Trygghamna and Alkhornet

The bay of Trygg­ham­na is loca­ted on the north side of Isfjord.

Gene­ral

Trygg­ham­na is loca­ted on the north side of the Isfjord, oppo­si­te Barents­burg. Trygg­ham­na is the wes­tern­most of a who­le series of bays on the north side of the Isfjord. The area is a natio­nal park, but tou­rists are allo­wed to go ashore and hike ever­y­whe­re.

View over Trygg­ham­na from the sche­du­led pla­ne on the approach to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.
Alk­hor­net on the left side of the ent­rance to the bay.

Trygg­ham­na is sur­roun­ded by moun­ta­ins, the bay is only open to the south, towards Isfjord. In eas­ter­ly or wes­ter­ly winds, the bay usual­ly offers good shel­ter, hence the name: Trygg­ham­na is the trans­la­ti­on of the ori­gi­nal Eng­lish name ‘Safe Har­bour’. Trygg­ham­na is the first bay on the north side that a ship ente­ring Isfjord rea­ches and is the­r­e­fo­re a fre­quent­ly used ancho­ra­ge, both in the past and today. Howe­ver, when the wind blows in a north-south direc­tion, it can be stor­my in the small, straight bay sur­roun­ded by moun­ta­ins. And I’m not quite sure how the wha­lers ancho­red here in their day, as most of the bay is far too deep for ancho­ring, with depths of more than 100 met­res. The inner­most part of Trygg­ham­na offers good ancho­ra­ge depths for small ships, but this area did not exist in wha­ling times in the 17th and 18th cen­tu­ries, as the gla­ciers still exten­ded the­re at that time, which have sin­ce retrea­ted.

View from Knu­v­len to the south-east over Trygg­ham­na.

The­re is a fair­ly shal­low area on the east side of Trygg­ham­na, but at one point it is 4.4 met­res shal­low: enough to be dan­ge­rous for ships. The­re is also a his­to­ric ship­w­reck clo­se to this sho­al. It is mark­ed on the nau­ti­cal chart, ancho­ring and diving are pro­hi­bi­ted the­re.

Trygg­ham­na is an impres­si­ve­ly scenic bay with rug­ged moun­ta­ins and seve­ral gla­ciers. A wide, lush green tun­dra plain stret­ches around the Alk­hor­net, a striking moun­tain in the ent­rance area on the west side. All in all, the­re is a lot to dis­co­ver!

Alk­hor­net is a popu­lar tou­rist landing site and is fre­quent­ly visi­ted during the sum­mer sea­son.

Trygg­ham­na pan­ora­ma

The fol­lo­wing pages are dedi­ca­ted to indi­vi­du­al places in the bay, each with more pic­tures, inclu­ding 360-degree pan­o­r­amic images, and infor­ma­ti­on.

• Alk­hor­net with the sur­roun­ding tun­dra area.
• The litt­le moun­tain Knu­v­len in the nor­t­hern part of Trygg­ham­na, part­ly sur­roun­ded by gla­ciers.

Geo­lo­gy

On the wes­tern side, around the Alk­hor­net and a litt­le fur­ther into the bay, you will find the old geo­lo­gi­cal base­ment of Sval­bard, which out­crops along the enti­re west coast. On the wes­tern shore of Trygg­ham­na, it is com­po­sed of sla­te and quart­zi­te, simi­lar to lar­ge are­as else­whe­re on the west coast.

Fold­ed sla­te on the shore at Alk­hor­net.

The striking moun­tain ridge Värm­lan­dryg­gen on the eas­tern side of the bay shows that it is geo­lo­gi­cal­ly car­ved from a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent rock. The bed­rock here is much youn­ger, con­sis­ting of depo­sits from the upper Palaeo­zoic peri­ods of Car­bo­ni­fe­rous and Per­mi­an. The Car­bo­ni­fe­rous in par­ti­cu­lar con­sists in part of quart­zi­tic sand­stone, which is wea­the­red into such coar­se blocks on moun­tain slo­pes by frost shat­ter that it can be quite stre­nuous to move around. This is the case in some places in the inner part of Trygg­ham­na, for exam­p­le around Knu­v­len.

Wea­the­red sand­stone on Knu­v­len.

Else­whe­re, the ‘Per­mo-Car­bo­ni­fe­rous’ (coll­ec­ti­ve term for Per­mi­an and Car­bo­ni­fe­rous) con­sists of hard lime­s­tone lay­ers in which you can find beau­tiful fos­sils in places.

Fos­si­li­sed coral stems from the upper Carboniferous/lower Per­mi­an (approx. 300 mil­li­on years old) on the east side of Trygg­ham­na.

