Teodolittkollen

Panorama of a mountain in Lady Franklinfjord

View from Teodolittkollen over Lady Franklinfjord to the north.

Teodolitkollen (“theodolite hill”) is a small and quite lonesome mountain in Lady Franklinfjord in the northwestern part of Nordaustlandet, Svabard’s second-largest island. This part of the archipelago gets very few visitors because the waters are poorly charted and there are definitely some dangerous shallows.

Geologically speaking, the area consists mostly of shists derived from fine-grained sediments including siltstone, sandstone and marl. The whole stuff is quite old, it is believed to be of neoproterozoic age. In absolute numbers, it is between 960 and 650 million years old. We don’t know more than that. Anyway, it’s old. Back then, there was no life on land and whatever lived in the oceans looked much different from what is living there today.

The practical advantage of these shists is that when weathering in a cold climate, they produce mostly a relatively fine-grained sediment which is relatively comfortable to walk on. Anyone who ever tried to walk across the large, often sharp-edged boulders derived from weathering in granite- and gneiss areas further east on the north coast of Nordaustland, for example on Chermsideøya, will know what I mean.

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Panorama 1: on the northern end of the plateau-shaped top of Teodolittkollen,
with a free view to the north.

So the problem is not to get up on Teodolittkollen. The problem is to get there in the first place 🙂 once you are there, getting up to the top at a moderate altitude of 156 m is not too much of a challenge at all. And the view is stunning!

Coastline in Lady Franklinfjord.

One one side, there is the view to the north, over the outer part of Lady Franklinfjord. This area is amongst the most barren polar desert kind of landscapes you can imagine. Upon looking closely you will find a lonesome flower every now and then maybe a spider plant (photo in the gallery below) or a Svalbard poppy. But there is not much vegetation at all.

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Panorama 2: the “top” of Teodolittkollen.

At the same time, this barren landscape is very rich in details. The flat terrain is almost completely covered with raised beaches, witnesses of post-glacial land uplift. And the coastline is, in places, characterised by an interesting interplay of land and water, resulting in small bays and peninsula, lagoons and islands. There are also some very striking examples of this a bit further to the northwest, in Franklinsund.

Franklinbreane, the glaciers in innermost Lady Franklinfjord.

And then there is the view to the south. The glaciers Franklinbreane are the scenic eyecatcher in the area. Here, the mighty ice cap of Vestfonna pushes two large glaciers around a mountain that separates them and into the fjord. These glaciers are often very active, filling the water with a lot of ice bergs and bergy bits.