Brandal City

For six weeks in the summer of 1916, Peter S. Brandal was in Kongsfjorden. He had come up there with two of the largest ships he had, "Polaris" and "Signalhorn". It was in the middle of the First World War and Peter S. had done well in his business in recent years. The prices for seal products were good, and he had always invested in fresh thinking and long-term thinking. He had succeeded in this. He had started the construction of a large land-based plant.

During the First World War, especially in 1916, it was difficult to obtain enough coal for all his ships. British coal stocks were dwindling rapidly. Now he had been offered a new business venture.

Back in Kings Bay, Peter S. goes to look into the possibilities of starting his own coal mine. He had received an offer from Supreme Court attorney Trygve Klausen, who was acting on behalf of the city of Ålesund, who in turn had received an offer from Green Harbour Coal Co. to buy the rights to the coal field in Kings Bay. Peter S. had been to Kongsfjorden earlier and saw that the coal was right up to the surface.

There were lawless conditions in Svalbard at this time. People occupied land as it suited them. Green Harbour Coal Co. occupied land in Kings Bay in July 1909. They renewed the occupation several times, but never started any real mining.

So, on August 14, 1916, Peter S. Brandal made up his mind. He renewed the occupation of Kings Bay, and on the annexation sign his name is the last one to appear to this day, annexation renewed August 14, 1916. It was on that day that he decided to invest 250.000 kroner on the rights to the coal field. To secure the capital, he went into partnership with the three guys from Ålesund whom he knew well through several different companies they had together.

For six weeks in the summer of 1916, Peter S. Brandal was there planning the mining facility and his town, Brandal City. Longyearbyen is of course the best known in Svalbard. Longyear named the town after himself, and Peter S. Brandal couldn't have been worse at it, and it became Brandal City.

With his ships "Signalhorn" and "Polaris" he had a work crew of 60 men, mostly Swedes and Finns, who were in the hold among dynamite and other equipment for the crossing.

Before returning from Brandal City, they had shoveled out a total of 300 tons of coal, which the two ships transported home to Brandal. They returned in early September. The rights to the coalfield were transferred to Brandal on September 23, 1916.

Later, these rights were transferred to a partnership with Peter S. Brandal, Trygve Klausen, Michael Knutsen and Trygve Jervell who on December 14, 1916, together formed the limited liability company Kings Bay Kul Comp. A/S. Michael Knutsen and Peter S. Brandal were good friends and had several businesses together.

So one can speculate on what it was that weighed most heavily on Peter S. Brandal investing so heavily in a coal mine almost up at the North Pole. His own great need for coal probably weighed heavily, but as the businessman he was, he probably also saw the possibility of a new big business. Large parts of the world needed coal, and there he was with coal all around him.

Peter S. Brandal, as is well known, swooped in and bought these rights for 250.000 kroner. But why did he do this? 2000 km from the buyers. In a place where you could only ship coal four months a year, the rest of the time you were frozen in the fjord. On top of that, you had to drive the coal out in the winter in total darkness and permafrost.

Adolf Hoel, the famous Norwegian polar explorer, was up there a lot at the same time as Brandal; he later said that he and Brandal had connections with Germany before and during the First World War.

Could it be that Brandal thought in 1916 that it was not certain that he would be able to buy coal from England, which was the major exporter after this? And with the entrepreneurial spirit he had, he certainly did not look down on building his own mine. That is one explanation.

But perhaps we also need to look a little further into it. Especially when Peter S. Brandal brought along Trygve Klausen, Michael Knutsen and Trygve Jervell. All big names in Ålesund at the time. Knutsen, a well-known Arctic explorer who had made a fortune mining gold in Alaska, provided capital.

We now talked about the time around 1916-17. People fired with coal, the railway had coal, lighthouses along the coast, the navy, etc. There was a huge market for coal, and just as important as securing their own Arctic vessels, Brandal and Knutsen probably saw the value in a coal mine in an attempt to stand on their own two feet commercially. So on 12.12.1916, together with the three guys from Ålesund, they formally founded Kings Bay Cull Comp. AS.

In the summer of 1917 there were a lot of people, materials for buildings, etc. Kings Bay Cull Comp. invested heavily. Here we were 1200 km from the North Pole. No one else had operations that far north. They had to bring everything they needed from home.

