Bear Island [1979]

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Seafarers of the Viking era may have known Bear Island, but the documented history begins in 1596, when Willem Barentsz sighted the island on his third expedition. He named this island "Vogel Eylandt", "Bird Island" in English. [2] Steven Bennet conducted further exploration in 1603 and 1604 and noted the then rich population of walrus. Starting in the early 17thcentury, 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 until 1971. [3] We had sailed 500 miles from Tromsø in Norway to Bear Island, waiting a few hours in Vanvåg, one of the last ports on mainland Norway, before sailing into the Barents Sea.

But there was much more than coffee and stories to focus on this day! During a walk of a few kilometres, we were accompanied by a couple of curiously close specimens of the rare striated caracara which is common on this particular island. We walked over green hills, dotted with bright yellow flowering, coconut-scented common gorse, and finally reached a bird colony on the other side of the island.The Swedish invention called Larven (The Caterpillar) by Lennart Nilsson is used in the chases around the island. As we collected the plastic from the beaches of Bear Island, we examined and scanned it to determine what kind of plastic we had found. 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. [6] A Norwegian radio station ( Bjørnøya Radio, callsign: LJB [7]) was established in Herwighamna on the northern coast in 1919. It was later extended to include a meteorological station.

Bear Island: The story of an isolated arctic island – exploration, people, culture and nature by Dag Kjelldahl Normally, everyone reacts with great joy when they see a polar bear, but here it instead sparked some dissatisfaction. The situation became almost comical." I must say it's one of the better films I've seen this year, although I'm easy to please when it comes to certain types of film and this really is one of them. The locations and set design are amazing. This kind of isolation, feel of cold bleak winter, snow storms are very rarely portrayed so well, it's up there with Carpenter's The Thing. Grab a warm cup of coffee on a rainy day or a whiskey on a darkening evening while watching this.

Destinations

Storytelling, e-learning and science will be key elements to reach a global audience, as well as cooperation with scientists and other interested organisations and people. Watched over by the gods Anon. (1990). Den Norske Los – Farvannsbeskrivelse – Sailing Directions, Vol.7: "Arctic Pilot" (in Norwegian and English). Norwegian Polar Research Institute and the Norwegian Hydrographic Service. ISBN 82-90653-06-9.