Kobbefjord (“Seal bay”) is a little bay that is cutting into the west coast of Danskøya. The shores are mostly steep and rocky, but there are passages to Virgohamna and to the east side of Danskøya. Danish whalers had a shore station here in the 17th century. The inner fjord is cut off by shallows and only accessible for small boats.
The Norwegians Torgeir Møkleby and Harald Simonsen spent some desparate weeks in Kobbefjord in spring 1922. Looking for a friend who was missing, they had left a weather station at Kvadehuken (Kongsfjord) with a small boat, but drifted with the ice for 18 days before they managed to get ashore in Kobbefjord, where they finally starved to death.
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.