Episode 11
Thursday and this found us nearing King Karl’s Island where we made a landing around 9am. The weather had settled greatly, there was still a small swell that we lost once we went around the top of the Island. We landed on a gravelly beach and as soon as we did so someone spotted an arctic fox off in the distance and we watched it for sometime. To everyone else it was a fox to Lyn it was a white blob in the far distance that moved. The white is its winter coat and apparently it hadn’t fully changed colour it still had some brown on it.
Near here too we saw a tiny trappers hut. It was only about 2 metre square, built entirely of wood, probably from what was washed up on the beach here at some point. It would only have been used to two or three nights at a time, it had a wooden bunk. Much of the wall has fallen down in recent times and it’s the policy of the government to leave such things alone so it will eventually fall to bits. Just nearby is an old Polar Bear trap too, one of the type in which there was a gun placed and a trip wire led from the bait to the trigger so that the poor animal was shot through the head when it tried to eat the bait. A very indiscriminate way of hunting as it often killed females with young cubs, so that the cubs died too and caused the major depletion of Polar Bear numbers on Svalbard.
We went for a walk of about 1k or so and passed some ice polygons along the way, these were round ones. Some old whalers’ graves on a bit of a rise took our attention. They are from the 17th century and can clearly be seen as each one has lots of stones placed on top. This is because a deep grave couldn’t be dug in the permafrost, so being very shallow lots of rocks were placed on top to stop the scavengers. I don’t know how well it worked but now there is one exposed skull to be seen. Research has been done on the bodies and some interesting clothes and tools have been found. Many of these people died of scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency. The irony of this is that a little plant growing on the grave is called the scurvy plant. It is rich in vitamin C and grows well in Svalbard.
We came to a small harbour seal colony. These are the same type of seal that we saw on Iceland. Some were basking on shore in amongst the seaweed, some playing in the water and a few were lying on rocks that were just underwater so that their backs were in the water but the rest of their body wasn’t. From a distance they looked like the shape of a small kayak, with their heads up at one end and their tails up at the other. They have lovely tails too, with twin flaps; one of them was twitching his back and forth all the time like a dog wagging two tails. They took no notice of us.
Along the beach hoping from rock to sand and back to rock were a couple of sandpipers. I think they are purple sandpipers as they have coloured legs. In any case they are lovely little birds that came fairly near as they pecked a living from amongst the rocks and seaweed. Overheard a long tailed skua chased a kittiwake trying to get it to drop its food, it was successful too.
Over the next few hours we moved position to our further most northerly point, 78˚58.5”, 1.5 nautical miles short of 79˚. Our longitude I am not certain of but we are around 8˚ east of the 0˚ meridian. We are in a large fjord with a huge tidal glacier at the head and a couple of other smaller tidal glaciers. The town of Ny Alesund is on the other side of the water from where we anchored. Some of the crew have gone there to get extra fuel for the zodiacs, whilst we visited the site of New London, or Camp Mansfield as it was known for some time.
When we landed on shore here we immediately saw a load of rusting equipment. Then up on the bank we came to the first of two good wooden houses that we built here. On this first one, above the door is a plaque with the name ‘Camp Mansfield” on it. Beyond that is a lot more rusting old equipment including some boilers and a steam crane: Some steel railway line too on which the crane stands:
This is the site of an old marble quarry. In 1906 Ernest Mansfield found marble here, from the piece he took back to England it was determined that it was of very good quality and was an extensive deposit. In 1911 the Northern Exploration Company decided to set up a mining business here and over the next 3 years built houses and work sheds and brought up much heavy steam powered equipment from England. In 1914 just as they were about ready to start mining WW1 broke out and everything was put on hold. It resumed again in 1919 only to fall flat on its face soon after; all the marble broke up as soon as it was cut. It is of poor quality and is fractured by frost. In all the setup years no one had bothered to check its quality. The whole project was abandoned and the equipment that had cost so much in money and effort to get here, left to rust away over time. Some of the things have been taken away by people who could make use of it, but the rest remains and now cannot be touched by anyone. There are two very small quarries here as well.
