The History of Svalbard
Svalbard, an archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, holds a history as vast and rugged as its icy landscapes. While the first people to visit Svalbard is disputed, there’s no denying that the island was of great importance for European hunting and trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. While the basis for interest in the archipelago was the exploration of its natural resources, today the interest in Svalbard is largely scientific.
When travelling to Svalbard, you’ll of course be doing many excursions to see the incredible nature. However, it’s good to understand how Svalbard came to be what it is today. I’ve written this short historic overview of Svalbard with additional information on how to visit these places today, and hopefully this will make your trip to Svalbard even better!
Here is my History of Svalbard.
In this article...
Be sure to read my detailed travel guide for Svalbard, including all the settlements and itineraries for different times of the year.
When did the first peoples reach Svalbard?
It’s not known exactly when the first peoples were on Svalbard. Some explorers have claimed that they have found Stone Age tools on Svalbard from around 3,000BC, but there is little support of these claims. However, during the 19th century Norwegian historians proposed that Norse seamen founded Svalbard in 1194, and this is based on documents stating that “Svalbarði” is four days sailing from Iceland. This is where the name ‘Svalbard’ comes from. However, there is no further written sources about the Norse exploration to Svalbard. Russian historians have proposed that the Pomors (North Russian traders) may have visited the island in the 15th century.
The first undisputed discovery of Svalbard was an expedition led by the Dutch cartographer and navigator Willem Barentsz (the Barents Sea is named after him), who was searching for the Northeast Passage to China. He spotted Bear Island (just south of the main island Spitsbergen) on 10 June 1596 and then saw the north-western tip of Spitsbergen on the 17th of June. His documents did not mention Svalbard’s natural resources, such as oil and fur – what the region would soon become famous for.
The First Peoples of Svalbard & Early Whaling
Svalbard’s natural resources were not ‘discovered’ until 1607, when the English navigator Henry Hudson found whales, walruses, and seals in the water around Spitsbergen. This gave rise to a claim of Spitsbergen in 1614 by the Muscovy Company on behalf of King James I of England.
The Dutch started whaling activities in the Arctic around the year 1612, and they established the first settlement on Svalbard – Smeerenburg – in 1619. It is possible to visit Smeerenburg only on cruises that visit the north-west coast of the island. The Dutch ended up dominating the whaling industry with the help of experienced Basque harpooners, who boiled whale blubber in large copper pots. By the late 17th century, there were between 200 and 300 ships and up to 10,000 whalers around Spitsbergen. The first group overwintered (accidentally) in 1630. The first planned overwintering was by the Dutch at Smeerenburg in 1633. Smeerenburg was abandoned in 1750.
Eventually the interest in other resource arose, with the goods being taken back to Europe to be sold. The Pomors (Russian traders) were the ones who started hunting animals for fur. They hunted polar bears, foxes, seals, and walruses. They built many hunting stations around Svalbard, and many of these stations, complete with Russian Orthodox crosses, have been excavated. The Pomors would also overwinter on Svalbard. The large Pomor settlement at Russekeila became known for its famous inhabitant, Ivan Starostin, who spent 39 winters on Svalbard. Cape Starashchin is named after him.
Who owns Svalbard? Political Conflicts over the Archipelago
The European whalers let to an international political conflict. Who owned Svalbard? Who had a right to kick others out? The Dutch rejected that the English had exclusive rights, and King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway claimed that he had the rights to all of the Northern Sea as Greenland was an old Norwegian tax-land. England offered to purchased the rights from Denmark-Norway, but the offer was turned down and then England went back to claiming exclusive rights. In 1615, Denmark-Norway sent men to collect tax from English and Dutch whalers, but they refused to pay. This ended in political deadlock.
As mentioned above, the Russian Pomor traders came in the late 17th century and established their own settlements. In the 1790s, there were 2,200 Russian hunters in Svalbard. However, the Pomors found it difficult to compete with the Norwegians who reached the hunting grounds earlier and eventually took over. The Norwegians began overwintering in Svalbard in 1795.
Seal hunting was started by the Germans in the late 17th century and was taken over by Norwegians and the Danes in the 18th century. Seal hunting wasn’t as profitable, though.
