spitzbergen-3
fb  Spitsbergen Panoramas - 360-degree panoramas  de  en  nb  Spitsbergen Shop  
pfeil THE Spitsbergen guidebook pfeil

Panoramas: Hornsund

Horn­sund: Tres­kelen

Pan­o­r­amic view from the ridge of the Tres­kelen pen­in­su­la over almost the who­le of of Horn­sund. From here, you watch over Bre­pol­len, the inner­most bay of Horn­sund, with its sur­roun­ding gla­ciers. You see the famous moun­ta­ins Bau­taen (“the mono­lith”, towe­ring need­le-sharp and 475 m high over the ent­rance to Bre­pol­len) and Horn­sund­tind, a 1429 m high car­bo­na­te mas­si­ve stan­ding direct­ly on the south shore of Horn­sund. Horn­sund­tind is the hig­hest moun­tain in sou­thern Spits­ber­gen.

The bay Bre­pol­len is now wide-open, but it was com­ple­te­ly fil­led by the sur­roun­ding gla­ciers Stor­breen, Horn­breen and Chom­ja­kov­breen as recent as the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. The bay Bre­pol­len sim­ply didn’t exist befo­re.

In Adria­buk­ta, next to the pen­in­su­la Tres­kelen, the­re is ano­ther old trapper’s cabin. This was the one deepest in the fjord in the days of polar bear hun­ting. The hut is rather small and start­ing to show signs of dete­rio­ra­ti­on.

Horn­sund: Ammo­ni­tøya

Ammo­ni­tøya is a small island in Bre­pol­len (inner­most Horn­sund). The name points towards fos­sils (ammo­ni­tes) dis­co­ver­ed here. The ammo­ni­tes are found in morai­ne sedi­ments cove­ring most of the island, which was gla­cier-cover­ed until the gla­ciers rece­ded in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. The rocks con­tai­ning the fos­sils were brought by gla­ciers from any­whe­re in the catch­ment area of the gla­ciers, which includes lar­ge are­as around Bre­pol­len with sedi­men­ta­ry bed­rock dating to the Juras­sic and Creta­ce­ous (and Ter­tia­ry, but this does not con­tain ammo­ni­tes in Spits­ber­gen).

Whe­re­ver the ammo­ni­tes exact­ly came from, they cer­tain­ly enjoy bril­li­ant views over Bre­pol­len the­se days and more or less regu­lar visits from polar bears.

Horn­sund: Bre­pol­len

View to the east and south from Chol­maks­la, a morai­ne-cover­ed ridge that stret­ches from the moun­tain Mezen­ryg­gen into Bre­pol­len (inner­most Horn­sund). Left and cent­re: Horn­breen (-gla­cier), in the right side back­ground: Men­de­leev­breen.

Horn­sund: Gnå­lod­den

Gnå­lod­den is loca­ted cen­tral­ly in Horn­sund under the moun­tain Gnål­ber­get. You have to keep an eye on many under­wa­ter rocks as you are approa­ching by boat, they have kil­led many zodiac out­board engi­ne pro­pel­lers.

Gnå­lod­den is a place with a lot to see within a small area. Just the rocky shore­li­ne is a sight in its­elf. The flat area is of limi­t­ed size, but beau­tiful­ly green with its mos­sy tun­dra, a clear indi­ca­ti­on for the pre­sence of lar­ge num­bers of Brunich’s guil­l­emots and kit­ty­wa­kes that breed in the steep cliffs of Gnål­ber­get.

The old hut is a real eye­cat­cher. Until the pro­tec­tion of polar bears in 1973, it was part of a clas­si­cal polar bear hun­ting area. The bears came with drift ice around the south cape, up the west coast and into Horn­sund. In some years, hundreds of them migra­ted through the fjord and back to the east coast: rich hun­ting grounds for trap­pers, inclu­ding the legen­da­ry Nor­we­gi­an fema­le hun­ter Wan­ny Wold­stad, who was one of the first acti­ve lady hun­ters in Spits­ber­gen when she win­tered seve­ral times in Horn­sund during the 1930s.

