Expedition to Billefjorden I

Underneath is Langøysund - the vessel that took us to Billefjorden, to the Nordenskiöld glacier and Pyramiden. Very nice boat, with a friendly and skilled crew.


The weather was like this in the morning, luckily it cleared up during the day.


But it was COLD the whole time. Heavy clothing was the only way to dress.


By the way, that polar bear on the wall was the only one we saw on the trip.

Going into Billefjorden, snowy mountains in the distance.


Turning into the fjord, we passed this ship. "Der Noorderlicht", a Dutch schooner from 1912 that takes tourists on cruises around the island in summer, and lets itself freeze into the ice in the winter. You can actually stay overnight on it in winter, like in a hotel. More about that here.


Right next to the Nordenskiöld glacier, lies three cabins, the place is called Brucebyen. This was built by the Scotsman William Spiers Bruce around 1900 (more here).

William claims that if it hadn´t been for Brucebyen, we wouldn´t have been here at all (meaning our family might have decided to go somewhere else for a year - not Svalbard, but maybe, let´s say, Hawaii). Early in the eighties he stayed here a whole summer as an assistant for a geology student - this was before he´d started studying geology himself. It was partly this experience that convinced him that geology on Svalbard was the thing for him.

I´m not sure if I agree it´s this simple, but it would be kind of amusing if our choice was determined by three shacks on a windblown bank in the arctic.

Moving on, and finally approaching the Nordenskiöld Glacier, we met the ship belonging to the Gouvernor of Svalbard (Sysselmannen), Nordsyssel. They were there to assist the Red Cross while they practiced glacier walking.



On the middle of this photo, to the right, you can see a line of people walking the glacier. It certainly is a big heap of ice.

And beautiful too, in a brutal way.


Some of the surrounding mountain sides, covered in powder-like snow.





Ice floating everywhere - hopefully not because of global warming.


A little of the ice was fished out of the water and put in drinks. 12 year old whisky on 3000 year old ice.

And then lunch ...


...as we left the glacier and headed for Pyramiden on the other side of the fjord.


And by next chapter, we´ll have arrived... See you then!