While we were looking around this site three reindeer took our attention. They were on the next ridge, a fair way off and not worried by our presence. Three males, one had antlers with velvet still on, the other had antlers with a pinkish tinge when the sunlight caught them, this is because he had just rubbed the velvet off, as for the third I have no idea. We left them and walked for about two k’s over the crumbling stony slopes and soft spongy tundra mosses. Arctic willow grows here too, it’s the local version of a tree, growing a mere 5cm above the ground with tiny leaves. It qualifies as a tree merely because it’s a woody plant. Saw four more reindeer, at least everyone else but Lyn did, we came to a high point then returned. Out in the fjord we saw another small ship at anchor, about the same size as ours. I got quite warm walking but just standing looking I soon cooled off. By the time we got back to the ship we’d been gone about 3 hours.
In the evening we had a BBQ out on the deck in the freezing weather. I am not into this BBQ culture I’m afraid and really couldn’t see the point in eating a meal outside, standing up, in heavy clothes. Hot mulled wine was on offer too, but after one taste I threw mine overboard and even the fulmar below didn’t appreciate it, can’t say that the Arctic beer was a great improvement either, but that may well have been due to the fact that it was just too cold to drink beer. Even rugged up I was just too cold to enjoy it though most partied on. I came back inside as soon as I could and sat in a place where I could enjoy the view in comfort and write this too.
Friday morning found us quite a ways south from our position yesterday. We are now south of Longyearbyen on Isfjorden on Bellsund the next major fjord to the south. We entered Recherche Fjorden and directly in front of us was the wide Recherche glacier; it has a terminal face about 12m or more high in places and possibly as wide as 2k’s. As we cruised up towards the glacier we passed others along the way and also saw a few buildings on shore that are used by scientific researchers. We anchored in front of the glacier and someone spotted a Polar Bear on a ridge in front of another glacier. Quickly the zodiacs were out and we climbed aboard. We had been warned that it was extremely cold, about +3˚C with a nasty wind coming off the glacier, so most of us had put on extra clothes to be sure. First we went and looked at the polar bear. It was up on the ridge and just looked like a white blob to me until he came a little closer by walking down a ravine and arriving at a point nearer the beach. Still a good way off but better for me to see him. He walked along the top of a low hill of moraine and I got a good view of him and how he walked as he was nicely silhouetted against the darker background of moraine. It was very large animal we believe.
After watching him for a good while we then went along to the glacier and entered the lagoon in front of the terminal that is crowded with melting icebergs and brash ice. The terminal face is around 20m high, and is quite dirty with moraine. There are a few big caves and a large area of icefall. We saw a little ring seal that popped his head up several times around our zodiac. Don, our driver this time thought he saw a Beluga whale so we set off in search of it and instead found a bearded seal basking on the rock. This fellow seemed quite content to let us come fairly near although he kept an eye on us. With the sun shining on him we could see his light coloured, long whiskers; they are more of a moustache than a beard. He was a big fellow of 2m to 2.5m long and extremely round, probably a good 2m in girth at his thickest point. He certainly wasn’t overextending any energy on our presence.
We toured about the bergs too and had a look at the terminal moraine that still has much ice underneath all the rock and gravel. We could see some icicles hanging down in the cavern above the water line, this cavern has been melted out by water and wave action. This lagoon is tidal though the tides only vary around a metre or so. A really clear berg we examined closely and could see the trapped air bubbles. These bubbles can be extracted and tested to ascertain what the atmospheric conditions were like at the time it was trapped. That could have been hundreds of years ago or thousands, just how they determine that I have absolutely no idea. The katabolic wind blowing off the glacier was fearsomely cold, and one zodiac load cut their tour short and went back to the ship, the rest of us hardier souls stuck with it though I must say my feet, even with 3 pairs of socks, were painfully cold.
