Jan Mayen

Dat­ing back to erup­tions in Jan Mayens ear­li­er geo­log­i­cal his­to­ry, there are big lava flows every­where around Titelt­buk­ta. Antique and dig­ni­fied fields of sharp-edged lava rocks, now cov­ered with moss­es and lichens, a fan­ta­sy world turned to stone. Gnomes and dwarves, elves and trolls, cas­tles and tur­tles and all oth­er sorts of crea­tures. Yes, they don’t just live in the neigh­bour­hood in Ice­land, they are also here on Jan Mayen, and they just wait for the dark­ness to come out … for sure! 🙂

In Titelt­buk­ta, there was a Dutch whal­ing sta­tion in the 17th cen­tu­ry. This is already indi­cat­ed by the name Titelt­buk­ta, which means 10 tent bay. The ear­ly whalers used to call their sim­ple hous­es tents, and prob­a­bly they looked more like tents than like hous­es. Noth­ing remains from those ear­ly days.

Detail: Titelt­buk­ta

There is a lit­tle trap­per hut, built in 1929 by Fritz Øien. The Øien broth­ers used to work at the weath­er sta­tion in those years, which then was in Jameson­buk­ta near Eggøya (Eld­ste Met­ten). Fritz Øien called the hut Camp Mar­gareth after his wife, Mar­gareth Johanne Dals­bø. It was in rather bad con­di­tion after many years out there, but it was ren­o­vat­ed from offi­cial side in 2007.

Photo gallery Titeltbukta

Note in Camp Mar­gareth: “Camp Mar­gareth was built here in 1929 and it is pro­tect­ed. It was restored for the Rik­san­tik­var (his­toric mon­u­ments pro­tec­tion author­i­ty) by Yng­var Wen­newold and Torgeir Har­ald­stad in the sum­mer of 2007. Care­ful use is a good form of pro­tec­tion – wel­come in!”
Author­i­ties in Oslo have, how­ev­er, a dif­fer­ent atti­tude. Large parts of Jan Mayen are effec­tive­ly closed to the pub­lic. It is pre­ferred to let the huts “die in beau­ty” or to restore them with great effort. This is com­mon, but con­tro­ver­sial, also in Spitsbergen.

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