Jonsbu


Jonsbu was a Norwegian hunting and radio station located on the coast of Eastern Greenland in present-day King Christian X Land.
Administratively the area were the hut stood belongs now to the Northeast Greenland National Park.
The site is located in southern Hochstetter Foreland on the western side of Peters Bay, northeast of the mouth of Ardencaple Fjord, about from Cape Klinkerfues.

History

The station was built in 1932 by John Giæver's expedition, about northeast of the mouth of Ardencaple Fjord. It was named "Jónsbú" after Norwegian journalist John Schjelderup Giæver, who lived as a hunter and trapper in East Greenland from 1929–1934. The station had also been known as "Norsk Petersbugt Station".
Together with Myggbukta, as well as Storfjord, Torgilsbu and Finnsbu further south, Jonsbu became part of the Norwegian contribution to the International Polar Year 1932–33.
The original station was burnt down in August 1943 during World War II in an attack by Greenland Patrol ship. The ship destroyed the station in order to prevent its facilities from being used by the military of the Third Reich.
In 1948, well after the end of the war, the new Jónsbú Station was built in a new location south of Peters Bay, on the other side of Ardencaple Fjord by the mouth of Kildedal at. In order to differentiate the two huts, the ruin of the old station is also known as "Gamle Jonsbu" —although the name "Jónsbú Station" is still officially applied to it— and the new one as "Ny Jonsbu".