The History Of The Norwegian Archipelago Of Svalbard

The History Of The Norwegian Archipelago Of Svalbard Todays article will discuss the history of the Svalbard as a whole. It is currently owned by the country of Norway. It is approximately 366.83 Nautical/Marine miles (422.140425 miles or 679.36916 Kilometers) from the mainland areas of Norway. Svalbard’s largest city is Longyearbyen. Svalbard was discovered during the golden age of dutch exploration, this gives it a rich & interesting history. For example, at one point it was disputed if Svalbard should have been ruled by multiple countries at the same time. In this article we will discuss the discovery & documented history of Svalbard as a whole, Svalbard known aboriginals, the disaster history of Svalbard , & finally a segment on the Svalbard economy. The Documented History Of Svalbard Before Dutch Colonization / Discovery Unfortunately, it is inconclusive as to when humans actually appeared on any of the Svalbard islands. A Swedish archeologist known as Hans Christiansson found tools made from flint & slate. He originally Identified them as being from approximately 3000 B.C. However, this may be in accurate as no other evidence of human activity was found. A later analysis on the leftover lithic material from these tools concluded that they were not made in the stone age era. It was proposed by Norwegian historians that that Norse seamen had found Svalbard in 1194. This claim is based on Icelandic annals that found something known was Svalbarði after sailing from Iceland. However, it is not known if it was referencing something other then modern day Svalbard. The exact location of what they called Svalbarði is unknown. It has been hypothesized whether or not the Russian ethnographic group known as the “Pomors” visited Svalbard in the early 15th or possibly 14th century. It is extremely likely that they did as Svalbard was untouched & had many resources that they would have normally been unable to find. However, there is no current solid evidence that would prove their arrival at that point. Seafarers from viking eras may have known that bear island existed as well as other areas of Svalbard. However this is not backed by concrete evidence. If the Vikings did discover Svalbard it would most likely have been in 1194. The reason that this is believed is that something named “Svalbarði” is mentioned in a few viking chronicles. After Colonization 16th Century Svalbard was first documented by the dutch on June 16th 1596 by William Barentsz, a dutch sea explorer. The island that was first discovered, was Spitsbergen. There were 2 failed expeditions that attempted at finding Svalbard before this in 1594 & 1595. There were 2 ships involved in this discovery, the captains being Jacob Van Heemsherk & Jan Cornelisz Rijp. The overseer of the expedition was Barentsz. It was argued by the 3 whether or not they wished to map the north coast of Spitsbergen. Ultimately, it was decided by Jan Cornelisz Rijp that he wished to sail to Spitsbergen while the other 2 sailed on to Novaya Zemlya. It is important to mention, that the original purpose of this expedition was not to discover Svalbard but was to discover an entrance to the North Sea. When Rijp arrived he documented it as Het Nieuwe Land. This translates from dutch into english as “The New Land”. From the annals made during this discovery, the marine resources of the island were not noted by Rijp or any of the others. Nor were any of the geological characteristics, or approximate size. Maps of these islands later went on to be published over time. The most important were of Spitsbergen. It is important to note, that at the time of Svalbard being found it did not fall under any jurisdiction or sovereignty. 17th Century The first hunting expedition on Svalbard was led by the english & took place on Bjørnøya / Bear Island, Bjørnøya is the southern most island of Svalbard. The expeditions was was organized by a company known as the Muscovy Trading Company. This expedition was led by a certain Steven Bennet in the year of 1604. They had extreme lack of experience killing walruses which was most likely due to the lack of walruses around England & surrounding areas. This led to them only being able to kill under one thousand of them. The following year the original group of hunters returned & were more successful. This returned annually until they unfortunately caused local extinction of the walrus. The population of the walrus has been in recovery since then. Later a man named Jonas Poole reported seeing a "great store of whales" off Spitsbergen (an island that composed the archipelago of Svalbard). The exact species of these whales is unknown however it was most likely the bowhead whale. This sparked a frenzy of whalers flocking to the island to find whale oil. This prompted the the Muscovy Trading Company to send a whaling expedition to the island under command of Jonas Poole & Tomas Edge in the year of 1611. This group of whalers made a base camp on the island of Spitsbergen. At this point it was made clear that the bowhead whale was around the archipelago & it was in abundance. The Muscovy Trading Company then decided to hire people from the Basque ethnographic group to hunt the bowhead whale. It is important to note that they did not only hunt whales from this point on. They also hunted many of the land animals for food, fur, oils, & other different purposes. This was because due to the areas that the basque people live, they get more experience with hunting the bowhead whale. However unfortunately the 2 