History of Svalbard
Encyclopedia
Svalbard
Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...
as early as the 12th century. Traditional Norse accounts exist of a land known as Svalbarði – literally "cold edge" (but this land was more likely Jan Mayen
Jan Mayen
Jan Mayen Island is a volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean and part of the Kingdom of Norway. It is long and 373 km2 in area, partly covered by glaciers . It has two parts: larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by an isthmus wide...
(500 miles southwest of Svalbard), or a part of eastern Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
). Russian Pomors
Pomors
Pomors or Pomory are Russian settlers and their descendants on the White Sea coast. It is also term of self-identification for the descendants of Russian, primarily Novgorod, settlers of Pomorye , living on the White Sea coasts and the territory whose southern border lies on a watershed which...
may have had settlements on the archipelago in the 16th century, although evidence is lacking before the late 17th century. Pomor accounts name the island as Grumant
Grumant
Grumant was a Soviet Russian settlement in Svalbard, Norway, established in 1912 and abandoned in 1965. The population peaked at 1106 in 1951/52 . The name ‘Grumant’ is Pomor in origin, and is also use to refer to the whole of the Svalbard archipelago...
. The Dutchman
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
Willem Barents
Willem Barents
Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, explorer, and a leader of early expeditions to the far north....
made the first indisputable discovery of Svalbard in 1596.
Following the report of a "great store of whales" by an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
expedition under Jonas Poole
Jonas Poole
Jonas Poole was an early 17th century English explorer, sealer, and whaler. Although Henry Hudson has often been dubbed the "father of English whaling," Poole, who's 1610 voyage led to the establishment of the English whaling trade, deserves the title.-Voyages to Bear Island, 1604-1609:He served...
in 1610, the first whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...
expedition was sent to Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
in 1611. In 1612 the first Dutch and Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
expeditions were sent, followed by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(1613) and Danes
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
(1617). Stations were built ashore to process the blubber into oil, primarily on the west coast of Spitsbergen, particularly on its northwest corner, but others were also established to the southeast. Here they hunted the Bowhead whale
Bowhead Whale
The bowhead whale is a baleen whale of the right whale family Balaenidae in suborder Mysticeti. A stocky dark-colored whale without a dorsal fin, it can grow to in length. This thick-bodied species can weigh to , second only to the blue whale, although the bowhead's maximum length is less than...
. In the 1630s they began to catch whales in the open sea, and by 1670 the last station had been abandoned in favor processing the blubber on the return to port. Whaling off Svalbard continued into the first decades of the 19th century, being dominated by the Dutch and Germans until the late 18th century, after which it was taken over by the British. Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Norwegian and Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
expeditions were also sent to Svalbard during this time period.
In 1707 the Dutch whaler Cornelis Giles made the first circumnavigation of the islands. As whalers, Russian and Norwegian hunters, explorers, and scientists largely stuck to the coastal areas of the islands, the interior remained largely unknown until the 1890s, when Martin Conway
Martin Conway
William Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington , known as Sir Martin Conway between 1895 and 1931, was an English art critic, politician, cartographer and mountaineer....
and a group of scientists made the first crossing of Spitsbergen. In June and July 1896 his party crossed from Adventfjorden
Adventfjorden
Adventfjorden is a 7 km long and 4 km wide bay on the southern side of Isfjorden, on the west coast of Spitsbergen. The name is a corruption of Adventure Bay, which was probably named after the Hull whaleship Adventure, which resorted to Isfjorden in 1656. The fjord was originally known as Klass...
to Agardhfjorden on Spitsbergen's east coast.
In the winter of 1872–73, seventeen seal hunters
Seal hunting
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...
died in the Svenskehuset Tragedy
Svenskehuset Tragedy
The Svenskehuset Tragedy was an event in the winter of 1872–73 where seventeen men died in an isolated house on Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The cause of death was long believed to be scurvy, but research done in 2008 has revealed that the men probably suffered lead poisoning...
.
At the beginning of the 20th century, American, British, Swedish, Russian and Norwegian companies started coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mining on the archipelago. The coal was first mined on a significant scale by an American named Longyear, who founded Longyear City – or Longyearbyen in Norwegian – on the west coast of Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
. Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
's sovereignty was recognized by the Spitsbergen Treaty of 1920 with additions that limited the military use of Svalbard, and that the other nations retained rights to their settlements; five years later Norway officially took over the territory. Some historians claim that Norway was given sovereignty as compensation for its Merchant Fleet losses during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, when the Norwegian Merchant fleet played an important role supplying the UK.
At the beginning of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1939, Spitsbergen was inhabited primarily by miners – 2,000 Soviets and 1,000 Norwegians – running a coal-mine concession. After the German invasion and occupation of continental Norway, the Svalbard islands, as with Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and Jan Mayen
Jan Mayen
Jan Mayen Island is a volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean and part of the Kingdom of Norway. It is long and 373 km2 in area, partly covered by glaciers . It has two parts: larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by an isthmus wide...
, became the targets for possible Allied and Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
confrontations. The Allies originally planned to land Canadian troops on Spitsbergen in 1940 and permanently occupy the island. The fast approaching winter and thin resources changed this plan to a raiding party that would destroy the weather stations, put the coal mining factories out of commission, evacuate the Russian and Norwegian workers and withdraw until spring.
On August 25, 1941, the former luxury liner Empress of Canada
Empress of Canada
RMS Empress of Canada or Empress of Canada may refer to one of the following ships of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company:, a 21,517-ton ship built in Glasgow, Scotland; Vancouver-based ship served the Far East; served as troopship in World War II; torpedoed and sunk off Africa by an Italian...
accompanied by two Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
cruisers and three destroyers, docked at Green Harbour
Grønfjorden
Grønfjorden is a 16km long fjord, separated from Isfjorden to the north by Festningsodden in the west and Heerodden in the east. It lies within the western portion of Nordenskiöld Land...
, a bay lying inside the great Isfjorden on Spitsbergen's west coast. A contingent of Canadian engineers, a Norwegian platoon and troops of the Royal Army Service Corps
Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...
began the evacuation of the island and the mining facility was destroyed with explosives.
Two years later, the German Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
carried out Operation Sizilien (also called Operation Zitronella), a raid on Spitsbergen, in September 1943. Supported by naval bombardment from the battleship Tirpitz
German battleship Tirpitz
Tirpitz was the second of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later in April...
, the battle cruiser Scharnhorst
German battleship Scharnhorst
Scharnhorst was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship and battlecruiser, of the German Kriegsmarine. She was the lead ship of her class, which included one other ship, Gneisenau. The ship was built at the Kriegsmarinewerft dockyard in Wilhelmshaven; she was laid down on 15...
, and nine destroyers, the Germans occupied one island from 6 September to 9 September 1943, after which they withdrew from this untenable occupation. This was the only operation in which the Tirpitz fired her guns on enemy targets.
From the late 1940s to the early 1980s the geology of the Svalbard archipelago was investigated by teams from Cambridge University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and other universities (e.g., Oxford University), led by Cambridge geologist W. Brian Harland
W. Brian Harland
W. Brian Harland was a geologist at the University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences, England. In 1968, he was honoured with the Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal for Arctic exploration and research.- Personal background :...
. Many of the geographical features of the isles are named after the participants in these expeditions, or were given names by them linked to places in Cambridge (see Norwegian Polar Institute).