Hornsund, Svalbard
Another Lindblad expedition has just started. Yesterday afternoon, MS Endeavour welcomed her new passengers in Longyearbyen, most of whom are setting foot on Svalbard’s soil for the first time. Finally reaching the high Arctic – a destination that has so far been but a dream.
Morning broke among majestic, pointed peaks, partly veiled by low clouds as we slid smoothly towards our expedition’s first anchorage in a little fjord at the foot of a mighty glacier. Hornsund is a 16 mile long fjord on the west coast of Spitsbergen. At the southern side Hornsundtind stands as a prominent landmark, and at 1431 meters is high above the other pointed peaks. This indicates why the Dutch discoverers named this main island “Spitsbergen.” Our expectations for this day rose, as did the ceiling of fog, to reveal a dramatically beautiful landscape.
Our morning in Samarinvågen will be long remembered. Breakfast had only just started and Captain Karl and his crew were about to anchor, when a polar bear was spotted on fast ice beneath a huge glacier. “Look! The King of the Ice is coming towards us!” The tiny yellow-white spot gets bigger and bigger as it approaches our growing number crowding the front deck. The bear obviously wants to check out who is intruding on his breakfast table so early in the morning. The bear takes his time, seemingly unaffected by the people on deck. He makes a lazy promenade, presenting himself from various angles, applauded by eager camera shutters. We can hardly believe what we are witnessing! The bear finishes by leaving his footprints on the melting ice while touching the vessel’s bow, like a mother’s goodbye kiss to her son leaving for his first long journey: take care!
A historically important hunting station was the next stop of our first expedition day. In the afternoon, our excited shipmates were ready for their first Zodiac ride to a small hunting cabin nearby. Its name, Gnålodden (noisy point), probably comes from the thousands of kittiwakes and guillemots which nest on the sheer cliff above. A colony of barnacle geese add to this non-stop “summer concert” from a chorus of birds’ throats. Below them, lush carpets of scurvy grass and purple saxifrage attract grazing geese and reindeer. We found fresh droppings of Arctic fox and polar bear, proof that these green slopes provide all the key ecological elements of an Arctic wilderness. Gnålodden is a perfect example of the link between geology, birds, nutrients from the sea, plants and animal life. In the 18th and the 19th century, man was the top predator, basing his hunting cabin on this productive ecosystem.
Since the Svalbard Treaty was put into force in 1925, Norwegian authorities have taken measures to protect those animal species that were about to become extinct, like the Svalbard reindeer, walrus and polar bear. Today Svalbard is perhaps the only surviving, fully intact ecosystem in Europe.
Let us make sure that a hundred years from now our great-grandchildren can also experience a day such as this!
Another Lindblad expedition has just started. Yesterday afternoon, MS Endeavour welcomed her new passengers in Longyearbyen, most of whom are setting foot on Svalbard’s soil for the first time. Finally reaching the high Arctic – a destination that has so far been but a dream.
Morning broke among majestic, pointed peaks, partly veiled by low clouds as we slid smoothly towards our expedition’s first anchorage in a little fjord at the foot of a mighty glacier. Hornsund is a 16 mile long fjord on the west coast of Spitsbergen. At the southern side Hornsundtind stands as a prominent landmark, and at 1431 meters is high above the other pointed peaks. This indicates why the Dutch discoverers named this main island “Spitsbergen.” Our expectations for this day rose, as did the ceiling of fog, to reveal a dramatically beautiful landscape.
Our morning in Samarinvågen will be long remembered. Breakfast had only just started and Captain Karl and his crew were about to anchor, when a polar bear was spotted on fast ice beneath a huge glacier. “Look! The King of the Ice is coming towards us!” The tiny yellow-white spot gets bigger and bigger as it approaches our growing number crowding the front deck. The bear obviously wants to check out who is intruding on his breakfast table so early in the morning. The bear takes his time, seemingly unaffected by the people on deck. He makes a lazy promenade, presenting himself from various angles, applauded by eager camera shutters. We can hardly believe what we are witnessing! The bear finishes by leaving his footprints on the melting ice while touching the vessel’s bow, like a mother’s goodbye kiss to her son leaving for his first long journey: take care!
A historically important hunting station was the next stop of our first expedition day. In the afternoon, our excited shipmates were ready for their first Zodiac ride to a small hunting cabin nearby. Its name, Gnålodden (noisy point), probably comes from the thousands of kittiwakes and guillemots which nest on the sheer cliff above. A colony of barnacle geese add to this non-stop “summer concert” from a chorus of birds’ throats. Below them, lush carpets of scurvy grass and purple saxifrage attract grazing geese and reindeer. We found fresh droppings of Arctic fox and polar bear, proof that these green slopes provide all the key ecological elements of an Arctic wilderness. Gnålodden is a perfect example of the link between geology, birds, nutrients from the sea, plants and animal life. In the 18th and the 19th century, man was the top predator, basing his hunting cabin on this productive ecosystem.
Since the Svalbard Treaty was put into force in 1925, Norwegian authorities have taken measures to protect those animal species that were about to become extinct, like the Svalbard reindeer, walrus and polar bear. Today Svalbard is perhaps the only surviving, fully intact ecosystem in Europe.
Let us make sure that a hundred years from now our great-grandchildren can also experience a day such as this!