Norwegians reached Svalbard in the 18th century, and the first Norwegian citizens to reach the island of Spitsbergen were a number of Sami people from Hammerfest, who were hired as part of a Russian crew for an expedition in 1795. From the 1820s Norwegian hunting expeditions grew and Tromsø became the main port from which the expeditions began. Elling Carlsen was a well-known seal hunter and explorer, and circumnavigated the whole archipelago in 1861.
Exploration in the 19th Century
While the interest in Svalbard was certainly associated with hunting, there was also an interest in studying Svalbard. Exploration on the archipelago began in the early 17th century by the whaling companies. In 1650, it was established that Spitsbergen was an island not connected to Greenland. However, it was only really the coast that was studied at first.
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 North Sea Route. The second expedition was organised by the Royal Navy and led by Constantine Phipps in 1773. They collected zoological and botanical samples and measured water temperatures.
Scientific exploration increased throughout the 18th century, with the most extensive surveys being carried out by William Scoresby, who published several papers on the Arctic. Baltazar Mathias Keilhau (a Norwegian) was the first to carry out expeditions on the interior of Svalbard. Swedish exploration started with Sven Loven in 1837, which led way to Sweden dominating scientific investigations in the last half of the century. Martin Conway (United Kingdom) was the first to produce a map of the interior of Svalbard.
Svalbard was used as the starting point for expeditions to the North Pole. Ny-Ålesund (the second main settlement of Svalbard, only accessible on guided tour) was the basis of four attempts to the North Pole between 1925 and 1928, including Roald Amundsen’s first attempt with a flying boat. Amundsen’s airship Norge is credited as the first to reach the pole. Umberto Nobile’s airship Italia crashed in 1928, resulting in the largest search in polar history.
Industrialisation of Svalbard
While hunting was important for the growth of interest in Svalbard, the next phase of Svalbard’s money-making history was the industrialisation of the archipelago following the discovery of coal. No rules governed who could claim land, and between 1898 and 1920 over 100 land claims were made.
The first attempt to create a permanent settlement on Svalbard was carried out by Sweden’s Alfred Gabriel Nathorst, who established Kapp Thordsen in 1872 with the goal of mining phosphorite, but it was never carried out. The Swedes set themselves up to mine at Svea, while the Russians began mining at Barentsburg and Pyramiden. The two British companies were the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate and the Northern Exploration Company.
Industrial mining of coal began in 1899 (the whalers and hunters had been using the coal long before then), but the first commercially viable mining company was the American John Munroe Longyear’s Arctic Coal Company, which established the town Longyear City (in 1925 it was renamed Longyearbyen). By 1910, 200 men worked for the company and by 1912 the company was extracting 40,000 tons of coal a year. The town and the mines were bought by the Norwegian-owned Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani in 1916.
The first school in Longyearbyen was built in 1920 by the Church of Norway. Svalbard Radio started broadcasting in 1911, and an early version of a hotel was completed in 1896.
Swedish interests established mines at Pyramiden (no longer accessible due to the war in Urkraine) and Sveagruva (recently abandoned and torn down), which Dutch investors established Barentsburg (not accessible due to the war in Ukraine). Norwegians established coal mining in Ny-Ålesund in 1916.
Norway Claims Svalbard (The Svalbard Treaty)
During all this time, Svalbard was a terra nullius (land without government). The work to establish an administration was established in 1871. Fridtjof Nansen’s endeavours raised the Norwegian public’s consciousness of the Arctic, which again brought forth public support for the annexation of Svalbard.
The Government of Norway took initative in 1907 for negotiations between the involved states mining in Svalbard. Conferences were held in 1910, 1912 and 1914. The break through came at the Paris Peace Conference – Germany and Russia had both been excluded, while Norway enjoyed much goodwill after their neutral ally policy and was seen as a harmless country.
The Svalbard Treaty of 9 February 1920 granted Norway full sovereignty over Svalbard, although with two major limitations: all parties to the treaty had equal rights to economic resources and Svalbard was not to be used for “warlike purposes”. That is why there’s no military on Svalbard, and why Russia owns Barentsburg and Pyramiden.
