In Storfjord: Kval­vå­gen & Haketan­gen

Tue
22 Aug
2023

Now it was time to get south and towards the south cape. But it was a good day in Storfjord, with two landings. One at Spo­rod­den in Kval­vå­gen. Ama­zing geo­lo­gy, inclu­ding dino­saur foot­prints. And a very good hike.

Fur­ther south at Haketan­gen, we found some­thing that you would hard­ly expect in a remo­te, see­mingly pris­ti­ne place like this: a litt­le run­way! Of cour­se not in use any­mo­re, but still cle­ar­ly visi­ble in the land­scape. The was one of the places whe­re they dril­led for oil and gas back then. The first dril­ling was done in 1976 and than again in 1987. The hole went as far down as 2,337 met­res. After some more tests in 1988, the place was cle­ared up (at least). They found some gas, but not enough to start pro­duc­tion.

How was it pos­si­ble that they actual­ly did the­se explo­ra­ti­on works? The lar­ge natio­nal parks exist sin­ce 1973. That includes South Spits­ber­gen Natio­nal Park, whe­re Haketan­gen is situa­ted. Today we are tal­king about pos­si­ble bans against tou­rist landings in the­se are­as, and back then they could drill, look for oil and gas and build and use a run­way – under essen­ti­al­ly the same regu­la­ti­ons. How was that pos­si­ble? One may only won­der.

Pho­to gal­lery – In Storfjord: Kval­vå­gen & Haketan­gen

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

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