At Värm­lan­dryg­gen, tec­to­nic move­ments have til­ted the­se lay­ers into a ver­ti­cal posi­ti­on, giving this ridge its distinc­ti­ve appearance. This is par­ti­cu­lar­ly striking on the shore on the east side of the ent­rance to Trygg­ham­na, at Sel­ma­ne­set.

Steep lay­ers at Sel­ma­ne­set and Värm­lan­dryg­gen.

Land­scape

Spits­ber­gen in a nuts­hell! From Alkor­net west­wards, the coas­tal plain beco­mes wider and wider, as is typi­cal for lar­ge parts of the west coast of Spits­ber­gen. The tun­dra at Alk­hor­net with its ice wed­ges is an expe­ri­ence in its­elf.

Tun­dra with ice wed­ges at Alk­hor­net.

In Trygg­ham­na its­elf, flat land on the shore is rather limi­t­ed (west side) to non-exis­tent (main­ly on the east side). Here the debris-cover­ed slo­pes rise more or less from the shore up to 500-700 met­res.

On the west and north-west side of the bay the­re are seve­ral smal­ler gla­ciers, Pro­tek­tor­breen, Har­riet­breen and Kje­rulfbreen, but none of them reach the shore of the fjord. To the north, the small fjord Trygg­ham­na con­ti­nues into a small val­ley with seve­ral lakes.

Gla­cier tour on Har­riet­breen.

In the geo­lo­gi­cal­ly recent past, up until the 19th and pos­si­bly the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, the Har­riet­breen and Kje­rulfbreen gla­ciers rea­ched the shore of the fjord and for­med cal­ving cliffs the­re. Here, as else­whe­re, gla­cier retre­at is pro­no­un­ced, form­er­ly as a result of the end of the Litt­le Ice Age in the 19th cen­tu­ry and today due to the ongo­ing man-made cli­ma­te chan­ge.

Morai­ne land­scape on the shore in front of Har­riet­breen and Kje­rulfbreen.

Flo­ra and fau­na

Lar­ge parts of Trygg­ham­na are rather incon­spi­cuous in terms of flo­ra and fau­na: the ter­rain is too steep and cha­rac­te­ri­sed by debris-cover­ed slo­pes or gla­ciers and morai­nes.

Alk­hor­net offers a stark con­trast to this: as the name ‘Alken Horn’ sug­gests, num­e­rous sea­birds breed on the cliffs, even if they are main­ly kit­ti­wa­kes rather than guil­l­emots (“alk”).

Alk­hor­net and sur­roun­ding tun­dra.

Fer­ti­li­sa­ti­on by the bird cliffs has crea­ted a tun­dra on the coas­tal plain around Alk­hor­net that is as green and lush as you can ima­gi­ne. A para­di­se for reinde­er and arc­tic foxes, and during the bree­ding sea­son in ear­ly sum­mer, the tun­dra is home to num­e­rous geese.

Reinde­er fami­ly at Alk­hor­net.

Histo­ry

Ever­yo­ne who came to Spits­ber­gen nee­ded a safe (natu­ral) har­bour, and this was and still is found in Trygg­ham­na. Accor­din­gly, they were all here: Wha­lers, Pomors and later trap­pers, and they all left their mark.

Gra­ves from the wha­ling era (17th/18th cen­tu­ry).

The most pro­mi­nent site is pro­ba­b­ly the Pomor sta­ti­on on the west side of Trygg­ham­na.

Remains of the Pomor sett­le­ment in Trygg­ham­na.

Com­ple­te­ly rui­ned, but still cle­ar­ly visi­ble, is the trapper’s hut built by Hil­mar Nøis on the shore near Alk­hor­net in 1920. It was not the first hut on the site, and if you look clo­se­ly, you can see whe­re a hut once stood befo­re it.

Remains of the trapper’s hut from 1920 at Alk­hor­net.
The pho­to is from 2014, sin­ce then the hut has dete­rio­ra­ted even fur­ther.

Just north of this trapper’s hut is a fair­ly modern hut from the 1970s abo­ve the shore. It is owned by the Sys­sel­mes­ter (gover­nor) and the­re is usual­ly field poli­ce sta­tio­ned the­re during the sum­mer sea­son.

Pho­to gal­lery Trygg­ham­na

Some impres­si­ons of Trygg­ham­na, illus­t­ra­ting the varie­ty of the landsc­sape from Sel­ma­ne­set in the sou­the­ast to the gla­ciers in the nor­thwest.

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

Pho­to gal­lery Alk­hor­net

Some images from Alk­hor­net and the sur­roun­ding tun­dra, sepa­ra­te from the Trygg­ham­na pho­tos for bet­ter over­view.

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

← Back