Day
11 20.09.2015
We made it!
There was some ice to fight in
the night but we made it in time to Dødemandsbugten at the south coast of
Clavering Ø. It would be our last landing in NE Greenland. We set the big polar
circle boats to water for some ice floe cruising and then started the normal
landing. It turned out to be a beautiful little place literally full of
history.
There were remains of over 40
Eskimo houses, graves and meat stashes. Evidence of a long gone culture of some
of the probably most hardy indigenous people. They came originally from Canada
through northern Greenland down the East coast.
On top of that we found traces of
more recent history. Iron barrels filled with rocks formed machine gun nests,
some empty round shells spread around and bullet holes in the metal. A little
hut is standing close to the beach and all sorts of old ironware in front of
it. We are looking at the remains of the old headquarters of the Sirius Dogsled
patrol from the year 1943. There was never war acts carried out at this very
place, but soldiers used it for training.
Later
in the day we were heading into the ice towards Svalbard again. In the evening
we even got a female polar bear with a cub to see. There was some blood around
on the floe, as they were just eating seal. Taking pictures was a difficult
task though, as it was raining close to 0 degrees centigrade and the light was
low. It was nice to watch anyways.