The pan­ora­ma shows the main room of the hut, which is still regu­lar­ly used by sci­en­tists from the near-by Polish rese­arch sta­ti­on and acco­asio­nal­ly by locals from Lon­gye­ar­by­en who take the long trip with snow mobi­les.

Pan­ora­ma: Horn­sund – Gås­ham­na (West)

When you enter Horn­sund, then you will soon have Gås­ham­na on your stard­board side, as it is on the sou­thern side of the fjord. If “Goo­se bay”, as it trans­la­tes, refers to geese that may have been pre­sent when the place got its name, a ship, the Dutch town Goes or an Aus­tri­an count Goess from the 19th cen­tu­ry – the first time the name appeared was on an Aus­tri­an map, drawn by Sterneck and published in 1874 – is not known any­mo­re. But what is well known is that Gås­ham­na pro­vi­des reason­ab­ly good ancho­ra­ge just under the coast and often enough pro­tec­tion from the strong east-wes­ter­ly winds that are so fre­quent in Horn­sund to allow landings in con­di­ti­ons that make other places just impos­si­ble.

Alre­a­dy the wha­lers knew that and estab­lished their sta­ti­ons in the ear­ly 17th cen­tu­ry on both sides of the bay. They hun­ted „Right wha­les“, which we know as Bowhead wha­les today, and left their impres­si­ve bones in lar­ge num­bers blea­ching for cen­tu­ries under mid­night sun and polar night. Exact­ly as you can see them today if you get the­re.

This pan­ora­ma shows the wes­tern side of the bay Gås­ham­na.

Pan­ora­ma: Horn­sund – Gås­ham­na (East)

The wha­lers also left their traces on the east side of Gås­ham­na in shape of piles of migh­ty wha­le­bo­nes. The­se are lying a bit for­got­ten behind a small hill, which draws the atten­ti­on at least initi­al­ly becau­se it is quite obvous­ly a site of major acti­vi­ties in his­to­ri­cal times. It is the win­tering site of the Rus­si­an sec­tion of the Rus­si­an-Swe­dish Arc-de-meri­di­an expe­di­ti­on: not very famous to the public, but cer­tain­ly a major and very suc­cessful under­ta­king to estab­lish the pre­cise shape of the Earth: a per­fect ball or slight­ly flat­ten­ed on the poles? To find that out, you need to pre­cis­e­ly mea­su­re along a meri­di­an both on low and in high lati­tu­des. Spits­ber­gen was the obvious place to get that done. Swe­dish and Rus­si­an sci­en­tists joint their efforts fort his huge task. Both win­tered in 1899-1900. Gås­ham­na is the Rus­si­an site.

Bur­ger­buk­ta

Bur­ger­buk­ta is on the nor­t­hern side of Horn­sund, and it dis­plays this beau­tiful pan­ora­ma on its eas­tern shore. The beau­ty of this land­scape in terms of colours and struc­tures is deep­ly roo­ted in its geo­lo­gy. The colou­ra­ti­on is due to the lay­ers: from brow­nish-red Old Red at the bot­tom (Devonian/lower Car­bo­ni­fe­rous) through yel­lo­wish-brown upper Carboniferous/Permian to dark-brown Tri­as­sic at the top. And the defor­ma­ti­on rela­ted to the ope­ning of the north Atlan­tic is respon­si­ble for the beau­tiful folds and bends.

No 360° pan­ora­ma, only works with the Flash Play­er on mobi­le devices, for exam­p­le, with the → Puf­fin-Brow­ser.

Pho­to Gal­le­ries: Horn­sund

Click on the yel­low are­as or the links below the map to view pho­to gal­le­ries from the indi­vi­du­al are­as.

Galerien-Karte_Hornsund

Album Horn­sund

  • Tag 9 - Kross­fjord, Ny Ale­sund

Click on thumb­nail to get the cor­re­spon­ding gal­lery.

Back

Treskelen Brepollen Gnålodden, Burgerbukta Samarinvågen Hornsundtind Gåshamna Isbjørnhamna (Polish research station), Hansbreen

BOOKS, CALENDAR, POSTCARDS AND MORE

This and other publishing products of the Spitsbergen publishing house in the Spitsbergen-Shop.

last modification: 2017-12-18 · copyright: Rolf Stange
css.php