Kvitøya (English: "White Island") is an island in the
Svalbard archipelago 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 is the easternmost part of the
Kingdom of Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
. The closest Russian Arctic possession,
Victoria Island, lies only to the east of Kvitøya.
The island is almost completely covered by
Kvitøyjøkulen, an ice cap with an area of with a classical,
hourglass-shaped dome, which has given it its name. The few ice-free land areas are each only a few square kilometres large and very barren and rocky, the largest being
Andréeneset on the southwest corner of the island. Kvitøya is a part of the
Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve
Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve ( no, Nordaust-Svalbard naturreservat) is located in the north-eastern part of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. The nature reserve covers all of Nordaustlandet, Kong Karls Land, Kvitøya, Sjuøyane, Storøya, ...
.
Kvitøya was discovered by the Dutchman
Cornelis Giles
Cornelis Giles (in Dutch: Cornelis Cornelisz. Gielis; – 2 July 1722) was a Dutch whaler, navigator, cartographer, and polar explorer.
Life
As a whaler in 1707, Giles traveled north of Nordaustlandet in Svalbard, and managed to reach a d ...
in 1707, and it was seen under the name 'Giles Land' on maps in different shapes, sizes and positions throughout the centuries.
Etymology
The present name was given by whaler
Johan Kjeldsen
Johan Kiil Kjeldsen (1840 – 1909) was a Norwegian skipper. He took part in many Arctic expeditions and is credited with the discovery of Kvitøya.
Early life
Kjeldsen was born in the village of Bakkejord on Kvaløya. He went on his first ...
of
Tromsø
Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.
Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The municipality is the ...
in 1876. The original spelling of the name from 1876 was ''Hvidøen'' (
Danish–Norwegian). In 1927, it was changed to ''Kvitøya''. Like other names in the Norwegian Arctic and Antarctic islands and areas the
Nynorsk
Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-N ...
form of Norwegian is used in the name – the
Bokmål
Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...
form would have been ''Hvitøyen'' or ''Hvitøya''.
Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition
The island was the resting place of the
Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897, organised by
S. A. Andrée. The expedition had attempted to overfly the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
in a hydrogen balloon, but was forced down on the pack ice about north of Kvitøya on July 14, less than three days after their launch. They reached the island on foot by October 6 and settled on the only ice free part on the island, on what is now called Andréeneset.
The fate of the expedition for many years was one of the great mysteries of the Arctic, until its remains were discovered by the ship
''Bratvaag'' in 1930, over thirty years later, and diaries, logs of scientific observations and photographs—glass negative plates, which had been deep frozen and could be developed—were recovered at the site. Modern researchers hold that the three members of the expedition died within two weeks of reaching the island.
A monument commemorating the three men, S. A. Andrée,
Nils Strindberg
Nils Strindberg (4 September 1872 – October 1897) was a Swedish photographer and scientist.
He was one of the three members of S. A. Andrée's ill-fated Arctic balloon expedition of 1897.
Biography
Nils Strindberg was born in Stockholm, Sw ...
and
Knut Frænkel is erected on the island. Another monument, put there by the "Stockholm expedition" in 1997 to commemorate the 100 years anniversary of the tragic event, was later deliberately destroyed by the Svalbard authority, on the ground of it being illegally erected.
Climate
See also
*
List of islands in the Arctic Ocean
*
List of islands of Norway
This is a list of islands of Norway sorted by name. For a list sorted by area, see List of islands of Norway by area.
A
* Alden
* Aldra
* Algrøy
* Alsta
* Altra
* Anda
* Andabeløya
* Andørja
* Andøya, Vesterålen
* Andøya, Agder
* ...
*
Queen Victoria Sea
The Queen Victoria Sea (russian: Море королевы Виктории, ''Morye Korolevy Viktorii'') is a body of water in the Arctic Ocean, stretching from northeast of Svalbard to northwest Franz Josef Land. It is obstructed by ice most of ...
References
{{Authority control
Islands of Svalbard
Uninhabited islands of Norway