Bear Island (Norway)
Bear Island is the southernmost island of the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago. The island is located in the western part of the Barents Sea, approximately halfway between Spitsbergen and the North Cape.
Bear Island was discovered by the Dutch explorers Willem Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerck on 10 June 1596. It was named after a polar bear that was seen swimming nearby. The island was considered terra nullius until the Spitsbergen Treaty of 1920 placed it under Norwegian sovereignty.
Despite its remote location and barren nature, the island has seen commercial activities in past centuries, such as coal mining, fishing and whaling. However, no settlements have lasted more than a few years, and Bear Island is now uninhabited except for personnel working at the island's meteorological station Herwighamna. Along with the adjacent waters, it was declared a nature reserve in 2002.
History
s of the Viking era may have known Bear Island, but the documented history begins in 1596, when Willem Barents sighted the island on his third expedition. He named this island "Vogel Eylandt", "Bird Island" in English. Steven Bennet conducted further exploration in 1603 and 1604 and noted the then rich population of walrus. Starting in the early 17th century, the island was used mainly as a base for the hunting of walrus and other species of seals. Also, the eggs of seabirds were harvested from the large bird colonies through 1971.The Muscovy Company claimed Bear Island for the English Crown in 1609, but it abandoned the site when walrus-hunting declined. A Russian settlement existed in the 18th century and its remains were later used as a basis for territorial claims by Imperial Russia in 1899 and again by the Soviet Union in 1947.
Bear Island has never been extensively settled. The remnants of a whaling station from the early 20th century can be seen at Kvalrossbukta in the southeast. From 1916 through 1925, coal was mined at a small settlement named Tunheim on the northeastern coast, but then the mining was given up as unprofitable. Due to the cold climate, the remains of the settlement, including a half-destroyed jetty and a steam locomotive, are relatively well-preserved.
The strategic value of Bear Island was recognised in the late 19th century, when Imperial Russia and Imperial Germany demonstrated their interests in the Barents Sea. The German journalist and adventurer Theodor Lerner visited the island in 1898 and 1899 and claimed rights of ownership. In 1899, the German fishery association Deutscher Seefischerei-Verein started investigations of whaling and fishery in the Barents Sea. The DSV was secretly in contact with the German naval command and considered the possibility of an occupation of Bear Island. In reaction to these advances, the Russian Navy sent out the protected cruiser to investigate, and the Russians hoisted their flag over Bear Island on July 21, 1899. Although Lerner protested the action, no violence occurred and the matter was settled diplomatically with no definitive claims of sovereignty over Bear Island by any nation.
The whole island was privately owned by the coal mining company of Bjørnøen AS from 1918 to 1932, when the Norwegian state took over the shares. Bjørnøen AS now exists as a state-owned company, and it is jointly managed with Kings Bay AS, the company that runs the operations of Ny-Ålesund on Spitsbergen. A Norwegian radio station was established in Herwighamna on the northern coast in 1919. It was later extended to include a meteorological station.
Since the shipping routes from the Atlantic Ocean to and the ports of the arctic White Sea pass through the Barents Sea, the waters near Bear Island were of some strategic importance during World War II as well during as the Cold War. Although Svalbard was not occupied by Germany, the Kriegsmarine built several weather stations there.
An automated radio station was deployed on Bjørnøya in 1941. German forces attacked several arctic convoys with military supplies bound for the Soviet Union in the waters surrounding Bear Island. They inflicted heavy losses upon the Convoy PQ 17 of June/July 1942, but they were ineffective in the Battle of the Barents Sea on New Year's Eve 1942. The waters southeast of Bear Island were the scene of more naval battles in 1943.
In November 1944, the Soviet Union proposed to annul the Svalbard Treaty with the intention of gaining sovereignty over Bear Island. Negotiations with Trygve Lie of the Norwegian government-in-exile did not lead to an agreement by the end of World War II, and the Soviet proposals were never carried out. The Soviet Union maintained some presence on Spitsbergen, however.
In 2002 a nature reserve was established that covers all of the island, except around the meteorological station. The reserve also includes the adjacent waters of a four nautical mile radius from the coast.
In 2008, the decision was made to extend the reserve to a radius of from the coast covering on land and of sea area.
Today, the island's only inhabitants are the nine or so members of the staff of the Norwegian meteorological station and radio station at Herwighamna.
This station carries out meteorological observations and provides logistic and telecommunication services, including a radio watch on the HF channels 2182/2168 and the VHF channels 16/12. Weather forecasts are transmitted from the station twice daily, announced on HF 2182/VHF 16.
