Raudfjord: Hamiltonbukta

Hamil­ton­buk­ta is loca­ted on the west side of Raud­fjord.

As you come from Spitsbergen’s west coast, just fol­low the north coast and turn right twice to find Hamil­ton­buk­ta 🙂 it is part of Raud­fjord, the first coast on Spitsbergen’s north coast (as you come from the west). And within Raud­fjord, it is the nor­t­hern­most bay on the west coast. So, turn right, two times.

Hamil­ton­buk­ta in Raud­fjord from a bird’s eye’s per­spec­ti­ve:
Gla­ciers, ice, steep cliffs, small islands.

Cut into very old, very hard, crystal­li­ne base­ment rocks by plei­s­to­ce­ne gla­ciers, Hamil­ton­buk­ta is not very big, but the sce­n­ery is nevert­hel­ess quite impres­si­ve, with steep rock­walls, some of which are home to sea­birds such as Brünich’s guil­l­emots and kit­ti­wa­kes, and a cou­ple of gla­ciers. Some of them have retrea­ted dra­ma­ti­cal­ly in recent years. The­re are also some small islets in the bay, known as Hamil­tonøya­ne. The pan­ora­ma was taken on the lar­gest of the­se islets.

The gla­ciers have lost at an ama­zing speed in recent years. Some of the gla­ciers are just shadows of what they were just a few deca­des ago. In some places, you can see rocks whe­re impres­si­ve ice cliffs made up the coast­li­ne in the past.

Shrin­king gla­ciers in Hamil­ton­buk­ta (2021).

Hamil­ton­buk­ta in Raud­fjord: pho­to gal­lery

In spi­te of the shrin­king of the gla­ciers, Hamil­ton­buk­ta is a stun­nin­gly beau­tiful place, as the fol­lo­wing sel­ec­tion of pho­tos, taken bet­ween 2000 and 2021, will show:

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

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