While the ship moved a short distance back around a point east of Recherche Fjorden we had a fairly quick lunch then another outing in the zodiacs at 1pm. This one was to have been a landing at an old whaling station but another polar bear was on shore, just on the other side of a small point necessitating that the plan be changed.
We cruised up to the point and just far enough beyond it to see the bear, then the motors were cut and we drifted in a little way. The 5 zodiacs were then tied together loosely side by side and one motor was started and we moved in a little closer as quietly as we could. This bear was probably a little smaller than the last and was eating something up on the bank above the beach. It seemed quite content to continue doing so even though we moved in a bit closer still. It was probably still another 400m or so to the bear. Then he ambled down onto the beach to where its main food supply was lying. It was eating blubber from a sperm whale that had died last year. While it nibbled on the blubber we snuck in a little further, and kept doing so from time to time. We decided that is was mostly likely a little female on her first season alone when she sat down and attended to her toilet giving us a good view. She would look at us but wasn’t particularly interested. We were only around 150m from her when she decided to get into the water but this was only to sit in an cool off it seems as after about 10 mins she got out again. Just the same none of the zodiac drivers were taking any chances; each one checked that the outboard on their boat would start quickly. Polar bears can move very fast on land and swim very fast in the water. This water was shallow too, she could easily have waded out to us. I don’t know how long we stayed and watched her but it was a long time and although it was very cold we all enjoyed it. Just a short distance away we went and inspected some of the vertebrae from the sperm whale; there was a long piece of the tail section still intact just above the high tide mark so we got close without getting out of the zodiacs. The shallow sea floor was littered with more pieces.
Back round the little point we had a closer look at the old whaling station without getting out of the boats. On the beach were many piles of bleached bones, we could see many skulls. They are from Beluga whales that were the speciality here. The fjords here were full of them and they could be netted and dragged ashore where they were harpooned then butchered. It seems that the oil from the beluga is supposedly the finest of all whale oils. At a high point up on the bank was a stone lookout tower, it may well show up on photos of the bear as it was behind her. We went back to check on her before going back to the boat but this time she heard us coming and decided that she’d had enough so turned her back and ambled away.
Back on board it was time for a cup of tea and some of Brendan’s lovely chocolate slice, and then I headed up to the bridge to watch our progress. Don then told us that in another hour we would have another landing where we should be able to see some arctic fox. Along the way we passed an interesting cliff face. Kent explained that the dark zigzag line up the cliff face was from a very ancient folding of the rock, and then it had be turned 90˚ when it folded again.
On this landing not near so many went out, some had decided they’d had enough cold for one day. Those of us that did go were rewarded. We were to have landed here too, but yet another polar bear was around so we had to make the most of it from the boats. In only three zodiacs this time due to the smaller number it was the people in our boat that spotted the foxes. The American lady was very pleased to spot the first one, a very fine specimen with white fur and a lovely bushy tail. He ambled back and forth over some green and yellow tundra giving us a good chance to see him well. When he went out of our sight we went off to see the polar bear but the bear had disappeared down a ravine so we didn’t see him, still we came back and looked at the bird cliffs. Birds occupy little holes and ledges all the way up the cliff face. Here its mainly glaucous gulls now, these are a large and aggressive gull. There are also just a few kittiwakes and some arctic terns. We saw two long tailed skuas chasing a kittiwake. They do this to make the kittiwake drop the food it has then they catch the food before it hits the water. Well sometime they do, but not always.
While we were looking at the birds we also kept lookout for more foxes and this time David spotted one, he was skulking about near the birds. This one was a little more greyish, the same colour as the lighter rock. We also decided that this one was a female too by the way she squatted. As we watched she went up and down the rock and tundra and poked her nose into several holes but we didn’t see her get anything to eat. On this outing we sat through a couple of light showers that were snow flurries on the mountain tops giving the mountains a little more white dusting.
We’ve had a good day and seen some new animals. Now we are all very keen to see Walruses, the place we visited up north to see them we found they’d left.
