Pictures from Michael Welland

Michael Welland, who was a member of two Cambridge geological expeditions around forty years ago, spent much of his time in Hornsund each summer. He had a base camp on the Treskelen peninsula and the first summer his undergraduate mapping project was Treskelen. Much has changed in forty years (including the position of the glacier fronts) but much has not - the superb geology and the polar bears. Michael have dug out some of his photographs from this expedition.

I was fascinated to read the piece on geotourism in Svalbard – I did two seasons field mapping with the Cambridge expeditions in 1967 and 1968, both times based in Hornsund. Our base camp was at the tip of the Treskelen peninsula where the geology was the subject of my undergraduate field project. This photo is looking south from Treskelen with Horsundtind in the distance and our base camp in the lower left. Referred to affectionately as the “Hornsund Hilton”, the camp was primitive even by the standards of forty years ago. To build shelter we constructed a frame out of driftwood, draped it with tarpaulins (allowing each tent its built-in entrance) and slavaged a stove from a derelict hut some distance away (note the chimney constructed from emptied butter tins). The result was the most palatial residence in Hornsund.

We mapped much of the area south of Hornsund, venturing forth by boat and sleds (pulled by ourselves). This photo is from the top of Ostrogradskifjella, a mountain which was then situated within the Hornbreen glacier some ten kilometres east of Treskelen (which can be seen extending into Hornsund in the middle distance). At the time this photo was taken, a long sled-haul across the glacier was needed to get to Ostrogradskifjella, but, looking at today’s satellite imagery, it would seem that the journey could be made directly by boat from Treskelen – all of the Hornbreen glacier visible in the photo has disappeared.