Friday 5 September 2025 – We had anchored overnight in Kongsfjord, which meant that we had had a still and silent ship in which to sleep. Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? And yet I didn’t sleep any more soundly than I had on the other nights, and it seemed that others felt the same. Perhaps we’re missing the lulling thrum of the ship’s engines? Anyway, we emerged, blinking once again, into a calm morning and (relatively) warm temperatures.
We were anchored over the water from an actual town! It’s called Ny Ålesund and is currently the location for research centres sponsored by a variety of countries. More of it later, but it was obviously a popular tourist destination.
Atlas World Traveller was in town
There were two practical upshots of our being there. The first was that we had to turn off all Wifi and Bluetooth on our phones in order that their radio emissions didn’t interfere with delicate research instruments. However, and I confess I didn’t understand this*, the second was that cellular phone access was OK – and we were able to camp on to their 5G network! Lovely unmetered internet! That killed off conversation for a while as everyone pored over their phones.
Kuba tore everyone away from their e-mails and cat videos to take us to a landing at a site called Ny London – New London. This was the site of a very risky punt on the quarrying of marble by a British chap called Ernest Mansfield in the early 1900s. It was the closest Svalbard came to a gold rush and led to the setting up of a mining operation very nearly of the scale of its coal industry. In order to stake a claim to the area, Mansfield had to set up a proper operation – buildings, railway, machinery. He decided that it was worth it for the vast amount of marble that could be quarried, and set up a camp for 70 quarry men to work there. The marble was assessed as being of fabulous quality, but, too late, it transpired that it suffered from a fatal flaw – frost damage after having been quarried meant that it crumbled easily and was simply not usable. So by 1920, Mansfield’s adventure was over and the site was simply abandoned. Being pre-WWII, it now has historical status and is left (almost entirely) untouched. We could see the remaining cabins as we approached on the Zodiacs,
and the crane used to load and unload boats.
As usual with a landing, we had to wait patiently in the Zodiacs while Kuba went to scout the area
and then we could wander round the remnants of the settlement – Camp Mansfield.
The area shows every evidence of being simply abandoned. All sorts of stuff is just lying around,
and the machinery is just rusting away.
There is some evidence of a rail track to carry quarried materials to the machinery and the crane.
The whole place had very strong overtones of the Grytviken site at the other end of the world on South Georgia.
I said that the site had to remain untouched. There is, apparently, one exception. There is a lottery and local people can enter to win permission to spend one night in the main cabin there. We looked into one of the windows and
it doesn’t look all that hospitable, frankly. But, you know, different strokes for different folks.
There were a couple of areas where it looked as if quarrying had taken place.
Having spent a little time looking around the site (and waiting for people to GET OUT OF MY SHOT!), Kuba spotted a couple of reindeer close by
so we gently crept towards them to get a closer look. Nearby was a magnificently-antlered male,
who was very chill, and simply kept ruminating whilst people stared and photographed.
Nearby again was a slightly less pleasant reminder of the toughness of life in this area of Svalbard.
It’s impossible to be certain, but Kuba thought that it was likely that this reindeer had starved to death – and this in an area where there was plenty of food. Reindeer can eat moss and any other vegetation that they find, but it seems that in eating these they can pick up small stones. The stones can accumulate in the animal’s stomach to the point where it eats and eats but can’t digest, and so dies of starvation.
As well as the male there were actually four other reindeer in the area, two females and two calves, and we very gently followed them as they fossicked around.
The site gave us some great views over Kongsfjord’s old and new towns.
One of the Italian couples in the group, Doina and Denis, were called “specialist leaders” – photo and video experts to whom we could turn to for advice on matters photographic should we wish. They have a considerable online presence – they are “content providers” – and spent their time frantically photographing and videoing us, the surroundings and themselves in a never-ending (and sometimes even a little obstructive) quest for angles, images and footage. Denis asked if there were members of the group who would be prepared to do a short video interview about the time we’ve spent on and around Kinfish and Jane and I agreed to do one for him. We spent a couple of minutes talking about how wonderful the whole week had been, with that memorable polar bear encounter among the wildlife, the lovely crew on the boat and the great organisation of the whole thing.
In one of the greatest possible ironies, when we rejoined the Zodiacs a few moments later and set off away from Ny London, it became clear that no-one knew where Kinfish actually was, and it was out of walkie-talkie range! So much for great organisation…
There had clearly been some miscommunication – Kuba had not expected the ship to move away. Anyway, since Ny London is on Blomstrand, which is actually an island despite being described as a halvøy, (peninsula) the two Zodiacs set off in opposite directions to see which way round was the best to find Kinfish. So, accidentally, we found ourselves doing what had been planned for the afternoon’s Zodiac cruise – looking into the caves and other rock formations around the island.
