In the early morning hours, Kap Mitra, the mountain
shaped like a bishop hat at the entrance greeted us welcome at the entrance of
the Kongsfjord. In this fjord, we spent an overcast morning exploring the
settlement of Ny Ǻlesund. It is the northernmost settlement in the world. We
saw, of course, the northernmost train in the world und sent postcards to our
beloved ones back home from the northernmost post office of the world!
Actually, about everything holds the title “the northernmost” here...
Up to 1962, Ny Ǻlesund was a mining settlement. Today, it
is devoted to science and many different countries run their Polar research
stations here. Our guided tours through this exciting place ended at the bust
of Roald Amundsen. The great Norwegian explorer undertook a successful flight
to the North Pole from Ny Ǻlesund. With only little imagination, you can still
see the majestic airship that the Italian Umberto Nobile designed to this
endeavor is attached to the mast outside the settlement. Another
group of guests headed out to the bottom of Kongsfjord in Polar Circle boats to
take a hike on the mighty Conway glacier.
Leaving Kongsfjorden, the MV FRAM headed north, past the
seven glaciers, towards Magdalenefjorden. This is the most well known fjord in
Spitsbergen. It is a lovely fjord with rugged, pointy mountains on both sides
and an impressive glacier at the end. These are supposed to be the mountains
Willem Barents first saw when he discovered this land in 1596, naming it Spitsbergen
(peaked mountains). And for a long time, the Magdalenefjord was also known as
"Baie des dents", the bay with teeth! We disembarked at the peninsula
Gravneset (“the grave-yard peninsula”) where Dutch and English whalers from
northwestern Spitsbergen came to bury their dead in the 17th and 18th
centuries. In total, about 130 men were buried here. We also took a close look
at the remains from three blubber ovens. The actual ovens are gone for a long
time, but the whale oil that spilled over from the cooking kettles seeped into
the sand and formed a sort of oil-sandstone. This sandstone resists weathering
and thus, small oil-sandstone-knolls remain where the blubber ovens once
stood. Tours at three different levels
of difficulty were offered. Some guests enjoyed a stroll along the flat beach,
others took a medium walk and a third group set out for a real hike towards the
scenic Gully glacier.
