History of Svalbard - Exploration

Exploration

Exploration of the archipelago started in the 1610s as the whaling companies would send out small ships to find new areas to exploit. By 1650 it was established that Spitsbergen was an island and not connected to Greenland. Whalers gradually accumulated a good geographic knowledge of the coastline, but the interior remained uncharted. The first scientific expedition to Svalbard was the Russian Čičagov Expedition between 1764 and 1766, which passed Svalbard in an unsuccessful attempt to find the Northern Sea Route. It made among water and topography measurements. The second expedition was organized by the Royal Navy and led by Constantine Phipps in 1773. His two ships, the Racehorse and the Carcass got stuck in the ice around Sjuøyane before returning. They collected zoological and botanical samples and measured water temperatures, among others.

Scientific exploration increased through the 18th century, with the most extensive surveys being carried out by William Scoresby, who published several papers on the Arctic, and Baltazar Mathias Keilhau. The latter was the first to carry out expeditions in the interior, abandoning the large-scale operations used by the British and Russians. With the exception of the British, smaller more targeted expeditions became the norm. Science also took foot as the dominant motivation for expeditions until the end of the 19th century. A notable exception was the French Recherche expedition of 1838–39, which resulted in numerous publications in multiple fields and the construction of an observatory. Swedish exploration started with Sven Lovén in 1837, with lead way to Sweden dominating scientific investigations in the last half of the century. Particularly Otto Torell and Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld dedicated much of their research to the archipelago. Martin Conway was the first to produce a map of the interior of Spitsbergen.

Svalbard was used as the starting point for several expeditions to reach the North Pole by air. S. A. Andrée's Arctic Balloon Expedition failed in 1897. Ny-Ålesund was the basis for four attempts between 1925 and 1928, including Roald Amundsen's attempt with first a flying boat; Floyd Bennett and Richard E. Byrd claimed they succeeded in 1926, but this has since been rejected. Amundsen's airship Norge which left two days later is now credited as the first to the pole. Umberto Nobile's airship Italia crashed in 1928, resulting in the largest search in polar history.