Brandal and Knutsen were to have a town with room for 250 winterers, plus 50 summer workers. Several mines, houses and a power plant, workshop, wharf and telegraph station were built.

Even barns with stables were built. They would have horses to drive in the winter. In the summer they had railways, locomotives and wagons. The city got the world's northernmost railway with five locomotives with over 30 wagons, and four km of railway.
An impressive infrastructure when we know where we are on the map.

In 1925, Brandal had to see his town changed its name to Ny-Ålesund. Then the official postmark with Ny-Ålesund on it appeared. It was probably the capital in Ålesund that wanted it that way. Even though it said Brandal City on old maps, the name was not used much, it was often just called Kings Bay, as had been common for several hundred years.

The four founders lost a lot of money on the mines in Ny-Ålesund. As early as 1920, the state stepped in with financial support and agreements to buy coal. In 1929, the company's debt was so great that the state, through the Svalbard Commission, asked the shareholders to transfer their shares voluntarily and without compensation.

Peter S. was the first to agree to this, but the others soon followed, and in 1933 the Norwegian state had the entire shareholding in the company. On 23 August 1929, the Cabinet decided to completely shut down the mines.

In the mid-1920s, Kings Bay hosted many different expeditions that wanted to conquer the North Pole, and the telegraph that Peter S. Brandal had set up in 1917 spewed out news reports to the entire world, which followed with excitement.

Roald Amundsen came to Kings Bay with the aircraft N-24 and N-25 to attempt to fly to the North Pole in 1925. During the period they were in town, Amundsen was able to use the director's residence of Brandal and Knutsen. The same thing happened again in 1926 when Amundsen came north with the airship Norge and was to make another attempt at the North Pole. Today, the director's residence is called the Amundsen Villa for this reason. Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett also entered the town in May 1926 and flew to the North Pole. They claimed to have flown over the North Pole, but later calculations cast doubt on whether they had gone that far.

In the 1930s, a fishing station was established in Ny-Ålesund to take care of the many hundreds of fishing boats that operated in the area. From the second half of the 1930s, hotel operations began in Ny-Ålesund. For a time, the director's villa of Brandal and Knutsen was also converted into a hotel. But these activities were not a financial success either.

In the summer of 1941, 80 men were sent to Ny-Ålesund for summer work in the mines. But shortly afterwards, Svalbard was evacuated. In 1945, operations resumed, but mining operations were unfortunately to be hit by many tragic accidents in the mines. In December 1948, 15 people died in an explosion, and in both 1952 and 1953 there were several accidents that claimed a total of 28 lives.

On November 5, 1962, another serious accident occurred that put a stop to all further mining in Ny-Ålesund. 21 people died in the mines, and the accident led to the resignation of the Gerhardsen government.

On December 14, 1964, Norwegian authorities entered into an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESRO) to establish a Norwegian satellite telemetry station in Ny-Ålesund, and the city became a modern Arctic research base.

The first research organizations to establish themselves in Ny-Ålesund were the Northern Lights Observatory in Tromsø in 1966 and the European Space Agency (ESRO) in 1967. The Norwegian Polar Institute was the first to establish a year-round research station in 1968.

On Zeppelinfjellet above Ny-Ålesund lies the Zeppelin Observatory research station, 474 meters above sea level. This research station is central to monitoring the global atmospheric environment. The data collected is of great significance for mapping climate change, changes in stratospheric ozone and UV, environmental toxins, and long-range air pollutants.

Kings Bay Kull Comp AS took over the operation of the site again in 1974. In 1998, the company changed its name to Kings Bay AS, thereby removing its reference to coal mining.

100 years after its founding, 14 research institutions have permanent stations in Ny-Ålesund. These belong to institutions from 10 different countries: Norway, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France, Japan, South Korea, China, the Netherlands and India.

The vision for Kings Bay is to be "for the benefit of the world's climate and environmental knowledge." The main goal is for Ny-Ålesund to be "the premier location for Arctic climate and environmental research."

Peter S. Brandal and Michael Knutsen lost a lot of money on the mines in Brandal City. But they had great faith that the place would become important for Norway, it was important for Norway to show industrial activity in Svalbard for future ownership, and they sacrificed a lot to keep the company going despite heavy losses and a halt in coal extraction.

And they were right in the end, today Kings Bay in Ny-Ålesund is a world-famous and important research city.