The West Ice is a patch of the Greenland Sea

Greenland Sea

The Greenland Sea is a body of water that borders Greenland to the west, the Svalbard archipelago to the east, Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Norwegian Sea and Iceland to the south. The Greenland Sea is often defined as part of the Arctic Ocean, sometimes as part of the...

 covered by pack ice during winter time. It is located north of Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, between 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...

 island.

The West Ice is a major breeding ground for seals, especially harp seal

Harp Seal

The harp seal or saddleback seal is a species of earless seal native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean. It now belongs to the monotypic genus Pagophilus. Its scientific name, Pagophilus groenlandicus, means "ice-lover from Greenland", and its synonym, Phoca...

s and hooded seal

Hooded Seal

The hooded seal is an arctic pinniped found only in the central and western North Atlantic ranging from Svalbard in the east to the Gulf of St...

s. It was discovered in the early 18th century by British whalers. At the time, whalers were not interested in seal hunting as long as there was ample stock of 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...

s in the area. However, after the 1750s, the whale population had been depleted in the area, and systematic seal hunting started, first by British ships and then by German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, and Russian ships. The annual catches were 120,000 animals around 1900, mostly by Norway and Russia, and rose to 350,000 by the 1920s. They then declined, first because of imposed restrictions on total allowable catch and then in response to decreasing market demand. Nevertheless, the seal population in the West Ice was rapidly falling, from an estimated 1,000,000 in 1956 to 100,000 in the 1980s. In the 1980s–1990s, takings of harp seals totaled 8,000–10,000, and annual catches of hooded seals totaled a few thousand between 1997 and 2001. Norway accounts for all recent seal hunting in the West Ice, as Russia has not hunted hooded seals since 1995, and catches harp seals at the East Ice in the White Sea

White Sea

The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...

 – Barents Sea

Barents Sea

The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...

.

Seal hunting

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...

 in the West Ice was a dangerous occupation, as floating ice, storms and winds posed constant threat to the ships; in the 19th century, the hunters often encountered frozen human bodies on the West Ice. A major accident

West Ice accidents

The West Ice accidents occurred around April 5, 1952 when the five Norwegian seal hunting vessels "Ringsel", "Brattind" and "Vårglimt" from Troms and "Buskøy" and "Pels" from Sunnmøre with a total of 78 men vanished in the midst of a severe storm in the West Ice, east of Greenland.Despite search...

 occurred around 5 April 1952 when a sudden storm surprised 53 ships hunting in the area. Seven of them sank and five vanished, namely "Ringsel", "Brattind" and "Vårglimt" from Troms

Troms

or Romsa is a county in North Norway, bordering Finnmark to the northeast and Nordland in the southwest. To the south is Norrbotten Län in Sweden and further southeast is a shorter border with Lapland Province in Finland. To the west is the Norwegian Sea...

 and "Buskøy" and "Pels" from Sunnmøre

Sunnmøre

Sunnmøre is the southernmost traditional district of the western Norwegian county of Møre og Romsdal. Its main city is Ålesund. The region comprises the municipalities of Giske, Hareid, Herøy, Norddal, Sande, Skodje, Haram, Stordal, Stranda, Sula, Sykkylven, Ulstein, Vanylven, Volda, Ørskog,...

, with 79 men on board. The search for them involved ships and planes and continued for many days, but no trace of the missing boats was found.