gar­wood fol­lo­wed this val­ley in 1896 to the end, whe­re we can see Reind­a­len. Hence, they had found a rou­te from Advent­da­len to Van Mijenfjord.

We didn’t do a forced march of 40 kilo­me­t­res, but nevert­hel­ess, Bol­terd­a­len has all the plea­su­res of arc­tic ter­rain that one needs for a day of fun: wet tun­dra for kilo­me­t­res on end, river crossings and wide, rocky morai­ne land­scape. That’s the Arc­tic!

The reward comes in shape of a lot of arc­tic natu­re, with a colourful flo­ra, curious reinde­er – many of them with cal­ves – and petri­fied wood from the Ter­tia­ry.

After our hike, we got back into the car and dro­ve back to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Con­way, in con­trast, got back to his camp in pou­ring rain. One of his two ponies had run away from the­re and all the way back to Advent Point (today: Advent­pyn­ten, near the air­port). The poor bear was alre­a­dy tired of the end­less snow bogs. One of Conway’s men had to walk all the way back to get the poor ani­mal. Sin­ce then, the val­ley has got its name: Bol­ter Val­ley, today Bol­terd­a­len.

Gal­lery – Bol­terd­a­len

Here a cou­ple of impres­si­ons of our day in Bol­terd­a­len, actual­ly start­ing near Lon­gye­ar­by­en:

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

Mon
12 Jul
2021

Final­ly – Spits­ber­gen! That has been a long, long dry spell … but now we are back in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, keen and full of ide­as and plans. Let’s see what the next weeks and months will bring.

If you want to fly any­whe­re from Oslo, make sure you have got enought time in Oslo Gar­de­r­moen. The queu­es can real­ly be very long, and it is not a very effi­ci­ent pro­cess.

And you should also plan some extra time when you go into Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken, Longyearbyen’s super­mar­ket. It is kind of twice the size it used to be. But not ever­y­thing is per­fect (yet) …

A cor­ner in Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken, Longyearbyen’s refur­bis­hed super­mar­ket.
$64-ques­ti­on for Spits­ber­gen-nerds: what’s wrong here? 🙂

Some first litt­le impres­si­ons from Oslo and Lon­gye­ar­by­en:

Final­ly – Spits­ber­gen! Ein paar ers­te, klei­ne Ein­drü­cke, Lon­gye­ar­by­en und nähe­re Umge­bung

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