Kvitøya (
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
: "White Island") is an
islandAn island or isle is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls are called islets. A key or cay is another name for a small island or islet. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot, .There are two main types of islands:...
in the
SvalbardSvalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The archipelago is the northernmost part of Norway. Three...
archipelagoAn archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands that are formed tectonically. The word archipelago is directly derived from the Greek arkhon and pelagos...
in the
Arctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest, and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions.
The International Hydrographic Organization recognizes it as an ocean, although some...
, with an area of . It is located at , making it the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Norway. The closest
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Arctic possession,
Victoria IslandVictoria Island is a small Arctic island situated at 80°9'N 36°46'E, halfway between the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and the Russian archipelago of Franz Josef Land. This westernmost of all Russian Arctic islands is about 14 km² and almost completely covered with ice...
, lies only to the east of Kvitøya.
The island is almost completely covered by an ice cap (Kvitøyjøkulen, with an area of ) with the classical, hourglass-shaped dome, which has given it its name.
Kvitøya (
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
: "White Island") is an
islandAn island or isle is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls are called islets. A key or cay is another name for a small island or islet. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot, .There are two main types of islands:...
in the
SvalbardSvalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The archipelago is the northernmost part of Norway. Three...
archipelagoAn archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands that are formed tectonically. The word archipelago is directly derived from the Greek arkhon and pelagos...
in the
Arctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest, and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions.
The International Hydrographic Organization recognizes it as an ocean, although some...
, with an area of . It is located at , making it the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Norway. The closest
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Arctic possession,
Victoria IslandVictoria Island is a small Arctic island situated at 80°9'N 36°46'E, halfway between the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and the Russian archipelago of Franz Josef Land. This westernmost of all Russian Arctic islands is about 14 km² and almost completely covered with ice...
, lies only to the east of Kvitøya.
The island is almost completely covered by an ice cap (Kvitøyjøkulen, with an area of ) with the classical, hourglass-shaped dome, which has given it its name. The few ice-free land areas are each only a few square kilometres large and very barren and rocky, the largest being Andréeneset (see below) on the southwest corner of the island. Kvitøya is a part of the North East Svalbard Nature Reserve.
Kvitøya was probably discovered by the Dutchman Cornelis Giles in 1707, and it was seen under the name 'Giles Land' on maps in different shapes, sizes and positions throughout the centuries. The present name was given by whaler Johan Kjeldsen of
Tromsøis a city and municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø....
in 1876.
The island was the resting place of the
Arctic balloon expedition of 1897S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 was an ill-fated effort to reach the North Pole in which all three expedition members perished. S. A. Andrée , the first Swedish balloonist, proposed a voyage by hydrogen balloon from Svalbard to either Russia or Canada, which was to pass,...
organised by
S. A. AndréeSalomon August Andrée , during his lifetime most often known as S. A. Andrée, was a Swedish engineer, physicist, aeronaut and polar explorer who perished during a failed attempt to reach the Geographic North Pole by hydrogen balloon, the S. A...
. The expedition had attempted to overfly the North Pole in a
hydrogenHydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, nonmetallic, tasteless, highly flammable diatomic gas with the molecular formula H
2...
balloonA balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a type of gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were sometimes made of dried animal bladders...
, but was forced down on the pack ice about north of Kvitøya on July 14, less than three days after their launch. They reached the island on foot by October 6 and settled on the only ice free part on the island, on what is now called Andréeneset. The fate of the expedition for many years was one of the great mysteries of the Arctic, until its remains were discovered by the
BratvaagThe Bratvaag Expedition was a Norwegian expedition in 1930 led by Dr. Gunnar Horn, whose official tasks were hunting seals and to study glaciers and seas in the Svalbard Arctic region. The name of the expedition was taken from its ship, M/S Bratvaag of Ålesund, in which captain Peder Eliassen had...
in 1930, over thirty years later, and journals and film were recovered at the site. It turned out that the three members of the expedition died within a few weeks after reaching the island.
A monument conmemorating the three men,
S. A. AndréeSalomon August Andrée , during his lifetime most often known as S. A. Andrée, was a Swedish engineer, physicist, aeronaut and polar explorer who perished during a failed attempt to reach the Geographic North Pole by hydrogen balloon, the S. A...
,
N. StrindbergNils Strindberg was a Swedish photographer who was one of the three members of S. A. Andrée's ill-fated Arctic balloon expedition of 1897. Before perishing on Kvitøya with Andrée and Knut Frænkel, Strindberg recorded on film their long doomed struggle on foot to reach populated areas...
and
K. FrænkelKnut Hjalmar Ferdinand Frænkel was a Swedish engineer and arctic explorer who perished in the Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 of S. A...
is erected on the island. Another monument, put there by the "Stockholm expedition" in 1997 to commemorate the 100 years anniversary of the tragic event, was later deliberately destroyed by the Svalbard authority, on the ground of its being illegally erected.
See also
- Svalbard
Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The archipelago is the northernmost part of Norway. Three...
- List of islands in the Arctic Ocean
- List of islands of Norway
External links