Grønfjorden (
English: Green Fjord or Green Harbour) is a 16 km long fjord, separated from
Isfjorden to the north by
Festningsodden in the west and
Heerodden in the east. It lies within the western portion of
Nordenskiöld Land
Nordenskiöld Land is the land area between Isfjorden and Van Mijenfjorden on Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The area is named after Finnish-Swedish explorer and geologist Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. The coastal region of Nordenskiöld Land (Norde ...
. On its eastern shore is the mining community of
Barentsburg
Barentsburg () is the second-largest settlement in Svalbard, Norway, with about 455 inhabitants (). A coal mining town, the settlement was almost entirely made up of Russian and Ukrainian nationals.
History
Rijpsburg, a now abandoned Dutch s ...
, the second largest settlement (after
Longyearbyen
Longyearbyen (, , "Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlements, northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000, and the capital and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard. It stretches along the foot of the left bank ( ...
) on
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...
.
History
The fjord was named ''Green Harbour'' by the
English explorer (and later whaler)
Jonas Poole in 1610. Grønfjorden is the
Norwegian equivalent. The first whaleship (a
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
vessel) reached Grønfjorden in 1612; it continued to be used for
whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...
up until the 1650s.
Grønfjorden was the site of the air attack in 1942 during the
Operation Fritham.
See also
*
History of Basque whaling
The Basques of modern day Iberian Peninsula and France were among the first people to catch whales commercially rather than purely for subsistence, starting perhaps as early as the 600s and with more certainty by about 1000. They dominated the Eur ...
References
* 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.
* Norwegian Polar Institut
Place Names of Svalbard Database
Fjords of Spitsbergen
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