ships holding the experts crashed off the coast of Svalbard. The crews were later rescued by English interlopers who were going to Svalbard. In the year of 1612, the Muscovy Trading Company sent a new expedition for the purpose of whaling, but they were surprised to be met by both Dutch & Spanish whalers. They then claimed exclusive rights to Spitsbergen on behalf of England for the purpose of whaling & sent away the other foreign whalers. In the year 1613, seven armed English ships were sent to Spitsbergen which caused many Dutch, Spanish, & French whaling vessels to depart from the isle. By this point Spitsbergen was an international whaling base, so the english suddenly claiming exclusive rights caused large disruption in certain economies. Another effect was that England ended up causing a lot of political conflict among main international whaling companies. The Dutch refused to recognize the english claim on reclusive rights, claiming the mare liberum principle. The mare liberum principle is based off a latin book about international ocean laws. Christian IV of Denmark claimed that the Denmark-Norway Union had the rights to all of Northern Sea view of Greenland Being an old Norwegian tax-land. England offered to purchase the rights from Denmark-Norway in 1614. However the pair refused this offer, after which the English reverted to their exclusive rights claim. In 1615, the Denmark-Norway Union sent three man-o-war ships to collect taxes from English & Dutch whalers. The union felt it was owned those taxes, however all whalers refused to pay. This issue ended in a political deadlock, with the Denmark–Norway union & England both claiming sovereignty over Svalbard. The opposing side, France, the Netherlands, & Spain claimed it to be void of rule under the mare liberum principle. In the year 1614, the English & Dutch partitioned the island, as the political tension was not worth continuing as it was negatively effecting the economy of both groups. Additionally in the year 1614, the Netherlands created Noordsche compagnie as a whaling cartel After the Muscovy Company fell into financial difficulties. The Noordsche Compagnie got managed to kick out the English whalers after a hard & tedious fight. They then established themselves in the northwestern corner of Spitsbergen & only permitted a limited Danish presence for the sole purpose of whaling. The English decided to whale further south, while the French were allocated to the north coast & along the open sea. Later spanning over the 1630s, the situation stabilized & there were only a limited number of aggressive whaling related incidents that were caused by the original tension. Initially, all nations hired the expert Basque whalers, although this practice gradually disappeared after their knowledge was learnt by their fellow European whalers. The whaling method was based on landing the whale, where it would be partitioned & the blubber boiled. With a high concentration of whales close to land, this method was efficient, as the companies would split the crew between the land station & hunting. The most famous land station from this area at the time was known as the Dutch Smeerenberg on Amsterdam Island which is a part of the Svalbard archipelago. This land station had up to 200 people employed at any time. Due of the high costs involved, only larger international companies conducted whaling. By the late 17th century there were between 200 & 300 whaling ships at any given time nearby the isle & in excess of 10,000 whalers around Spitsbergen. The first overwintering was accidentally experienced by an English group in Bellsund 1630 to 1631. The first planned overwintering was achieved by the Noordsche Compagnie in 1633 to 1634. In the year 1623, the first clear map of Spitsbergen was printed by Willem Janszoom Blaeu. This is currently our oldest known map of Spitsbergen. This century involved the most use of Svalbard as in later years many more international laws pertaining to whaling were put in place after this. 18th Century In approximately 1728, a revised map of Spitsbergen was published, this map was quite helpful to many sailors or pioneers who wanted to visit the isle. The first charted scientific expedition to Svalbard, specifically Spitsbergen, took place in 1764 & 1766. It was named Čičagov. It passed Svalbard in an unsuccessful effort to find a nearby route to the Northern Sea. A later second expedition was organized by the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom & it was led by Constantine John Phipps, a baron & English explorer as well as royal naval officer. It took place in the year of 1773. Unfortunately, both piloted ships known as the HMS Carcass (infernal class bomb vessel) & the HMS Racehorse / Thunder (discovery ship) got stuck due to ice around Sjuøyane. On this expedition zoological, botanical, & water samples were taken & measured in their respective aspects. After this, scientific exploration of this island drastically increased. This century had the most furthering of scientific knowledge about Svalbard. The most extensive surveys were conducted by William Scoresby, a English scientist, whaler, arctic explorer, & clergyman. He published several scientific papers about Svalbard which drastically expanded the scientific knowledge of Svalbard. The other major scientist was Baltazar Mathias Keilhau a Norwegian geologist & mountain pioneer. In this century many miners were also attracted to Svalbard due to its untouched minerals. Hunters also began taking note of the island for its exotic animals which would often