Being faced with good ice- and weather conditions, we took the opportunity to sail around not just the main island of Spitsbergen, but also Nordaustland, visiting some of Svalbard’s remotest islands. Amongst them Sjuøyane, from where you can almost see the north pole, Storøya, where we spent an unforgettable morning with a good dozen of polar bears and Kvitøya, where we got as close to the Andrée-expedition’s final camp, next to the impressive ice cap, as that polar bear allowed that was walking around not far from it.
The endless ice cliff of southeastern Nordaustland is as impressive as it is long, and the polar desert in its neighbourhood turned out to be a palaeozoic paradise.
Huts are places of longing, dreams and adventure in Spitsbergen’s beautiful landscape. Even if the modern visitor’s eye may mostly be directed towards nature, most will have an open ear every now and then for exciting survival stories about explorers and expeditions, adventurers and trappers.
These huts are silent witnesses and and every one of them tells a little part of the whole story. The little book “Svalbardhytter” and the poster that is part of the same project make these fascinating places accessible for everyone.
From remote ruins, just traces in a few cases, to “famous” trapper huts such as Fredheim in Tempelfjord and Bjørneborg on Halvmåneøya, the war weather station Haudegen, the former scientific base Würzburger Hütte on Barentsøya and Hammerfesthuset, Svalbard’s oldest building.