A Brief History of Svalbard

Naming and Discovery

The name “Svalbarði funnin” was first mentioned in Icelandic annals as far back as 1194.  Svalbarði can be translated to 'cold coasts' while funnin means 'found', so Svalbardi funnin just means 'cold coasts that have been found'. It’s not actually certain if the Svalbard referred to in these texts is definitely the one we know today, but nonetheless, the name stuck.

Although there is speculation that Norsemen or Pomors actually discovered Svalbard earlier, it was first officially discovered in 1596 by Willem Barentsz, an experienced Dutch sea explorer who also gave his name to the nearby Barents Sea.

He named the area of sharp mountaintops in the northwest “Spitsbergen”, which literally means “pointed mountains” in Dutch. This is now the name of the Svalbard archipelago’s largest island. He also discovered the southernmost island of the archipelago, later named Bjørnøya.

The Rush for Whale Oil

In 1607, when Englishman Henry Hudson announced that the waters around Svalbard were full of bowhead whales, whalers flocked to the islands in search of lucrative whale oil. Whale hunters and seamen from the Netherlands, England, Spain, France, Germany and Denmark nearly emptied the sea of its whale population through the 1600s.

During this period, Svalbard and its surroundings were marked as “terra nullius”, meaning that it was considered a no-man’s-land that belonged to no jurisdiction or country, free for all. That didn’t stop the two main whaling nations, the Dutch and the English, from carving up the whaling waters amongst themselves. It was agreed the English would hunt south of the Magdalenefjord, while the Dutch hunted the north-western corner of Spitsbergen. Other countries were forced to make separate deals with the two nations, much to their chagrin.

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Photo: Eric James Ryan, Oscar Farrera, Lise Dreistel and Genna Roland

The First Settlers

Pomors, a Russian ethnic group from the shores of the White Sea, came to Svalbard to hunt the wild animals that flourished in the Arctic climate; reindeer, Arctic foxes, seals, walruses, and even polar bears. It’s not known exactly when they first started coming to Svalbard, but unlike the whalers, Pomors had a more sustainable way of hunting that didn’t deplete the wildlife population.

They began setting up small trapping stations along Svalbard’s coast from the mid-17th century. Some of their later trapping stations were quite advanced, with living quarters, storage and even a sauna! We know of about 71 Russian trapping stations in Svalbard, and most of them appear equipped to operate all year round.

Pomor activity on Svalbard grew and reached its peak at the end of the 18th century when an estimated 100 to 150 Pomors overwintered on the icy archipelago, the first people ever thought to do so. They set up numerous large wooden crosses all along the Svalbard coast as protection from higher powers and to bring luck to the trapping and hunting, as well as to mark territory. You can still find two of these remaining Russian Orthodox crosses standing at Nordaustlandet today.

Early Expeditions

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Svalbard was a hotspot for both large-scale and smaller explorations and scientific experiments. Some of the most important scientific explorers were Baltazar Mathias Keilhau, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, and Martin Conway.

Conway was the first to produce a map of the interior of Spitsbergen, while Keilhau was the first to carry out expeditions in the interior, publishing several important papers on the Arctic. Nordenskiöld dedicated most of his research to the archipelago as a whole. But these are just a few of the many scientists and explorers who dedicated their time and interest to the frozen lands of Svalbard.

Coal Mining

From the 19th century, Svalbard became more dominated by Norwegians, who also took to trapping stations and overwintering. This activity shifted in 1906 when the settlement of Longyearbyen was established to support coal mining in the region. By the 1920s, permanent coal mining had been established in several areas of Svalbard.

The Spitsbergen Treaty came into full effect in 1925, granting Norway sovereignty of the archipelago while also prohibiting all “warlike purposes”. By the 1930s, all settlements were either Norwegian or Soviet. Since the end of the USSR in the 1990s, the Russian population on the islands has seen a major decline.

A New Industry Arrives

Today, tourism is one of the most important sources of income for Svalbard, and especially for the main settlement of Longyearbyen. It was in fact Hurtigruten that was behind this wave of tourism.

Hurtigruten’s founder, Richard With, established a route called the “Sportsman’s Route” in 1896, from Hammerfest, in mainland Norway, to Svalbard. Along with this new route, which quickly became popular for holiday-goers, he also transported a prefabricated hotel to Svalbard, close to Longyearbyen, on what is still called “Hotellneset” (The Hotel Point). It marked the first of several more hotels to follow, establishing Svalbard as a premier destination for adventurers looking to explore the High Arctic.

While sailing with us, you’ll have the opportunity to travel in the footsteps of the brave explorers that contributed to what this Arctic Archipelago is today.