Barely 48 hours have passed since we touched down on the tarmac in Longyearbyen and already we are feeling immersed in the Arctic and the diverse environments of Svalbard. Having spent yesterday bound by high fjords and impressive glacial ice faces, today we wandered across broad tundra and sailed north across open sea.
Our morning was spent exploring the wide expanses of Mushamna in Woodfjord. During the night we had been sailing north from the glaciers of Bjornfjord and we awoke to find National Geographic Orion already anchored in Woodfjord with preparations underway to send us ashore to enjoy walks across the tundra and the chance to see a present day trapper’s hut.
Woodfjord figures prominently in the rich trapping history of Svalbard and over the past couple of centuries trappers have been based here, exploiting the riches Svalbard has to offer. Today the trappers’ huts of Svalbard are rarely if ever used for their original purpose—Svalbard and its resources are heavily protected and these days you are more likely to find the Sysselmann or a group of scientists camped out in the huts doing their best to protect Svalbard’s resources and wildlife.
Today, however, there was a retired trapper in Mushamna! It was hard to decipher who was happier to see whom as Kjell Reidar Hovelsrud had been due for pick up two days ago and was unlikely to be picked up for another ten days. While we made the most of his firsthand stories of trapping in Svalbard, which he retired from in 1994, Kjell appreciated the chance to stock up on freshly baked bread from the galley of National Geographic Orion.
All of us had the chance to visit Kjell’s hut, which he now uses as a holiday home—albeit perhaps an extreme holiday home in our eyes. Before visiting the hut some of us took the chance to stretch our legs, hiking for a few miles across the rolling terrain. Along the coastline many arctic flowers decorated the mute greens and browns of the tundra. Hiking higher afforded us wonderful sweeping views over and across the sweeping entrance of Woodfjord and National Geographic Orion anchored just offshore.
Piling back on board we were ready for our lunch after a long and enjoyable morning out on the tundra of Mushamna. Once again we set sail due north and by mid-afternoon Moffen Island was on the horizon. As hoped for a herd of walrus was hauled out on shore. Sailing past this protected remote northern island we enjoyed viewing the pile of walrus before Captain Martin directed the bow of the ship due north: we had an ice edge to reach.