© Lynette Regan 7th September 2007
Thursday and this found us nearing King Karl’s Island where we made a landing around 9am. The weather had settled greatly, there was still a small swell that we lost once we went around the top of the Island. We landed on a gravelly beach and as soon as we did so someone spotted an arctic fox off in the distance and we watched it for sometime. To everyone else it was a fox to Lyn it was a white blob in the far distance that moved. The white is its winter coat and apparently it hadn’t fully changed colour it still had some brown on it.
Near here too we saw a tiny trappers hut. It was only about 2 metre square, built entirely of wood, probably from what was washed up on the beach here at some point. It would only have been used to two or three nights at a time, it had a wooden bunk. Much of the wall has fallen down in recent times and it’s the policy of the government to leave such things alone so it will eventually fall to bits. Just nearby is an old Polar Bear trap too, one of the type in which there was a gun placed and a trip wire led from the bait to the trigger so that the poor animal was shot through the head when it tried to eat the bait. A very indiscriminate way of hunting as it often killed females with young cubs, so that the cubs died too and caused the major depletion of Polar Bear numbers on Svalbard.
We went for a walk of about 1k or so and passed some ice polygons along the way, these were round ones. Some old whalers’ graves on a bit of a rise took our attention. They are from the 17th century and can clearly be seen as each one has lots of stones placed on top. This is because a deep grave couldn’t be dug in the permafrost, so being very shallow lots of rocks were placed on top to stop the scavengers. I don’t know how well it worked but now there is one exposed skull to be seen. Research has been done on the bodies and some interesting clothes and tools have been found. Many of these people died of scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency. The irony of this is that a little plant growing on the grave is called the scurvy plant. It is rich in vitamin C and grows well in Svalbard.
We came to a small harbour seal colony. These are the same type of seal that we saw on Iceland. Some were basking on shore in amongst the seaweed, some playing in the water and a few were lying on rocks that were just underwater so that their backs were in the water but the rest of their body wasn’t. From a distance they looked like the shape of a small kayak, with their heads up at one end and their tails up at the other. They have lovely tails too, with twin flaps; one of them was twitching his back and forth all the time like a dog wagging two tails. They took no notice of us.
Along the beach hoping from rock to sand and back to rock were a couple of sandpipers. I think they are purple sandpipers as they have coloured legs. In any case they are lovely little birds that came fairly near as they pecked a living from amongst the rocks and seaweed. Overheard a long tailed skua chased a kittiwake trying to get it to drop its food, it was successful too.
Over the next few hours we moved position to our further most northerly point, 78˚58.5”, 1.5 nautical miles short of 79˚. Our longitude I am not certain of but we are around 8˚ east of the 0˚ meridian. We are in a large fjord with a huge tidal glacier at the head and a couple of other smaller tidal glaciers. The town of Ny Alesund is on the other side of the water from where we anchored. Some of the crew have gone there to get extra fuel for the zodiacs, whilst we visited the site of New London, or Camp Mansfield as it was known for some time.
When we landed on shore here we immediately saw a load of rusting equipment. Then up on the bank we came to the first of two good wooden houses that we built here. On this first one, above the door is a plaque with the name ‘Camp Mansfield” on it. Beyond that is a lot more rusting old equipment including some boilers and a steam crane: Some steel railway line too on which the crane stands:
This is the site of an old marble quarry. In 1906 Ernest Mansfield found marble here, from the piece he took back to England it was determined that it was of very good quality and was an extensive deposit. In 1911 the Northern Exploration Company decided to set up a mining business here and over the next 3 years built houses and work sheds and brought up much heavy steam powered equipment from England. In 1914 just as they were about ready to start mining WW1 broke out and everything was put on hold. It resumed again in 1919 only to fall flat on its face soon after; all the marble broke up as soon as it was cut. It is of poor quality and is fractured by frost. In all the setup years no one had bothered to check its quality. The whole project was abandoned and the equipment that had cost so much in money and effort to get here, left to rust away over time. Some of the things have been taken away by people who could make use of it, but the rest remains and now cannot be touched by anyone. There are two very small quarries here as well.