be used for fur. 19th Century It was in this era that Swedish exploration began to appear more frequently. This was mostly due to Swedish Sven Ludvig Lovén marine biologist who conducted the first nautical Swedish expedition to Svalbard in 1837. He later went on to pioneer Swedish scientific exploration for the last half of the 19th century. A few other scientists also dedicated their research to the different areas of the archipelago. These most noted of these scientists are Otto Torell a Swedish geologist & naturalist, & Adolf Erik Nordernskiöld also a Swedish geologist & naturalist. Another result of Swedish scientific was the first interior map of Spitsbergen to be printed by Martin Conway. A french scientific expedition took place on the island in 1838 to 1839. This expedition was carried out by the french naval ship Recherche. This was unusual as most scientific expedition took place in the 17th century. That expedition resulted in multiple publications in many nautical & other fields as well as the construction of an observatory. Unfortunately we do not know whether that observatory is still standing or not. After this point not much nautical research was conducted however Svalbard started to be used to attempt to conduct air expeditions to the north pole. These experiments & expeditions were mostly conducted in the 1890’s. Most namely out of all of these The Andrée’s Arctic Balloon expedition was carried out with Svalbard as a starting point. It was conducted in 1897 it completely & utterly failed. In 1872, Alfred Gabriel Nathrost established the small town of Kapp Thordsen for the purpose of phosphorite & coal mining. Unfortunately, this did not work & the settlement was slowly abandoned. However, industrial mining did come back as a large amount of coal miners came to continue their endeavours. The first commercial company to begin mining on Svalbard areas was known as John Munroe Longyear’s Mining Company. From that a mining city was formed which later became what is now known as Longyearbyen. 20th Century Throughout the 1910’s & to some extent the early 1920’s coal was extremely profitable & was mined constantly on Spitsbergen. During the 1st world war, Norway began to take note of the large coal supply Svalbard was accumulated at a rapid pace. It was at this point that Norway finally decided to establish more mines in Ny-Ålesund in 1916. Many more things were discovered in this century as well as a general advancement of technology so this made more things achievable in arctic exploration. 4 more attempts between the years of 1925 & 1928 were made to launch an aircraft to the north pole with humans inside of it. These aircrafts all took off from the village of Ny-Ålesund. One of the aircrafts used for one of he first attempts was known as the flying boat, which was invented by Roald Amundsen. The flying boat is a kind of fixed-winged sea plane with a hull that allows it to land on water. These attempts all failed. Svalbard was initially unaffected by the Nazi German Occupation of Mainland Norway on 9 April 1940. Nazi Germany at the time most likely did not think of Svalbard having any importance. However, following the German attack upon the Soviet Union Svalbard became of strategic importance to secure supplies between the Allies of the 2nd world war. This was good due to the usual unimportance of the archipelago meaning it would most likely to not arouse suspicion. At first, the Soviet Union proposed Soviet–British occupation of the archipelago, but this was rejected by the Norwegian government-in-exile. Instead, an evacuation of all Norwegian & Soviet settlements were carried out by Operation Gauntlet, which took place between August 25th & September 3rd 1941. With the island evacuated, German troops occupied Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen , where they decided to build an airstrip & weather station. In May 1942, a Norwegian expedition was sent to liberate the island; they were attacked by German aircraft, but were able to set up a garrison in Barentsburg. The German outpost was subsequently abandoned. The Germans, presumably underestimating the Allied forces' size, initiated Operation Zitronella. Along with nine destroyers, the battleships Tirputz, the Scharnhorst were sent to Isfjorden where they leveled Barentsburg, Grumant & Longyearbyen. Sveagruva was bombed in an air raid in 1944. The Germans established a weather station on Hopen, which was taken over by Norway after world war 2 ended. 21st Century In 2008, the Svalbard seed vault is opened by the Norwegian government. The Norwegian seed vault has an extensive collection of all discovered seeds of all discovered plants. It is a kind of gene bank that protects against total extinction of many different kinds of plants. Its official website is https://www.seedvault.no/. It is 1 floor in size. The Documented Aboriginals Of Svalbard It is currently unknown whether there were people who largely inhabited Svalbard before it was reached by the dutch. The Pomors may have visited however there is no hard evidence & if they did they did not stay for a very long time. Unfortunately if there were aboriginals their culture was most likely lost to time & will likely not ever be recovered in its entirety. The Most Destructive Man Caused & Natural Disasters That Have Affected Svalbard No.1 Andrée’s Arctic Balloon Expedition Of 1897 This was a balloon expedition, it was done an effort to make it to north pole however it failed & crash landed on white island. There were 3 members aboard the balloon with those members