Danes Island ( no, Danskøya) is an island in Norway's

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

with an area of . It lies just off the northwest coast of

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

, the largest island in the archipelago, near to

Magdalenefjorden Magdalenefjorden is an 8 km long and up to 5 km wide fjord between Reuschhalvøya and Hoelhalvøya, Albert I Land, on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago. It is large enough to accommodate e ...

. Just to the north lies

Amsterdam Island Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area ...

. Most of Svalbard's islands, including Danes Island, are uninhabited; only Spitsbergen, Bjørnøya and Hopen have settlements.

History

In 1631 the Danish established a permanent station in Robbe Bay (

Kobbefjorden :''There is also a fjord named "Kobbefjord" southeast of Nuuk, (Greenland).'' Kobbefjorden (English: ''Seal Fjord'') is a small fjord on the west coast of Danes Island, on the northwestern coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard ...

), which was abandoned in 1658. Another station was established by the Dutch in Houcker Bay (

Virgohamna Virgohamna (English: ''Virgo Bay'') is a small bay on the northern coast of Danes Island, an island off the northwestern coast of Spitsbergen. Spitsbergen and Danes Island are islands of the Svalbard archipelago. The bay is named after SS ''Virgo'' ...

), on the north side of Danes Island in the 1630s. It was called the "Cookery of Harlingen." The remains of this station were seen by

Friderich Martens Friderich Martens (1635 - 1699)
, Tjärnö Marine Biological Laboratory, Göteborg University ...

in 1671.Conway, W. M. 1906. ''No Man's Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country''. Cambridge: At the University Press. The island is the location from which

S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 S is the nineteenth letter of the English alphabet. S may also refer to: History * an Anglo-Saxon charter's number in Peter Sawyer's, catalogue Language and linguistics * Long s (ſ), a form of the lower-case letter s formerly used where "s ...

started.

Andrée Andrée or Andree may refer to: People * Andrée (given name) * Andree (surname) Places * Andree, Minnesota, unincorporated community in Stanchfield Township, Isanti County, Minnesota * 1296 Andrée, asteroid * Andrée Land (Svalbard) * Andrée La ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...

balloon A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light so ...

crashed on the pack ice three days after its launch from Danes Island, and after wandering and drifting for nearly three months, the explorers finally perished on

Kvitøya Kvitøya (English: "White Island") is an island in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, with an area of . It is the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Norway. The closest Russian Arctic possession, Victoria Island, lies only to the ea ...

, also in Svalbard.Lundström, Sven (1997), pp. 73–114

Gallery

File:Spitsbergen, Amsterdam Island.jpg, 17th century Dutch map of "Deense Eyland". File:Måleri, genrebild. Valfångst - Skoklosters slott - 88972.tif, Whaling on Danes Island, by Abraham Speeck, 1634.

Skokloster Castle Skokloster Castle ( sv, Skoklosters slott) is a Swedish Baroque castle built between 1654 and 1676 by Carl Gustaf Wrangel, located on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between Stockholm and Uppsala. It became a state museum in the 1970s and displays co ...

. File:Balloon.explorers.jpg, S. A. Andrée's balloon before takeoff on July 11, 1897. File:Danskoya Snow Angels.png, Making snow-angels on Danes Island on July 19, 2008.

Citations

References

* Lundström, Sven (1997). ''"Vår position är ej synnerligen god…" Andréexpeditionen i svart och vitt.'' Borås: Carlssons förlag. (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

) Islands of Svalbard Uninhabited islands of Norway {{svalbard-geo-stub

History

Gallery

See also

Citations

References