Villa Oxford, Reinsdyrflya

Reins­dyr­flya (“Reinde­er land”) and Vil­la Oxford are north of Lief­defjord on the north coast of Spits­ber­gen.

Reins­dyr­flya

Vil­la Oxford is a litt­le trapper’s hut in Wors­ley­ham­na in Lief­defjord, on the south side of Reins­dyr­flya. The land­scape near the hut is a very wide-open flat plain (“flya”), with lar­ge erra­tic bould­ers every here and the­re. The rocks have a beau­tiful red­dish colour, deri­ved from hema­ti­te (an iron oxi­de) which is part of the Devo­ni­an Old Red Sand­stone.

Pan­ora­ma: Reins­dyr­flya from a bird’s eye view

An aeri­al pan­o­r­amic view of Reins­dyr­flya, just about one kilo­met­re nor­the­ast of Vil­la Oxford. The pan­ora­ma shows both the see­mingly end­less plain of Reins­dyr­flya and the very rich and varied struc­tures and colours of the ground. A bit to the right from the ancho­red ship, you can see Vil­la Oxford if you zoom in a bit (to the right of the lar­ge erra­tic bould­er just off the coast in the water). Behind Vil­la Oxford, you can see Lief­defjord with seve­ral groups of small islands: Andøya­ne (to the right of the ship) and Stas­jonsøya­ne (to the left of the ship) as well as the shal­low bay of Krok­vi­ka fur­ther to the left which is sepa­ra­ted from Lief­defjord and Wood­fjord by the long, nar­row pen­in­su­la Wors­leyne­set.

Vil­la Oxford

Vil­la Oxford is a simp­le secon­da­ry hut on Reins­dyr­flya, built in 1924 by Hil­mar Nøis (see the Fred­heim page for more infor­ma­ti­on about this famous hun­ter) For buil­ding mate­ri­al, Nøis used tim­ber of lar­ge boxes that were used to trans­port a sea­pla­ne to Spits­ber­gen by the Eng­lish expe­di­ti­on from Oxford led by Geor­ge Bin­ney in 1924. This was in the very ear­ly days of avia­ti­on in the Arc­tic. The Avro-Lynx-sea­pla­ne was used for recon­nais­sance and are­ri­al pho­to­gra­phy for map­ping.

Vil­la Oxford (1) – out­side

Vil­la Oxford (2) – insi­de

As of Sep­tem­ber 2023, Vil­la Oxford is in reason­ab­ly good con­di­ti­on with the basics of inte­ri­or fur­nis­hing that one might need, rea­dy to move in 🙂

Vil­la Oxford (3) – out­side

And once again the hut and sur­roun­dings with a pan­o­r­amic view from a posi­ti­on abo­ve the coast, making the coas­tal land­scape inclu­ding the lar­ge bould­er pro­min­ent­ly visi­ble. This image was taken with the elec­tro­nic gull (a.k.a. dro­ne), with fri­end­ly sup­port from Uwe Maaß.

Gal­lery – Vil­la Oxford / Reins­dyr­flya

Some impres­si­ons from Vil­la Oxford and the land­scape of Reins­dyr­flya.

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

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