Probably most of us know what Norway looks like and what the shape of this country is. Most probably most know that Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago located in the Arctic. Svalbardwhich is located approximately 600 km north of the Scandinavian peninsula, approximately halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The largest island of this archipelago is Spitsbergen. The name Svalbard is of Nordic origin and is interpreted as "cool side" or "cold coast".
Somewhere between Norway, Iceland and Greenland with an active volcano
Today, however, we will deal with another part of Norway that probably few have heard of. This is a Norwegian polar island located somewhere between Norway, Iceland and Greenland, it's called Jan Mayen. The island is exactly 550 kilometers northeast of Iceland, 500 kilometers east of Greenland and 1000 kilometers west of mainland Norway. Its area is 377 square kilometers. Almost all of Jan Mayen is protected as a nature reserve. The reserve covers a land area of 375 square kilometers and a sea area of 4315 square kilometers.
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There is no port on the island, you can only get there by air transport
Crown Prince Haakon visited the island last February. It was then almost 44 years since his parents, then the princely couple Harald and Sonja, were on the island in 1976. There is no port on the island, you can only get there by air transport. However, the island has no permanent inhabitants. Only the staff of the radio and meteorological station are there. On November 19, 2010, by a royal decree of the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, the island of Jan Mayen with coastal waters within a radius of 12 nautical miles was transformed into a nature reserve. The purpose of the reserve is to protect the unique nature of the island, as well as to protect coastal waters against possible exploitation of oil deposits that could destroy its natural environment.
The change in the status of the island is also related to the limitation of tourist traffic. Only the area of the runway of the only airport on Jan Mayen and the area of the weather station have been excluded from the reserve. Visits to the island have limitations. You must apply for a residence permit on the island. However, this permit (for persons other than authorized personnel) is only granted for short stays (one week only). It is forbidden to camp or camp on the island for persons other than authorized personnel. There are also separate rules for the stay of foreigners on the island.
The island is home to the world's northernmost active volcano, Beerenberg
The crater of this volcano is 1,4 kilometers wide, 200-300 meters deep, and is filled with ice. The last, small eruption took place in January 1985. Beerenberg is also one of the highest mountains in Norway at 2277 meters above sea level. There is also an earthquake on the island. The strongest earthquake recorded in Norway occurred on the night of November 9, 2018 and had a magnitude of 6,8 on the Richter scale.
Jan Mayen Island may have been discovered as early as the time of the Vikings. Where did the name of the island come from?
Jan Mayen Island may have been discovered as early as the time of the Vikings. Between 1608 and 1612 it must have been seen by several whalers and sailors and given different names, but the first credible evidence dates back to 1614, when English captain John Clarke saw the island and named it Isabella. In the same year, three Dutch ships arrived on the island, then the island was finally named after Captain Jan Jacobs May van Schellinkhout. In the nineteenth century, several short visits by scientists took place there, including the Norwegian Expedition to the North Sea in 1877.
However, the first major scientific expedition was the contribution of Austria-Hungary to the First International Polar Year 1882–1883. Then 14 men lived on the island for 13 months and conducted a detailed study of it. At the beginning of the 1921th century, wintering Norwegians hunted arctic foxes and occasional herring was caught. In XNUMX, engineer Hagbard Ekerold established the island's first weather station in Jameson Bay.
How did the island of Jan Mayen become part of Norway?
It was the only part of the Kingdom of Norway completely under the control of the Norwegian government in exile.
Parts of the island of Jan Mayen were seized on behalf of Norway by the Meteorological Institute in 1922, and then the entire island in 1926. The island of Jan Mayen was placed under the sovereignty of Norway on May 8, 1929 by royal decree and by law of February 27, 1930. . became part of the kingdom. After the outbreak of World War II, the personnel of the weather station was taken by a Norwegian warship, and the radio system was destroyed in September 1940. In November 1940, the Allied naval forces prevented the Germans from attempting to land on the island.
In March 1941, 13 Norwegian soldiers landed on Jan Mayen. A garrison and a better protected weather station were built in Jøssingdalen in the middle of the island. During the war, the Norwegian garrison numbered up to 52 people. Jan Mayen was the only part of the Kingdom of Norway that was completely under the control of the Norwegian government-in-exile, it did not come under German occupation. In 1960, a landing pad was built to facilitate transport to the island. Since August 1994, it has been administered from Oslo through the governor of the Nordland province, in practice power has been transferred to the station commander of the military communications services.
