Svalbard Traditional Cache

SVALBARD

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74° to 81° North, and 10° to 35° East. The archipelago is the northernmost part of the Kingdom of Norway. Three islands are populated: Spitsbergen, Bjørnøya and Hopen. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen. The Svalbard Treaty recognises Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard and the 1925 Svalbard Act makes Svalbard a full part of the Norwegian Kingdom.

Vikings may have discovered Svalbard as early as the 12th century. Traditional Norse accounts exist of a land known as Svalbarð - literally "cold edge". (But this land might also have been Jan Mayen, or a part of eastern Greenland.) The Dutchman Willem Barents made the first indisputable discovery of Svalbard in 1596. The islands served as an international whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Greenland whale was extirpated from this region. From 1611 to 1720 whaling took place off the western coast of Spitsbergen, by Basque, British, Danish, Dutch, French, and Norwegian ships. It is estimated that the Dutch alone took 60,000 whales from their base Smeerenburg. They also provided the headquarters for many Arctic exploration expeditions.

At the beginning of the 20th century, American, British, Swedish, Russian and Norwegian companies started coal mining. Norway's sovereignty was recognized by the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 with an addition that there would be limited military use of Svalbard and that the other nations retained the rights to their settlements; five years later Norway officially took over the territory. Some historians claim that Norway was given sovereignty as compensation for its Merchant Fleet losses during World War I, when the Norwegian Merchant fleet played an important role supplying the UK. Only Norwegian and Russian settlements survived [World War II].

From the late 1940s to the early 1980s the geology of the Svalbard archipelago was investigated by teams from Cambridge University and other universities (e.g., Oxford University), led by Cambridge geologist W. Brian Harland. Many of the geographical features of the isles are named after the participants in these expeditions, or were given names by them linked to places in Cambridge (see Norwegian Polar Institute).

The name of the largest island in the archipelago, Spitsbergen (Dutch for "Jagged mountains") was formerly used to refer to the entire archipelago, while the main island was called West Spitsbergen.

SEED BANK!

The Norwegian government has built a "doomsday" seed bank to store seeds from as many of the world's crop varieties and their botanical wild relatives as possible. The bank was created by hollowing out a 120-meter tunnel on Spitsbergen cut into rock with a natural temperature of -6 degrees Celsius, refrigerating it to -18 degrees Celsius, and then storing seeds donated by the 1,400 crop repositories maintained by countries around the world. The vault has top security blast-proof doors and two airlocks. The number of seeds stored depends on the number of countries participating in the project. The point of this project is to prevent the diversity of agricultural crops currently stored (typically in the form of seed) in seed banks from becoming extinct as a result of accident, mismanagement, equipment failure, war or natural disaster, or due to a regional or global catastrophe.

Svalbard lies far north of the Arctic Circle. In Longyearbyen, the midnight sun lasts from April 20 to August 26, and polar night lasts from October 26 to February 15. From November 12 to the end of January there is civil polar night, a continuous period without any twilight bright enough to permit outdoor activities in the absence of artificial light. The only other non-Inuit or research settlement that has this phenomenon is Dikson near the mouth of the Yenisey River in Russia.

In addition to humans, four predominantly terrestrial mammalian species inhabit the archipelago: the Svalbard field mouse Microtus epiroticus, the Arctic fox, the Svalbard reindeer (a distinct sub-species), and polar bears. Since polar bears occur very commonly on Svalbard and are known to hunt humans on occasion, all people need to take precautions when outside the settlements: this includes carrying a rifle. Nevertheless, the law protects polar bears, forbidding anyone to harm or disturb them unless it is necessary to remove a considerable danger of injury to a person. A large number of aquatic mammalian species also inhabit the archipelago, including whales, dolphins, seals and walruses.

Svalbard is also a breeding ground for large numbers of seabirds, including Brunnich's and Black Guillemot, Puffin, Little Auk, Fulmar and Black-legged Kittiwake. Other seabirds include Arctic Tern, four species of skua, and the elusive Ivory Gull. The Svalbard Ptarmigan, found on the larger islands, is the only land bird present for the entire year. Only two songbirds migrate to Svalbard to breed: the Snow Bunting and the Wheatear.

There is an astonishing variety of flowering plants on Svalbard. Although they are very small, these plants use the short period of 24-hour daylight to produce colourful blossoms. See also: Flowers of Svalbard.

Svalbard is part of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province.

MOGA MMVIII (2008)

Welcome to Mark Twain Lake - John F. Spalding Recreation Area.

John F. Spalding Recreation area is located on the North side of Mark Twain Lake. This area has many different attractions and a quiet, remote location. There are many opportunities for hunting, hiking, fishing, horseback riding, or bird watching.