While we were looking around this site three reindeer took our attention. They were on the next ridge, a fair way off and not worried by our presence. Three males, one had antlers with velvet still on, the other had antlers with a pinkish tinge when the sunlight caught them, this is because he had just rubbed the velvet off, as for the third I have no idea. We left them and walked for about two k’s over the crumbling stony slopes and soft spongy tundra mosses. Arctic willow grows here too, it’s the local version of a tree, growing a mere 5cm above the ground with tiny leaves. It qualifies as a tree merely because it’s a woody plant. Saw four more reindeer, at least everyone else but Lyn did, we came to a high point then returned. Out in the fjord we saw another small ship at anchor, about the same size as ours. I got quite warm walking but just standing looking I soon cooled off. By the time we got back to the ship we’d been gone about 3 hours.
In the evening we had a BBQ out on the deck in the freezing weather. I am not into this BBQ culture I’m afraid and really couldn’t see the point in eating a meal outside, standing up, in heavy clothes. Hot mulled wine was on offer too, but after one taste I threw mine overboard and even the fulmar below didn’t appreciate it, can’t say that the Arctic beer was a great improvement either, but that may well have been due to the fact that it was just too cold to drink beer. Even rugged up I was just too cold to enjoy it though most partied on. I came back inside as soon as I could and sat in a place where I could enjoy the view in comfort and write this too.
Friday morning found us quite a ways south from our position yesterday. We are now south of Longyearbyen on Isfjorden on Bellsund the next major fjord to the south. We entered Recherche Fjorden and directly in front of us was the wide Recherche glacier; it has a terminal face about 12m or more high in places and possibly as wide as 2k’s. As we cruised up towards the glacier we passed others along the way and also saw a few buildings on shore that are used by scientific researchers. We anchored in front of the glacier and someone spotted a Polar Bear on a ridge in front of another glacier. Quickly the zodiacs were out and we climbed aboard. We had been warned that it was extremely cold, about +3˚C with a nasty wind coming off the glacier, so most of us had put on extra clothes to be sure. First we went and looked at the polar bear. It was up on the ridge and just looked like a white blob to me until he came a little closer by walking down a ravine and arriving at a point nearer the beach. Still a good way off but better for me to see him. He walked along the top of a low hill of moraine and I got a good view of him and how he walked as he was nicely silhouetted against the darker background of moraine. It was very large animal we believe.
After watching him for a good while we then went along to the glacier and entered the lagoon in front of the terminal that is crowded with melting icebergs and brash ice. The terminal face is around 20m high, and is quite dirty with moraine. There are a few big caves and a large area of icefall. We saw a little ring seal that popped his head up several times around our zodiac. Don, our driver this time thought he saw a Beluga whale so we set off in search of it and instead found a bearded seal basking on the rock. This fellow seemed quite content to let us come fairly near although he kept an eye on us. With the sun shining on him we could see his light coloured, long whiskers; they are more of a moustache than a beard. He was a big fellow of 2m to 2.5m long and extremely round, probably a good 2m in girth at his thickest point. He certainly wasn’t overextending any energy on our presence.
We toured about the bergs too and had a look at the terminal moraine that still has much ice underneath all the rock and gravel. We could see some icicles hanging down in the cavern above the water line, this cavern has been melted out by water and wave action. This lagoon is tidal though the tides only vary around a metre or so. A really clear berg we examined closely and could see the trapped air bubbles. These bubbles can be extracted and tested to ascertain what the atmospheric conditions were like at the time it was trapped. That could have been hundreds of years ago or thousands, just how they determine that I have absolutely no idea. The katabolic wind blowing off the glacier was fearsomely cold, and one zodiac load cut their tour short and went back to the ship, the rest of us hardier souls stuck with it though I must say my feet, even with 3 pairs of socks, were painfully cold.
