Halvmåneøya

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Halvmåneøya
Waters Barents Sea
Archipelago Spitsbergen
Geographical location 77 ° 16 '26 "  N , 23 ° 8' 12"  E Coordinates: 77 ° 16 '26 "  N , 23 ° 8' 12"  E
Halvmåneøya (Svalbard and Jan Mayen)
Halvmåneøya
length 7 km
width 2.2 km
surface 12 km²
Highest elevation 14  m
Residents uninhabited

Halvmåneøya ( German  Crescent Island ) is an uninhabited island in the Barents Sea belonging to the Norwegian managed Spitzbergen Archipelago . Until 1973 it was considered the best area for polar bear hunting on Svalbard.

geography

Halvmåneøya is off the southern tip of Edgeøya to the east. Both islands are separated by the three kilometers wide Halvmånesundet. To the southeast are the smaller islands of Tennholmane. Halvmåneøya is 7 km long from southwest to northeast, in the southwest part up to 2.2 km wide and has an area of ​​12 km². The island is flat and only reaches a height of 14 m. To the northwest is the natural harbor of Dianahamna.

Flora and fauna

The island consists of Cretaceous dolerite , which, when eroded, results in less fertile soil. Together with the high Arctic climate, this has meant that the vegetation is sparse. Arctic terns , eider ducks , Thor's chickens and snow bunting breed on Halvmåneøya . The Spatula skua and the gyrfalcon were also observed . Halvmåneøya is located on one of the most important migration routes for polar bears in the Svalbard Archipelago. Therefore, like arctic foxes , they are common.

history

discovery

Halvmåneøya was discovered at the beginning of the 17th century, probably in 1614 by the Dutch navigator and cartographer Joris Carolus (approx. 1566 – approx. 1636). On a map of the Muscovy Company it appeared in 1625 under the name "Abbot Island", in Joan Blaeus in 1662 as "St. Jacob ". In Hendrik Donckers See-Atlas of 1665 it already bears the name "Halvemaens Eyl."

Robinsonade of four shipwrecked seal hunters

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Halvmåneøya was occasionally visited by whalers and seal hunters . In the north of the island there is a burial ground from this time.

In 1743 four Russian seal hunters from Mesen were stranded on an island in the east of Svalbard, which could have been Halvmåneøya. They were on their way to West Spitsbergen to hunt whales or seals when a storm caused the ship to deviate from course. It was eventually trapped in pack ice , so the crew of fourteen decided to hibernate on land. The helmsman Aleksei Chimkow knew that some years earlier compatriots had built a spacious wooden hut in the area. Together with the sailors Ivan Chimkow, Stepan Sharapow and Fyodor Verigin, he went in search of it. The men were lucky enough to find the hut. However, when they wanted to get the rest of the crew the next day, it turned out that the ice had broken up overnight and the ship had disappeared.

The chances of the castaways were slim, because they only had a musket , a powder horn with twelve charges, twelve bullets, an ax, a small kettle, a knife, a sack of 20 pounds of flour, a lighter, a piece of tinder , and a tobacco pouch Tobacco and her four wooden tobacco pipes with her. The men first set about sealing the walls of the hut against the icy wind with moss. After shooting some reindeer whose meat they could only eat raw, the ammunition ran out and the musket became useless. Luckily for them, the men found driftwood on the beach , including planks from shipwrecks that still contained nails and the roots of a fir tree that could be worked into a bow . They also made some lances to defend themselves against attacking polar bears, and in fact, during their six and a half year residency, they killed ten polar bears without ever seriously injuring themselves. Their main diet, however, was the meat of around 250 killed reindeer and numerous arctic foxes.

In order to be able to maintain a constant fire, the men formed an oil lamp from clay found on the island , which they dried and burned and finally filled with rendered reindeer fat. For greater security, they immediately made a second lamp after this success. For the wicks they needed, they gradually had to sacrifice their clothes, which they replaced with animal skins. In order to be able to sew fur clothing, they made needles and awls with the help of their knives from the few nails they had found in the driftwood.

After almost six years spent on the island, Werigin died, who fell ill soon after his arrival. The others discovered on August 15, 1749, which they believed to be August 13, a passing Russian merchant ship, the Stara Vieva . In exchange for the promise to work on board and to pay a reward of 80 rubles on arrival in Russia , they were taken on board with their fox and bear pelts and reached Arkhangelsk on September 28, 1749.

Polar bear hunting in the 20th century

In the 1890s, Norwegian trappers began wintering on Svalbard to hunt arctic foxes and polar bears. The first trappers on Halvmåneøya were Karl Møller and Ibenhart Jensen Fladseth in the winter of 1898/99. Both died of scurvy in April 1899 and were buried near the trapping station they had built. By then they had killed seven bears. In 1906 the new fishing station Bjørneborg (German Bear Castle) was built, which was manned for several winters in a row. Poison bait and shot traps were particularly used. In 1910 Peder Hansen Kjeldmo, his 17-year-old son Peter and Elias Eriksen Broderstad from Målselv died of scurvy.