Svalbard was to be administered by the Governor of Svalbard. It is regarded as “part of the Kingdom of Norway” but is not a county. A mining code was passed in 1925 and by 1927 all mining claims were resolved. All unclaimed land was taken over by the Norwegian government. Although the Soviet Union was sceptical to the treaty, they were willing to trade a signing of it in exchange for a Norwegian recognition of the Soviet regime.
By the 1930s, only the Norwegians and Russians were mining on Svalbard.
World War II
Svalbard was initially unaffected by the Nazi occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany on 9 April 1940. However, following the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, Svalbard became of strategic importance to secure supplies between the allies. All Norwegian and Soviet settlements were evacuated, and Nazis occupied Longyearbyen, where they built an airstrip and a weather station. Svalbard is one of the best weather prediction places for the sea and temperatures in Northern Norway, so it was of strategic importance for them. In May 1942, a Norwegian expedition was sent to liberate the island and they were attacked by the Nazis. Eventually the Nazis left Svalbard, but destroyed Barentsburg, Grumand and Longyearbyen in the process. The towns were rebuilt after the war, and in Longyearbyen it’s possible to see the remains of the town before the war.
Cold War & the Kings Bay Affair
In 1944, the Soviet Union proposed that Svalbard become a condominium under joint Norwegian and Soviet rule. The proposal was discussed in Norway but ultimately rejected.
Political tension between Norway and the Soviet Union became heated after Norway joined NATO in 1949. The Soviet Union issued memorandums to Norway stating that Svalbard could not be under NATO command, but this was rejcted by Norway.
21 miners were killed in an accident in Ny-Ålesund, which led to the King’s Bay Affair. Basically, the Kings Bay Mining Company was a coal mining operation based in Ny-Ålesund that was owned by the government. After the miners were killed in an accident, the Norwegian government established an investigatory commission that ended up finding deficiencies in the management of the mine, especially culpability on part of the minister of industry at the time, Kjell Holler. The non-socialist opposition to the Labour Party government demanded that Holler be dismissed, but Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen claimed that the Kings Bay operations were not accountable to the parliament. Gerhardsen was forced to appear before parliament and answer for his cabinet’s actions. The opposition found unity in proposing a vote of no-confidence to the parliament, claiming that a government that owns a corporation that is mismanaged should be held accountable. This led to the Gerhardsen cabinet resigning.
Oil drilling was started by Caltex in 1961. They were granted claims based on indications, rather than samples, of oil, which was a privilege not given to the Soviets, leading to strained relations. No commercially viable wells were found.
Both the Kings Kay Affair and the Caltex Affair initiated public debate about the administration of Svalbard, and in particular the lack of resources and control of Soviet settlments. The Governor of Svalbard increased its activities in Soviet settlements.
After mining ended in Ny-Ålesund, the Norwegian Polar Institute took a dominant role in converting it to an international research station.
In 1973, more than half of the archipelago was protected through four national parks, fourteen bird sanctuaries and four nature reserved.
'Normalisation' & Modern Times
“Normalisation” was a term coined in the 1970s to transform Longyearbyen from a company town to a regular community. In 1971, the Svalbard Council was established for the Norwegian population.
The civilian airport at Longyearbyen was built in 1975 and was built to serve both the Norwegian and Soviet towns.
The 1990s saw a large reduction in Russian activity. Schools were closed in 1994 and children and mothers were sent to the mainland, reducing the population of Barentsburg to 800 and Pyramiden to 600. Pyramiden was abandoned in 1998. From 1990 to 2011, the Russian and Ukrainian population fell from 2,300 to 370, while the Norwegian population increased from 1,100 to 2,000.
Tourism has emerged as a major livelihood for Svalbard with hotels being built on Spitsbergen from 1995.
Research and education is also of crucial importance to Svalbard in modern times. Since the 1990s, several high-tech institutes and research centres have established themselves, including the University Centre in Svalbard, the European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association, the Svalbard Satellite Station, the Svalbard Undersea Cable System, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
In 2002, the Longyearbyen Community Council was incorporated with many of the same responsibilities as a municipality.
Today tourism is important to Svalbard and the largest industry on the archipelago, though research still plays an important role for the basis of settlement there.
Further Reading
For a more detailed overview of Svalbard’s history, I recommend reading this document from VisitSvalbard (click here).
Be sure to read my detailed travel guide for Svalbard, including all the settlements and itineraries for different times of the year.