While the ship moved a short distance back around a point east of Recherche Fjorden we had a fairly quick lunch then another outing in the zodiacs at 1pm. This one was to have been a landing at an old whaling station but another polar bear was on shore, just on the other side of a small point necessitating that the plan be changed.
We cruised up to the point and just far enough beyond it to see the bear, then the motors were cut and we drifted in a little way. The 5 zodiacs were then tied together loosely side by side and one motor was started and we moved in a little closer as quietly as we could. This bear was probably a little smaller than the last and was eating something up on the bank above the beach. It seemed quite content to continue doing so even though we moved in a bit closer still. It was probably still another 400m or so to the bear. Then he ambled down onto the beach to where its main food supply was lying. It was eating blubber from a sperm whale that had died last year. While it nibbled on the blubber we snuck in a little further, and kept doing so from time to time. We decided that is was mostly likely a little female on her first season alone when she sat down and attended to her toilet giving us a good view. She would look at us but wasn’t particularly interested. We were only around 150m from her when she decided to get into the water but this was only to sit in an cool off it seems as after about 10 mins she got out again. Just the same none of the zodiac drivers were taking any chances; each one checked that the outboard on their boat would start quickly. Polar bears can move very fast on land and swim very fast in the water. This water was shallow too, she could easily have waded out to us. I don’t know how long we stayed and watched her but it was a long time and although it was very cold we all enjoyed it. Just a short distance away we went and inspected some of the vertebrae from the sperm whale; there was a long piece of the tail section still intact just above the high tide mark so we got close without getting out of the zodiacs. The shallow sea floor was littered with more pieces.
Back round the little point we had a closer look at the old whaling station without getting out of the boats. On the beach were many piles of bleached bones, we could see many skulls. They are from Beluga whales that were the speciality here. The fjords here were full of them and they could be netted and dragged ashore where they were harpooned then butchered. It seems that the oil from the beluga is supposedly the finest of all whale oils. At a high point up on the bank was a stone lookout tower, it may well show up on photos of the bear as it was behind her. We went back to check on her before going back to the boat but this time she heard us coming and decided that she’d had enough so turned her back and ambled away.
Back on board it was time for a cup of tea and some of Brendan’s lovely chocolate slice, and then I headed up to the bridge to watch our progress. Don then told us that in another hour we would have another landing where we should be able to see some arctic fox. Along the way we passed an interesting cliff face. Kent explained that the dark zigzag line up the cliff face was from a very ancient folding of the rock, and then it had be turned 90˚ when it folded again.
On this landing not near so many went out, some had decided they’d had enough cold for one day. Those of us that did go were rewarded. We were to have landed here too, but yet another polar bear was around so we had to make the most of it from the boats. In only three zodiacs this time due to the smaller number it was the people in our boat that spotted the foxes. The American lady was very pleased to spot the first one, a very fine specimen with white fur and a lovely bushy tail. He ambled back and forth over some green and yellow tundra giving us a good chance to see him well. When he went out of our sight we went off to see the polar bear but the bear had disappeared down a ravine so we didn’t see him, still we came back and looked at the bird cliffs. Birds occupy little holes and ledges all the way up the cliff face. Here its mainly glaucous gulls now, these are a large and aggressive gull. There are also just a few kittiwakes and some arctic terns. We saw two long tailed skuas chasing a kittiwake. They do this to make the kittiwake drop the food it has then they catch the food before it hits the water. Well sometime they do, but not always.
While we were looking at the birds we also kept lookout for more foxes and this time David spotted one, he was skulking about near the birds. This one was a little more greyish, the same colour as the lighter rock. We also decided that this one was a female too by the way she squatted. As we watched she went up and down the rock and tundra and poked her nose into several holes but we didn’t see her get anything to eat. On this outing we sat through a couple of light showers that were snow flurries on the mountain tops giving the mountains a little more white dusting.
We’ve had a good day and seen some new animals. Now we are all very keen to see Walruses, the place we visited up north to see them we found they’d left.
© Lynette Regan 7th September 2007
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