Polar bear hunting intensified around the mid-1930s. In the winter of 1935/36 the Bjørneborg fishing station operated 29 gunshot traps. The two trappers Henry Rudi , known as the “polar bear king”, and Gunnar Knoph managed to kill 115 bears this season, a number that was also reached in the following winters. In 1964/65 there were even 145 polar bears killed. The island was considered the best hunting ground for polar bears in the entire Svalbard Archipelago. The last trappers on Halvmåneøya were Arild Strand and Svein Ytreland in the winter of 1969/70.

In 1973 the Southeast Svalbard Nature Reserve including Halvmåneøyas was established. The signing of the “International Convention for the Conservation of Polar Bears” on November 15, 1973 by the Arctic countries of the USA , the Soviet Union , Canada , Denmark (for Greenland ) and Norway finally put an end to the polar bear hunt on the island.

Since January 1st 2010 only a small part of the island around the former fishing hut Bjørneborg can be entered. This was restored in 1995, whereby the last additions from 1963 were removed, so that the station now corresponds to the state of 1935. Today it is a listed building.

Crescent Island in the movie

The Norwegian children's film Operation Arktis (2014) based on the novel of the same name by Leif Hamre (1914-2007) from 1971 tells the fictional story of three children who accidentally stay alone for a long time after a flight as stowaways on board a helicopter stay behind on the uninhabited Crescent Island and fight for survival. The film also mentions the polar bear king Henry Rudi and a hut he built to house the children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Søraust-Svalbard's history and cultural remains , Cruise Handbook of Svalbard, accessed on September 10, 2013.
  2. ↑ measured on the Attachment 1.30 card ( Memento from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ a b Halvmåneøya . In: The Place Names of Svalbard (first edition 1942). Norsk Polarinstitutt , Oslo 2001, ISBN 82-90307-82-9 (English, Norwegian).
  4. ↑ Søraust-Svalbard's geology and landscape , Cruise Handbook of Svalbard (English), accessed on September 10, 2013.
  5. ↑ Fugler on Svalbard and Jan Mayen 2004 (PDF; 231 kB), Meddelse No. 1, Local Report and Sjeldenhetskomité for Fugl on Svalbard and Jan Mayen, 2004.
  6. ↑ Martin Conway : No Man's Land. A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country . University Press, Cambridge 1906, p. 78.
  7. ↑ Martin Conway, p. 365.
  8. ↑ Hendrik Doncker: De Zee-Atlas , Amsterdam 1665, map 7 (Spitsbergenen Yslands)
  9. ^ David Roberts: Four Against the Arctic. Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World . Simon & Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0-7432-2431-0 (English)
  10. ↑ Evan Balkan: Shipwrecked! Deadly Adventures and Disasters at Sea . Menasha Ridge Press, Birmingham 2008, ISBN 978-0-89732-653-7 , pp. 152–162 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  11. ↑ a b P. L. Le Roy: Narration of the incidents of four Russian sailors who were carried by a storm to the desert island of East Spitsbergen, on which they lived for six years and three months , Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, Riga and Mietau 1768, p. 9.
  12. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 12.
  13. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 22.
  14. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 42.
  15. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 53.
  16. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 64.
  17. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 70.
  18. ^ PL Le Roy, p. 73.
  19. ↑ Gustav Rossnes: Norsk Overvintringsfangst o på Svalbard 1895-1940 (PDF; 7.7 MB), Norsk Polarinstitutt Meddelser No. 127, Norsk Polarinstitutt, Oslo 1993, p. 162 (Norwegian)
  20. ↑ Odd Lønø: Norske fangstmenns overvintringer , part 3: 1892–1905 (PDF; 2.9 MB), Norsk Polarinstitutt Meddelser No. 105, Norsk Polarinstitutt, Oslo 1976, p. 90f (Norwegian)
  21. ↑ a b Irene Skauen Sandodden: Catalog Prioriterte kulturminner og kulturmilløer på Svalbard (PDF; 5.3 MB), Vers. 1.1 (2013), p. 94 (Norwegian)
  22. ↑ a b Odd Lønø: The polar bear (Ursus maritimus PHIPPS) in the Svalbard area (PDF; 4.1 MB), Norsk Polarinstitutt Skrifter No. 149, Norsk Polarinstitutt, Oslo 1970, p. 29.
  23. ↑ Gustav Rossnes, p. 164.
  24. ↑ Gustav Rossnes, S. 165th
  25. ↑ Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears , website of the IUCN / SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group, accessed on September 10, 2013.
  26. ↑ New heavy oil and traffic prohibition ( Memento of March 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), report on the regulations on monument protection issued by the Norwegian governor of September 21, 2009 (English)
  27. ↑ Operasjon Arktis on the Norsk Filmografi website (Norwegian), accessed December 31, 2015.