Bjornoya (Bear Island)
Today M.S. Endeavour arrived off of legendary Bear Island (remember Alistair Maclean’s novel, and a not-so-hot movie with the same title?), Svalbard’s southernmost island, about halfway between Spitsbergen and coastal Norway. The explorer William Barents discovered the island in 1596 while looking for a northern sea route to eastern Asia, and by the time Henry Hudson arrived 11 years later, the island was an important base for whaling. These expeditions probably found the island much the same as we did; shrouded in thick, cascading fog, as the warm air over the Gulf Stream, and cold, eastern air masses meet to cover the island in a blanket of white, much like famous Table Mountain of Cape Town, South Africa becomes topped by thick, illuminated, rolling fog.
Geologically, the island is very old, from Cambrian and Ordovician origin in the southern cliff areas (pictured), to chalk and sandstone from the Devonian and Carboniferous periods to the north. Severe uplifting, combined with constant pounding seas and erosion have led to fantastic sea stacks, sea tunnels, and over 400 meter (1200 feet) terraced steps for my favorite of all animals, seabirds!!! Thousands and thousands of Brünnich’s and common guillemots, dovkies (little auks), kittiwakes, fulmars, glaucous gulls, and even a few puffins call Bear Island their home. Bears, you may ask, where are the bears?? Polar bears normally only come this far south with the drifting pack ice in the winter, so we didn’t see any today, although obviously Barents did on his first visit, and so named the island.
Today M.S. Endeavour arrived off of legendary Bear Island (remember Alistair Maclean’s novel, and a not-so-hot movie with the same title?), Svalbard’s southernmost island, about halfway between Spitsbergen and coastal Norway. The explorer William Barents discovered the island in 1596 while looking for a northern sea route to eastern Asia, and by the time Henry Hudson arrived 11 years later, the island was an important base for whaling. These expeditions probably found the island much the same as we did; shrouded in thick, cascading fog, as the warm air over the Gulf Stream, and cold, eastern air masses meet to cover the island in a blanket of white, much like famous Table Mountain of Cape Town, South Africa becomes topped by thick, illuminated, rolling fog.
Geologically, the island is very old, from Cambrian and Ordovician origin in the southern cliff areas (pictured), to chalk and sandstone from the Devonian and Carboniferous periods to the north. Severe uplifting, combined with constant pounding seas and erosion have led to fantastic sea stacks, sea tunnels, and over 400 meter (1200 feet) terraced steps for my favorite of all animals, seabirds!!! Thousands and thousands of Brünnich’s and common guillemots, dovkies (little auks), kittiwakes, fulmars, glaucous gulls, and even a few puffins call Bear Island their home. Bears, you may ask, where are the bears?? Polar bears normally only come this far south with the drifting pack ice in the winter, so we didn’t see any today, although obviously Barents did on his first visit, and so named the island.
