Giævervilla at Snatcherpynten

An early 20th century luxury resort in the Arctic

Giævervilla is an old building at Snatcherpynten in Recherchefjord. The history behind it is, however, a bit special. There are, by the way, different spellings and versions of the name, including Gjævervilla (with “j”) and Giæverhuset (also this one with “i” and “j”, respectively), or Villa Giæver (dito). The origin of the name, if you go all the way back, is said to be derived from the town of Jever in north Germany. Cheers! 🙂

Giævervilla is located at Snatcherpynten in Recherchefjord, Bellsund.

Giævervilla is amongst Spitsbergen’s oldest houses that still are standing. It was built in 1904 on behalf of counsel Johannes Giæver in Tromsø. Giæver’s name is mentioned in context with a large number of arctic Spitsbergen. It seems like he helped many of them in one or another way.

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We don’t really know what kind of plans he really had for the house that now bears his name. But it is probably a safe guess that he wanted more than “only” a nice place for himself to enjoy. It seems likely that he had plans to get some financial return his investment.

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Back then, early Spitsbergen tourism in shape of luxury cruises and trophy hunting was quite well established. For wealthy tourists, it was a common thing to sail up with a ship for example run by the Vesteraalen Dambskipselskab (an early version of Hurtigruten) and spend some days there in a luxurious resort. For this purpose, the Vesteraalen Dambskipselskab had established a hotel in 1896 at a place that is now referred to at Hotellneset, close to the airport near Longyearbyen (for the nitpickers: the real Hotellneset is actually a rather inconspicuous bulge of the coastline close to the campsite, while the more prominent headland which most will refer to as Hotellneset is actually called Adventpynten. But anyway …). This hotel in Adventfjord was, however, already closed again in 1898.

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Giæver was, of course, aware of this, and he may well have had a similar idea for his resort in Recherchefjord, which is a very scenic place. The surroundings of Snatcherpynten offer plenty of opportunities for hiking and hunting. And beyond this, Recherchefjord had been a well-known natural harbour since the days of the early whalers in the 17th century. It was one of a very few bays only where larger cruise ships would drop anchor. Giævervilla was a potential tourist attraction and served as “post office Bellsund” until 1907 (in 1908, the post office was moved to the whaling station at Finneset in Grønfjord).

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Giævervilla is one of very few two floor buildings of those times. After 1907, it started to fall apart and by now it is in a pretty desolate condition. Some time before 2014 it was at least stabilised with wooden beams to keep it more or less upright. Nevertheless, it is quite skew-whiffed, which made it an interesting experience to shoot the photos for these panoramas inside. I almost became seasick – it felt like a listing sailing ship, which is ok on a ship, but very strange in a building on land.

Talking of sailing ships: big thanks to captain Joachim of the sailing ship Antigua, who made it possible for me to spend some time to photograph Giævervilla in a late evening while the ship was anchored in Recherchefjord. Those were the days 🙂

Giævervilla and Snatcherpynten – photo gallery

And finally some impressions of Giævervilla and surroundings. The old mine wagons near the shore were brought there in the early 20th century by the British Northern Exploration Company – for whatever purpose, there are no minerals worth mining at Snatcherpynten and surroundings. A bit to the south of the wagons, you can see that there was a building there a long time ago, most likely a hut and/or blubber oven related to 17th century whaling. But these remains are actually a bit hard to see.

There is a grave or a little grave field close to the house. The wooden cross fell over some time after 2016.