The station also has landing platforms for use by helicopters of the Norwegian Coast Guard, the Norwegian 330 Squadron, and the Governor of Svalbard. The Norwegian Polar Institute conducts annual expeditions to Bear Island, mostly concerned with ornithological research. Several other research projects, mostly pertaining to geography and climatology, are carried out less regularly. There are very few opportunities for individual travel to Bjørnøya.
Amateur radio operators occasionally conduct DXpeditions on the island during the summer months.
Geography
Bear Island lies about south of mainland Spitsbergen and NNW of Ingøy in mainland Norway. It is in the westernmost part of the Barents Sea on Spitsbergen Bank, which extends southward from Spitsbergen and Edgeøya, forming a part of the continental shelf.The island's outline is an approximate triangle pointing south with a greatest north-south extension of and a greatest east-west extension of. Its surface area is. The southern part of Bjørnøya is mountainous, the highest top being Miseryfjellet on the southeast coast at about above sea level.
Other notable mountains are Antarcticfjellet in the southeast, and Fuglefjellet, Hambergfjellet and Alfredfjellet in the southwest. The northern part of the island forms a lowland plain that covers some two thirds of the surface area.
Apart from a few sandy beaches, the coast is mostly steep, with high cliffs and notable signs of erosion such as caverns and isolated rock pillars. A number of anchorages and landing points exist, as well as a small harbor at Herwighamna on the north coast.
Hydrography
Norwegian government agencies have conducted hydrographic surveys of Svalbard waters throughout the 20th century. The responsibility fell to the Norges Svalbard- og Ishavsundersøkelser in 1928, its successor, the Norwegian Polar Institute from 1948, and the Norwegian Hydrographic Service from 1984. Land surveying and mapping are the responsibilities of the Polar Institute.Water depths near the island and to the north and east do not much exceed, but become much greater to the south, and especially some to the west, where the continental shelf slopes into the deep water of the Norwegian Sea and Greenland Sea.
The lowland is strewn with shallow freshwater lakes that cover about in all. Several streams flow into the ocean, often via waterfalls along the steeper parts of the coast. There are known glaciers on Bear Island.
Climate
A branch of the North Atlantic current carries warm water to Svalbard, creating a climate much warmer than that of other regions at similar latitude. Bear Island's climate is maritime-polar with relatively high temperatures during the winter. January is the coldest month, with a mean temperature of during a base period of 1961–1990). July and August are the warmest months, with mean temperatures of.Temperatures have tended to be higher the latest decades. There is not much precipitation, with an average of per year in the northern lowland area. The weather can be quite stable during the summer months, although foggy conditions are common, occurring during 20% of all days in July. Fog develops when the warm air of the Atlantic Ocean, from farther south, passes over cold water. The average monthly precipitation is lowest in May, and highest in September and October.
Because Bear Island lies on a boundary between cold water of polar origin and warmer Atlantic water, water temperatures within a few dozen nautical miles of the island are quite variable, sometimes reaching in summer. During the winter fast ice develops on the coast, but it is rare on the open sea around Bear Island. The Barents Sea carries pack ice to Bjørnøya every winter, sometimes as early as October, but a significant amount of ice is not common before February.
The polar night lasts from about November 8 through February 3, and the period of midnight sun from about May 2 through August 11. With just 595 hours of bright sunshine per year, Bear Island has the lowest average yearly sunshine in Europe.
Flora and fauna
Bear Island was the site of a pioneering ecological study by Victor Summerhayes and Charles Elton in the early 1920s, which produced one of the first food web diagrams. There is a little plant growth, consisting mostly of moss and some scurvy grass, but no trees.The only indigenous land mammals are a few Arctic foxes. Despite its name, Bear Island is not a permanent residence of polar bears, although many arrive with the expanding pack ice in the winter. Occasionally, a bear will stay behind when the ice retreats in spring and remain through the summer months. Moreover, the sub-population of Ursus maritimus polar bears found here is a genetically distinct set of polar bears associated with the Barents Sea region.
Ringed seal and bearded seal, prey of the polar bear, live in the waters near Bjørnøya, but the formerly common walruses have nowadays become guests. Bear Island's freshwater lakes are the home of some arctic fish species like the Arctic char.
Birds
The only land birds are snow buntings and rock ptarmigans, but the island is rich in seabirds that nest on the southern cliffs. Other species visit the island during their seasonal migration between Svalbard's northern islands and mainland Europe.Bear island has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International. It supports breeding populations of northern fulmars, purple sandpipers, red phalaropes, glaucous gulls, black-legged kittiwakes, little auks, common guillemots, thick-billed guillemots and black guillemots.
It also supports migratory populations of pink-footed geese, barnacle geese and long-tailed ducks.