Panorama Agardhbukta

Agardhbuk­ta is, at least today, more easi­ly rea­ched in win­ter than in sum­mer. In win­ter, or rather in spring, it is a trip of a few hours by snow mobi­le. The gui­ded snow mobi­le tours to the east coast actual­ly aim for Mohn­buk­ta fur­ther north, with the com­bi­ned gla­cier front of the three gla­ciers Königs­berg­bree­en, Hayes­breen and Heu­g­lin­breen.

It is much har­der to get to Agardhbuk­ta in sum­mer­ti­mes. This usual­ly requi­res a rather deman­ding trek­king tour of at least 3-4 days – per way, inclu­ding gla­cier and river crossings and the who­le lot. The clas­si­cal rou­te fol­lows Advent­da­len, Sas­send­a­len and Ful­mard­a­len. This is cal­led the “Con­way-rou­te”, after the first suc­cessfull over­land crossing by the Bri­tish moun­tai­neer Mar­tin Con­way and his group in 1896.

View of Agardhbuk­ta in mid­night light, mid August.

Agardhbuk­ta was the back­yard of the famous hun­ter Hil­mar Nøis who had his main hut Fred­heim in Tem­pel­fjord. In spring, he often came over to Agardhbuk­ta by dog sledge to hunt polar bears.

Today, the­re are 2 rather modern huts on the north side of Agardhbuk­ta. One belongs to the Sys­sel­man­nen, the other one to a club (Jeger- og Fis­ker­fo­rening) in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. They may be used by club mem­bers who live in Lon­gye­ar­by­en (and you real­ly have to be a local (!) club mem­ber to get access to it).

The Jeger- og Fis­ker­fo­ren­in­gen hut in Agardhbuk­ta.

Inte­ri­or of the Jeger- og Fis­ker hut.

From the sea, which is the way most peo­p­le tra­vel in Sval­bard in the sum­mer, Agardhbuk­ta is a dif­fi­cult-to-reach place and it is cer­tain­ly not com­mon­ly visii­ted by tou­rists then. The waters are shal­low and bad­ly char­ted, and if you want to ven­ture for a landing, then you should have opti­mum wea­ther and sea con­di­ti­ons.

On the shore in Agardhbuk­ta.

The tun­dra here is pret­ty bar­ren and the ground dark, due to the dark Juras­sic shales in this area. The land­scape can appear altog­e­ther rather bleak and deso­la­te. If you get fog while you are stuck here for some days, then you should be in peace with yours­elf, other­wi­se your stay in such a land­scape may turn out to be unp­lea­sant … if you like being in a deso­la­te place and you have enough cho­co­la­te, may­be a good fri­end and some­thing to read, then it is gre­at 🙂 Oh yes, and it is always worth to go out try­ing to find fos­sils!

Cap­ti­on

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