Buchholzbukta

Buch­holz­buk­ta is just south of Spitsbergen’s eas­tern­most point.

Buch­holz­buk­ta is loca­ted in the eas­tern­most part of Spits­ber­gen bet­ween Heley­sund and Kapp Pay­er. The land­scape is wide and open, with a bar­ren tun­dra plain and some small rivers.

Wide-open tun­dra in Buch­holz­buk­ta.

The coas­tal waters are shal­low and fur­ther south, towards Heley­sund, the coast is a low rocky cliff coast of basal­tic rocks. This makes Buch­holz­buk­ta altog­e­ther a dif­fi­cult place to get to unless the wea­ther is real­ly calm.

Small river in Buch­holz­buk­ta.

It is accor­din­gly hard­ly ever visi­ted today and this was no dif­fe­rent in his­to­ri­cal times. Only one win­tering from the years of over­win­te­ring trap­pers is known from the 1920. It was a group of 3 Nor­we­gi­an hun­ters inclu­ding one woman. They let their boat free­ze in a shel­te­red bay in the Heley­sund area for the win­ter and built two huts, one in Straums­land and one in Buch­holz­buk­ta.

Ruin of trap­per hut (1).

Not­hing is left from the one in Straums­land, while the­re is at least this ruin visi­ble of the hut in Buch­holz­buk­ta.

Ruin of trap­per hut (1).

← Back