being known as: S. A. Andrée, Knut Frænkel, & Nils Stringberg. The leader of this group of scientists was Andrée. This occurred in July of 1897. A hydrogen balloon was delivered to Svalbard from Paris without being tested for security. The balloon showed obvious stress early on in the expedition however Andrée carried on in an effort to power through it. The technique that was used to steer the balloon in any capacity was ineffective & the balloon could not be controlled. The balloon was also leaking hydrogen & possibly had other mechanical however they were all left unacknowledged by Andrée. After take off the balloon quickly lost hydrogen causing them to crash on White Island on pack ice. The crash left them relatively unscathed however they were unequipped & inappropriately clothed for such weather. Unfortunately, they could not get help & all of the group sadly perished on the island due to the crash. The harsh October winter had slowly been closing in & they could not survive in such frigid conditions. Svalbard’s Economy Svalbard does not have a very large economy due to it not being a large exporter & due to its arctic location. Its main current industries are coal mining, tourism, & research. The currency that is used on Svalbard is the Norwegian Krone or NOK. Property on Svalbard is incredibly hard to get due to the fact that it is incredibly unique. Svalbard has a lower income tax compared to mainland Norway. The research portion is mostly in laboratories & experiments. The average income is 23% percent higher then mainland Norway. The average salary for a working person on Svalbard is 494,700 NOK. Total Timeline Of Important Historical Events 14th century - The Russian Pomors Possibly visited Svalbard however it is unclear. 1594 - Failed attempt at finding Svalbard. 1595 - Failed attempt at finding Svalbard. June 16th 1596 - Spitsbergen & Bjørnøya are discovered by the Dutch explorer William Barentz. It was promptly named Het Nieuwe Land. 1604 - The Muscovy Trading Company organizes a hunting expedition to Spitsbergen, an island of Svalbard. This ended with the local extinction of walruses that was caused by their hunting. 1611 - The Muscovy Trading Company sends a whaling expedition back to Svalbard for their purposes. This time the whalers made an official base camp. 1612 - The Muscovy Trading Company sent another whaling expedition with the expectation that no foreign whalers would be there, however they were there. 1613 - England sent on the Muscovy trading companies behalf, 7 armed naval ships to make sure no other foreign whalers came. This caused many foreign vessels to end up leaving soon after arrival. 1614 - England offers to purchase the rights to the island from the Denmark-Norway Union. This offer was refused. 1614 - The english & the dutch partition the island of Spitsbergen due to political tension. 1614 - The Dutch created Noordsche compagnie as a whaling cartel After the Muscovy Company fell into financial difficulties. 1615 - The Denmark-Norway Union sends 3 man-o-war ships to collect taxes from foreign whalers. Upon arrival of these ships, all whalers refused to pay any taxes. 1623 - The first clear map of Spitsbergen is printed by Willem Janszoom Blaeu. 1630 & 1631 - The first overwintering was experienced by the English. 1728 - A clearer, revised map of Spitsbergen is printed & published. This became incredibly useful. 1764 & 1766 - The first Russian chartered scientific expedition takes place. It is called the Čičagov. 1773 - An expedition took place which was conducted by the royal navy of the United Kingdom. This ended with many samples being taken & many scientific publications being tied directly to this expedition. 1837 - The first Swedish nautical expedition that was for Svalbard takes place. 1838 & 1839 - A french scientific expedition takes place ofd the coast of Svalbard. 1872 - A small town known as Kapp Thordsen gets settled for phosphorite mining. This unfortunately fails & leads to the settlement being abandoned. 1897 - Andrée’s Arctic Balloon Expedition takes place & fails. 1916 - Coal mining becomes popular in Svalbard & the mainland Norway government begin to notice the large amount of coal Svalbard has accumulated. This leads to Norway establishing a coal mining operation near the small town of Ny-Älesund. 1925 to 1928 - 4 attempts at launching an aircraft to reach the north pole are made. All attempts fail. April 9th 1940 - Nazi German occupation of Norway happens, Svalbard is initially unaffected but later becomes a major distribution point of supplies between the Allies. May 1942 - An attempt is made to liberate Svalbard however it fails. 26th Of February 2008 - The Svalbard Seed Vault is completed & opens. Directories / Credits https://global.hurtigruten.com/destinations/svalbard/inspiration/a-brief-history-of-svalbard/ https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1922/a-history-of-svalbard/ https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/to-do-amp/experiences/spitsbergens-history https://www.seedvault.no/ https://www.lifeinnorway.net/svalbard-history/ spitsbergen-svalbard.comhttps://www.spitsbergen-svalbard.com › ...History - Spitsbergen | Svalbard https://www.chimuadventures.com/blog/2018/12/history-of-svalbard/?amp=1 https://dbpedia.org/page/Operation_Gauntlet https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/history/operations/operationgauntlet.htm https://dbpedia.org/page/Operation_Zitronella http://www.warcovers.dk/greenland/zitronella.htm Strategic Partnerships Reel Guppy Outdoors Our Loyal Patrons Ms. Ochoa