One was particularly impressive – a rock bridge formed the entrance to an “open” cave.
It has some beautiful quartz formations on the walls.
We were a bit chilly by the time we got back to Kinfish, which had parked itself on the southern side of the island – it took around 25 minutes to get back to it in the end. But the fact that we’d inadvertently compressed two activities into one meant that we had more time in the afternoon. This gave skipper Jesper the chance to tell us about the history of Kinfish, which started out as a search and rescue boat called the Ambassador Bay, named after the US Ambassador who made a present of the boat to Svalbard. (In a twist to the end of the story, it was later discovered that the funding for this came not from the Ambassador but from the CIA so that the boat could also do some spying.) It then went through various other roles, such as a surveying and mapping boat before being bought by Rolf’s son Robin and modified for the exploration cruising it now does. That final modification was overseen by Harald, the chief engineer, and carried out by 25 friends of the Dahlberg family, who didn’t charge for their time – a remarkable effort all round.
The team on board also did some quick footwork and agreed with The Powers That Be that we could dock at Ny Ålesund. This was great news to various people on various levels. For a start, it meant that people could visit the shop there and indulge in some retail therapy. We could also visit the museum, which is open 24 hours a day with free entry; and we could wander the town without needing to be shepherded by people wearing guns – provided we stayed inside the town limits. And, of course, there was internet access, not that we cared, oh no, not a bit.
Accordingly, after yet another stupendous and stupefyingly filling lunch from Roger, we wandered into town. Kinfish is small and can dock at the quay. Other, larger ships, can’t do this
and, selfishly, we were pleased to note that guests from one of these ships (all kitted out in distinctive orange jackets) were being ferried back to their vessel
leaving the town itself much quieter for us.
The town itself is larger than I had been expecting,
and a lot more attractive; I’d been expecting something strictly functional, but there were several colourful cottages and houses, some of which, we understood later, had been shipped over from Ny London, having, we suspect, been spruced up a bit.
It looked like everyone had piled into the shop – six days without being able to buy anything is clearly very stressful – so, as we passed the museum building
we decided to pop in; and I’m very glad we did. It’s very nicely laid out, and gives a great sense of the place’s history, starting from its coal mining origins to today’s research stations.
There was much information about the various airship exploits that started from here
and some exhibits which show how little and how much progress has been made in medical care.
The dentist chair and the drills look medieval; but the rinsing-out bowl is pretty much the same in today’s dental surgeries.
We did go into the shop
which is, obvs, full of tourist souvenir materials, but done with a lot of charm. There are traditional sealskin gloves and modern, hi-tech cold weather gear, any number of sorts of junk food, airship-shaped Christmas tree baubles, mugs, jugs, calendars, postcards and a whole load more – and the store appeared to be doing good business from Kinfish guests.
We strolled around the rest of the town. It is basically run by an organisation called King’s Bay, originally the mining company, and it runs a service building where everyone can eat.
The buildings themselves are either purpose built research centres, like this Norwegian one,
or repurposed from original buildings, as China did here.
There’s a bust of Amundsen
which is apparently one of five identical busts dotted around various out-of-the-way places where this remarkable man had an impact.
The oldest building in the town dates back to 1909; it was built by the Green Harbour coal company,
and the blue building behind it is the world’s most northerly post office. The little train which was used to transport coal has been preserved, and very endearing it is, too.
There’s one “must-see” object there which lies beyond the town’s limits, so Kuba organised a guided tour of the place during the early evening taking Gunnar and guns with him so that we could go and take a look past the edge of town.
The object is the mast which was built as a mooring point for the Norge airship which completed the first successful (north) transpolar flight in 1926. The expedition was led by Roald Amundson; the airship was built in Italy and piloted by an Italian crew under Umberto Nobile; and it was paid for by the American Lincoln Ellsworth.
The mast even has its own trig point, a tiny, neat pyramid by the mast.
The evening light was fantastic
but, rather than linger and admire it, we headed back to Kinfish just in time for a 9pm departure to reach our final stopping point, in Ekmanfjorden. This destination was rather forced on us because one of the big ships we saw earlier had elected to visit where Kuba had originally planned to go. This meant that tomorrow morning was to be an “Expedition Morning”; in other words, Kuba had no idea what, but would work something out. What transpired was astonishing and fantastic and I’ll tell you all about it – some other time. So stay tuned….
* On further research (thank you, ChatGPT), I understand that this apparent dissonance is because the 4G/5G is a licensed spectrum with predictable emissions, whereas WiFi and Bluetooth are inconsistent in intensity and location and can’t be separated from the other measurements their instruments make.