Rijpfjord

Gene­ral: Fjord cut­ting deep­ly into the nor­t­hern coast of Nord­aus­t­land. The outer, wide-open bay south of Sjuøya­ne is named Nor­dens­ki­öld­buk­ta. The fjord is not well char­ted and thus rare­ly visi­ted; addi­tio­nal­ly, it is often inac­ces­si­ble due to dif­fi­cult ice con­di­ti­ons. It belongs to the Nor­the­ast Sval­bard Natu­re Reser­ve.

Geo­lo­gy: Meta­mor­phic and mag­ma­tic base­ment rocks.

Recom­men­ded book for fur­ther, well-digesta­ble (real­ly!) info about geo­lo­gy and land­scape of Sval­bard.

Land­scape: Very bar­ren and rocky. The­re are moun­ta­ins top­ped by vast, low (2-300 m) pla­teaus in the inte­riour, part­ly roun­ded due to for­mer gla­cia­ti­on. The shore­li­nes are often steep cliffs or bea­ches with big stones and bould­ers, with nice old beach rid­ges in places.

Inner Rijpfjord seen from a hill­top behind the ‘Hau­de­gen-Sta­ti­on’.

Loo­kout post on a hill­tip behind the ‘Hau­de­gen-Sta­ti­on’.

Flo­ra and Fau­na: High arc­tic. Hard­ly any vege­ta­ti­on bes­i­des lichens and mos­ses.

Histo­ry: The his­to­ri­cal­ly inte­res­t­ing part is a Ger­man naval wea­ther sta­ti­on which win­tered 1944-45 in Wordie­buk­ta in the inner­most Rijpfjord. The sta­ti­on, with code-name ‘Hau­de­gen‘ after the fami­ly name of its lea­der Wil­helm Dege was the last Ger­man mili­ta­ry unit still ope­ra­ting in the second world war, as the men were picked up by a Nor­we­gi­an ship not befo­re Sep­tem­ber 1945, when they alre­a­dy feared a second win­tering.

‘Hau­de­gen-Sta­ti­on’.

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