It may be a little strange to fall in love with a deserted island like Jan Mayen. Deserted as it is out in the sea, far away. Well, it is not completely deserted. Around twenty people are living there, half a year at a time.
I do not know what happens to those that arrives at Jan Mayen and I will not try either, but for me it was like being born again. I have a past as a mechanics in the coalmines of Svalbard and I have had an urge to return to Svalbard each day since I left in 1985 and until I set my foot down on the soil of Jan Mayen in 1992.
If you are going to work on Jan Mayen you will probably be transported by the Norwegian Air forces' Hercules plane. If you are lucky you will success in the first try and the plane will be able to land. Quite often that is not the case. The weather will decide whether a landing is possible or not, you see Jan Mayen has no radar system to assist the pilots so they have to see the airfield. Some times the fog are so dense or the clouds so low that a landing is impossible. Other times winds are making a landing dangerous. At the airfield everybody, the administration, firefighting crew and all other that have a reason are waiting. Then, when the plane eventually has landed, it is high speed for two or three hours until it leaves again. At these pictures the plane has landed and everybody are in big smiles.
I have the firm impression that many are convinced that one of the main occupations at Jan Mayen is coal mining. That is not true, I do not think there ever has been found coal there, the island is too young. Some knows about the weather station, but the lack of knowledge about this part of Norway is remarkable.
Let me give you one example, when you are going to go to Jan Mayen to work you have to bring bankers checques. Upon contacting their bank they have been told that they can get their checque book at the bank in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. The fact is that it is a shorter distance from JM to Iceland than to Svalbard.
I arrived at this island close to the end of March 1992. Well I have been staying six years at West Spitsbergen, Svalbard so I had a clue of what I was going to meet at the island. Years had passed since I left Svalbard in 1985 and I have been longing to return each day since then. Stepping out of the plane I felt like coming home again. The years at Svalbard had been rushing by and suddenly they were over. I had never used the opportunity to hike around in the district by foot, only by skidoo in winter. I must admit that I loved the freedom of the skidoo, to be able to put on the right clothes, top the fuel tank and put a couple of spare cans of fuel at the sledge... and the step on it and discover the nature. It was fantastic. I have only experienced something similar at the motorcycle. The problem with the habit of using the skidoo was that it gave distance another perspective and walking suddenly seemed pretty wasted. This time I had decided to take another approach to the nature, I should explore more by foot.
This time I have decided to get a little bit more around to get to know the island and take lots of pictures to use when I paint at home and I have already taken almost 1500 pictures. Several of them will be available for you to see at these pages as soon as I have reduced them for the web. By the way, take contact if you see any picture that you want in full format.
Jan Mayen has a fascinating nature and even the most sedate has to make some trips around to look at the area. I have show you one of the main attractions of the island, the mountain Schiertzegga at the southern part. It looks like a sleeping dinosaur, situated close to the station Olonkin City. The area around Schiertzegga is quite fertile and one of the workers once tried to plant pine trees here without success. Similar experiments have been carried out by the foot of Søyla, at the northern end of Sørlaguna, the Southern Lagoon.
The Hercules plane from Bodø needs 2 hours to reach Jan Mayen, when the weather is fine. Sometimes or quite often, the plane has to back to Bodø without success in the efforts to land. This may happen for several days and at the end you may find yourself to be quite fed up with the Hercules. Luckily we managed to land on the first try in 1992. This time we were not that lucky and had to return to Bodø, a trip of 5 hours with reduced accomodations.
We were met at the airport by all available crew including the leader of the station and the nurse. When you are assigned for a job at Jan Mayen, it is for a period of 6 months. You may prolong this period by another 6 months, but then you have to leave. None are allowed to stay there for much more than a year. When we arrived someone had to leave for home, some of those who were about to leave had to stay for a week to train us newcomers. Others had 6 months more to stay.
The station is called Olonkinbyen, Olonkin City. The 'city' has got its name from a station
manager who were staying at Jan Mayen for several years. It would be a lie to tell that it
is beautiful. The main building is shaped like an 'E' and is covered by galvanized
steelplates. There are some other buildings too, a garage, a workshop for woodworking, a
boat building shop, a radio shop for the radio amateurs use, an antenna station for LORAN C.
The station
Having put my suitcase at the bed here at Jan Mayen, I had to put on the overall and help unloading the plane and get it loaded with goods. It was supposed to leave in three hours. Then it was lunch, when a plane was visiting, the kitchen showed what they could make. And the really impressed me. To crew the Hercules for a trip to Jan Mayen is quite popular, I expect the food to be one of the reasons.
As soon as the plane had left, things settled down. Those that were waiting for the plane that were coming to get them next week were walking around, looking at the weather, quite restless. Some were here for a visit and others had a special job to do for the week. All in all we were almost 50 persons, the station is a little bit crowdie then and I don't think anyone had a really hard time when they left two days later than planned, due to fog. Things could settle down and the normal life could start.
Since then, I have had the pleasure of taking several trips around in the terrain. Some by Snow-Track or Weasel others by foot. The cottages that I describe are situated mainly at Northern Jan. One of the cottages, Frydenlund have been used by the meteorologists earlier, Gammel-Metten. There is also another cottage that is called Puppebu and a third one called Vera. I have been told that it is named after the wife of a former met. assistant, Ove Grasbakken. This cottage was originally situated in the 'Lunar Landscape', Månelandskapet close to Eggøya. The last cottage that I want to mention is Ulla close to Ullerengstranden, hence the name. These cottages were used summer and winter.
That Jan Mayen is volcanic should not surprise anyone interested in geology. At left you can see a picture of an arc made by floating lava. In some places of the world you may find diamonds in volcanic areas, but you will not find diamonds at Jan Mayen. You may find other gems like olivine and epidot. This has led to strange behavior from the citizens. You will from time to time find them in a position like the one at the picture below. We went to Alfred Øien Valley as we had been told that here we would be able to find nice samples of olivine. We searched for hours, but found only some smaller ones. But we had a nice trip, weather was fine and the urge to find nice samples didn't disappear. We just had to find better places. Close to the cottage Ulla is a valley called Red Canyon. Here we found some nice samples, but they were destroyed by pressure and erosion. The lava flows are easy to spot when you are walking around. Look at the picture below from Troll Valley, how the lava has been flowing towards the sea. By the way, observe the thick layer of moss. It is often very thick and quite treacherous as you may tread through and hurt your feet. Good hiking shoes are necessary, leave your Nikes or Adidas at the station. Use mountain shoes with thick soles and high shafts.
When I was walking around I used to carry my camera and took lots of pictures. You will find some of them at my picture site. I have painted several pictures from the impressions I got during my stay. When I sit and look through those pictures it hurts my heart to know that I may never be able to see those places again. But maybe that is one of the magics of the island, you never know if you will be allowed to return.......
Having waited for 9 years for an opportunity to return, we were hit by luck. We will go for half a year from April to October this year. During this period we will gather new memories, take pictures and observe. We will also be able to make new friends in a way that is almost impossible at the mainland where friendship comes easy and goes easy.