Dutch discovery The Dutchman
Willem Barentsz made the first discovery of the archipelago in 1596, when he sighted the coast of the island of Spitsbergen while searching for the
Northern Sea Route. The first recorded landing on the islands of Svalbard dates to 1604, when an English ship landed at
Bjørnøya, or Bear Island, and started hunting
walrus. Annual expeditions soon followed, and Spitsbergen became a base for hunting the
bowhead whale from 1611. Because of the lawless nature of the area,
English,
Danish,
Dutch, and
French companies and authorities tried to use force to keep out other countries' fleets.
17th–18th centuries , by
Cornelis de Man (1639), but based on a painting of a
Dansk hvalfangststation (Danish whaling station) by A.B.R. Speeck (1634), which represented the Danish station in Copenhagen Bay (Kobbefjorden)
Smeerenburg was one of the first settlements, established by the Dutch in 1619. Smaller bases were also built by the English, Danish, and French. At first, the outposts were merely summer camps, but from the early 1630s, a few individuals started to
overwinter. Whaling at Spitsbergen lasted until the 1820s, when the Dutch, British, and Danish whalers moved elsewhere in the Arctic. By the late 17th century,
Russian hunters arrived; they overwintered to a greater extent and hunted land mammals such as the polar bear and fox. Norwegian hunting—mostly for walrus—started in the 1790s. The first Norwegian citizens to reach Spitsbergen proper were a number of Coast
Sámi people from the
Hammerfest region, who were hired as part of a Russian crew for an expedition in 1795.
19th century After the
Anglo-Russian War in 1809, Russian activity on Svalbard diminished, and had ceased by the 1820s. Norwegian whaling was abandoned about the same time as the Russians left, but whaling continued around Spitsbergen until the 1830s, and around
Bjørnøya until the 1860s.
20th century Svalbard Treaty By the 1890s, Svalbard had become a destination for Arctic tourism, coal deposits had been found, and the islands were being used as a base for
Arctic exploration. The first mining was along Isfjorden by Norwegians in 1899; by 1904, British interests had established themselves in
Adventfjorden and started the first year-round operations. Production in Longyearbyen, by US interests, started in 1908; and Store Norske established itself in 1916, as did other Norwegian interests during the
First World War, in part by buying US interests. on a background of blue and white
vair, possibly symbolising the Arctic landscape of the archipelago. Svalbard does not currently use a distinct flag. Discussions to establish the sovereignty of the archipelago commenced in the 1910s, but were interrupted by
World War I. On 9 February 1920, following the
Paris Peace Conference, the
Svalbard Treaty was signed, granting full sovereignty to Norway. However, all signatory countries were granted non-discriminatory rights to fishing, hunting, and mineral resources. The treaty took effect on 14 August 1925, at the same time as the
Svalbard Act regulated the archipelago and the first
governor,
Johannes Gerckens Bassøe, took office. The archipelago has traditionally been known as Spitsbergen, and the main island as West Spitsbergen. During the 1920s, Norway renamed the archipelago Svalbard, and the main island became Spitsbergen.
Kvitøya,
Kong Karls Land,
Hopen, and
Bjørnøya were not regarded as part of the Spitsbergen archipelago. Russians have traditionally called the archipelago
Grumant (). The
Soviet Union retained the name Spitsbergen () to support undocumented claims that Russians were the first to discover the island. In 1928, Italian explorer
Umberto Nobile and the crew of the airship
Italia crashed on the icepack off the coast of
Foyn Island. The subsequent rescue attempts were covered extensively in the press and Svalbard received short-lived fame as a result.
Second World War in 1941 Svalbard, known to both British and Germans as Spitsbergen, was little affected by the
German invasion of Norway in April 1940. The settlements continued to operate as before, mining coal and monitoring the weather. In July 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the
Royal Navy reconnoitered the islands with a view to using them as a base of operations to send supplies to north Russia, but the idea was rejected as impractical. Instead, with the agreement of the Soviets and the Norwegian government in exile, in August 1941 the Norwegian and Soviet settlements on Svalbard were evacuated, and facilities there destroyed, in
Operation Gauntlet. However, the Norwegian government in exile decided it would be important politically to establish a garrison in the islands, which was done in May 1942 during
Operation Fritham. Meanwhile, the Germans responded to the destruction of the weather station by establishing a reporting station of their own, codenamed
"Banso", in October 1941. They were chased away in October by a visit from what the Germans mistook to be four British warships, but later returned. A second station, "Knospe", was established at
Ny-Ålesund in 1941, remaining until 1942. In May 1942, after the arrival of the Fritham force, the German unit at Banso was evacuated. In September 1943 in
Operation Zitronella a German task force, which included the battleship
Tirpitz, was sent to attack the garrison and destroy the settlements at Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. This was achieved, but had little long-term effect: after their departure the Norwegians returned and re-established their presence. In September 1944, the Germans set up their last weather station,
Operation Haudegen in
Nordaustlandet; it functioned until after the German surrender. On 4 September 1945, the soldiers were picked up by a Norwegian seal hunting vessel and surrendered to its captain. This group of men were the last German troops to surrender after the Second World War. After the war, the Soviet Union proposed common Norwegian and Soviet administration and military defence of Svalbard. This was rejected in 1947 by Norway, which two years later joined
NATO. The Soviet Union retained high civilian activity on Svalbard, in part to ensure that the archipelago was not used by NATO.
Post-war previously used for transporting coal After the war, Norway re-established operations at Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund, while the Soviet Union established mining in
Barentsburg,
Pyramiden, and
Grumant. The mine at Ny-Ålesund had several fatal accidents, killing 71 people while it was in operation from 1945 to 1954 and from 1960 to 1963. The
Kings Bay Affair, caused by the 1962 accident killing 21 workers, forced
Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet to resign. From 1964, Ny-Ålesund became a research outpost, and a facility for the
European Space Research Organisation. Petroleum test drilling was started in 1963 and continued until 1984, but no commercially viable fields were found. From 1960, regular charter flights were made from the mainland to a field at
Hotellneset; in 1975, Svalbard Airport, Longyearbyen opened, allowing year-round services. During the
Cold War, the Soviet Union supplied about two-thirds of the population on the islands (Norwegians making up the remaining third) with the population of the archipelago slightly under 4,000. Grumant was closed after it was depleted in 1962. Coal exports from Barentsburg ceased in 2006 because of a fire, The Russians experienced two air accidents:
Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 (1996), which killed 141 people, and the
Heerodden helicopter accident (2008), which killed three people. Longyearbyen remained purely a company town until 1989 when utilities, culture, and education was separated into Svalbard Samfunnsdrift. In 1993, it was sold to the national government and the University Centre was established. Through the 1990s, tourism increased and the town developed an economy independent of Store Norske and mining. == Population ==