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Farmhamna

Trapper-station on Spitsbergen's west coast

Farmhamna map

Farm­ham­na is situa­ted on Spitsbergen’s west coast, 60 km away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en.
It is about 40 km to Barents­burg and 65 km to Ny-Åle­sund.

Farm­ham­na is in For­lands­und, not far north of Isfjord. The land­scape is cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a wide-open coas­tal plain with low rocky hills and tun­dra are­as, litt­le lakes and wet­lands.

Farmhamna aerial photograph

Farm­ham­na from a bird’s per­spec­ti­ve.

This pho­to, obvious­ly taken from an aeri­al per­spec­ti­ve, gives a good over­view of the geo­gra­phy of Farm­ham­na. Strict­ly spea­king, the name “Farm­ham­na” desi­gna­tes the bay and lagoon that sepa­ra­te the pen­in­su­la from the main­land. The pen­in­su­la its­elf is named “Ham­net­an­gen”, which means “Har­bour head­land”, obvious­ly refer­ring to a natu­ral har­bour and not to any major pie­ce of mari­ne infra­struc­tu­re. That doesn’t exist in this area. And the natu­ral har­bour is real­ly only for small ves­sels with a shal­low draft.

The trap­per sta­ti­on known as Farm­ham­na is almost at the end of the long head­land to the right of and just abo­ve the image cent­re, behind the litt­le lakes.

Pan­ora­ma 1 – Farm­ham­na: the trap­per sta­ti­on

Fang­st­s­tas­jon Farm­ham­na.

Farm­ham­na Fang­st­s­tas­jon (Trap­per sta­ti­on, hun­ting cabin) was built in 1991 by the Danish-Nor­we­gi­an cou­ple Hans and Mari­an­ne Lund. They ran Farm­ham­na for a num­ber of years as their base for hun­ting and living. Among­st others, their beuatiful seal skin pro­ducts, hand­ma­de on site, achie­ved good repu­ta­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Later, the sta­ti­on was aqui­red by Rico and Karo­li­ne from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, who keep the place as a hun­ting sta­ti­on. Among­st their spe­cial­ties is reinde­er meat that is popu­lar among­st locals in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the sea­son (ear­ly autumn). If you want to know more about what Rico and Karo­li­ne are doing in Farm­ham­na, then you can visit their web­sei­te (click here). Even arc­tic hun­ters are online the­se days 🙂

The Farm­ham­na hun­ting sta­ti­on, built much more recent­ly than most other huts in Spits­ber­gen rela­ted to hun­ting and trap­ping, is com­pa­ra­tively com­for­ta­ble. Next to the reason­ab­ly spa­cious main hut, the­re is the so-cal­led “A-hut”, so named due to its A-shaped cross sec­tion. The A-hut has a litt­le work­shop, sto­rage and an emer­gen­cy shel­ter whe­re you can even sur­vi­ve for a while if you have to escape from the bur­ning main hut with not­hing but your under­wear – inde­ed a worst case sce­na­rio!

Pan­ora­ma 2 – Farm­ham­na: tele­pho­ne hill (1)

Farm­ham­na: tele­pho­ne hill (1)

Here we are on “tele­pho­ne hill”, a low rocky hill direct­ly behind the main hut and named so becau­se on top you have a reason­ab­ly relia­ble mobi­le pho­ne con­nec­tion. And alt­hough tele­pho­ne hill is just a few met­res high, it offers sple­ndid views over the hun­ting sta­ti­on and its sur­roun­dings. From here, we can also see that the­re are two more sub­si­dia­ry buil­dings bet­ween the main hut and the hill: the “bat­tery house” (left) and the “gara­ge”, both with sto­rage, equip­ment, some tech­ni­cal infra­struc­tu­re etc.

Pan­ora­ma 3 – Farm­ham­na: tele­pho­ne hill (2)

Farm­ham­na: tele­pho­ne hill (2)

Only some met­res fur­ther north on tele­pho­ne hill, you have a beau­tiful view of the nor­t­hern end of the pen­in­su­la and a lar­ge part of For­lands­und.

Pan­ora­ma 4 – Farm­ham­na in the polar night (1)

Farm­ham­na under nor­t­hern light

In the win­ter, Farm­ham­na is a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent, yet utter­ly beau­tiful litt­le world. Espe­ci­al­ly when the nor­t­hern lights dance on the arc­tic win­ter sky! It is a gre­at place to watch and pho­to­graph the nor­t­hern light becau­se the­re is hard­ly any light pol­lu­ti­on. Of cour­se the sta­ti­on has elec­tri­cal light, also out­side, but this is just a mat­ter of pushing a but­ton …

This pan­ora­ma didn’t come out per­fect­ly well, as you can see e.g. on the hori­zon which isn’t real­ly a straight line. But the con­di­ti­ons were pret­ty chal­len­ging, with very low light, low tem­pe­ra­tures and an icy bree­ze going.

Pan­ora­ma 5 – Farm­ham­na in the polar night (2)

Farm­ham­na in the polar night: the blue hours

Ano­ther pan­ora­ma of Farm­ham­na during the polar night, taken in ear­ly Febru­ary at the brigh­test time of day. The­re is alre­a­dy twi­light for seve­ral hours during the day – enough to move and work out­side lar­ge­ly wit­hout arti­fi­ci­al light. Here, we are clo­se to the bay of Farm­ham­na which is fil­led with pan­ca­ke ice and to the “kjøtt­sta­tiv” (“meat stand”), a woo­den con­s­truc­tion to store meat, from seals (not rele­vant in Farm­ham­na) or reinde­er, in a polar-bear-pro­of man­ner.

Farm­ham­na: pho­to gal­lery 1 (sum­mer)

Some impres­si­ons of Farm­ham­na and sur­roun­dings during the sum­mer. Some of the pho­tos (tho­se with a grey sky) were taken in 2008; some things have chan­ged sin­ce then.

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

Farm­ham­na: pho­to gal­lery 2 (win­ter)

And here final­ly some win­ter pho­tos from Farm­ham­na and sur­roun­dings.

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

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last modification: 2022-02-11 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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