The trap

The post-war sealing ships have been in the field from March 20th until sometime in May. When you talk to Arctic people about the Vesterisen, it is with great respect that they all say that it is the field with the toughest ice, the worst storms and the toughest conditions.

The West Ice Sheet is the mass of ice that has broken away from the ice in the Arctic Basin, and which comes drifting south with the current. This current, which runs along the east coast of Greenland, is called the East Greenland Current. The ice it carries with it is many years old, and the largest flakes stick out above the water at a height of a man or more. This is what is called the polar ice cap. The sea area between Greenland and Svalbard freezes over every winter. This ice is called winter ice, and can stick up to half a meter above the sea surface.

On extra cold days in spring, the water also freezes in the areas around the winter ice and the polar ice cap. This ice is then called new ice. All this ice disappears as it drifts south, and by the time it has passed the southern end of the Denmark Strait, most of it has melted. Only icebergs are found further south; icebergs are pieces of glaciers that have formed on land and then calved into the sea. The flakes that form the headlands are covered in snow – except for the outermost ones, which are washed away by the sea. In addition, it is not only the snow that disappears, some of the ice is also eroded by the sea. Therefore, only parts of the outermost flakes are visible. The parts of these flakes that are underwater are called ice feet. An ice foot is an underwater protrusion that protrudes like a finger or a foot – hence the name.

Here you will find multi-year ice, combined with winter ice and new ice. There is still fishing in this area.

This strait lies between Greenland and Iceland, 66–68 degrees north. Summer fishing was carried out here, traditionally by the Sunnmøresskute, from June to August. They fished for sculpin and if the catch was poor, they fished for hawksbill. The sculpins were the same as those used in the Vesterisen. Large floes, back ice, icebergs, ice floes and ice drifts are typical of this area. This fishing ended in 1961, but with some research expeditions after that time.

The occurrence of humpback whales in the Denmark Strait has been known since 1874, and they have been actively fished for about that time. From 1908, the Sunnmøre ships were permanently based in this area. After the fishing in the Vesterisen was finished, they changed course and headed towards the Danish Strait to catch humpback whales and fish for hawksbill. These are the same ships that fished in the Vesterisen and the White Sea before 1940, as those that caught in the Danish Strait. In the Danish Strait fishing area, humpback whales have been caught every year since 1908. In 1876, one of Sven Foyn's ships, the "Isbjørnen", had been fishing for humpback whales in the Denmark Strait. There are also examples from the early 1900s of ships catching humpback whales as far south (west) as 62 degrees north. ("Johanna Karolina" and "Kapp Flora" caught sculpins as low as 62 degrees in 1920.)

There have been relief expeditions here in the summer to the radio and weather station in Myggbukta, and to the trappers in Nordaust-Greenland. Also on assignment to the Danes in the same area. In addition, scientific expeditions. Typical here are very large ice floes and ice drift, multi-year/old ice. Large, strongly built ships with good engines were given these assignments.

Hunting continued from the early 1900s until around 1970.

The catch began in 1938, the ships sailed from Norway in February–March. The ships that caught in this field were the largest and most powerful. The crossings were harsh, with storms, icebergs and icing. The ice could be churned up in the ice, and especially close to land this could result in dangerous situations. When the current and wind pressed the ice towards land, there was strong ice pressure. Close to land there are many shallows, underwater rocks and islands that the ice could stop against or the ice could lead the ships towards. There are also icebergs here with the dangers that this entails. The ice in the field is largely winter ice, mixed with some two-year ice. The last year Norwegian ships were in the field was 1982.

The catch on the Newfoundland field proceeded from the north end of the Labrador coast from about 54o30” north, south past the Bell Isle Strait and south to Notre Dame Bay, and we can probably say that the catch field ended at Funk Island – at about 49o45 north. “Polarstar” was the only Norwegian ship for several years licensed to catch whitefish in the Gulf.

The ice on the field is very much one-year-old ice, with some last year's ice drifting in from the north, and some icebergs. Once you get into the ice, it can be flat and nice as far as you can see.

Icebergs were always a threat, whether they were grounded or drifting with the current and wind. There are also many shoals and rocks, and fishing could be done up to 3 nm from land. The current was strong, and if there was also an onshore wind that compressed the ice, it was easy to get caught in the ice mass. The seal hunters always kept a watchful eye to see if they could feel the swell, and also if the ice floe around the ship began to change color from gray to white. Then they knew that the ice pressure had increased.

Crossing the North Atlantic in late February in relatively small boats was clearly a dangerous experience. There are many stories of shipwrecks, near-shipwrecks, and near-collision with icebergs from these trips.

Small ships traveled here for the summer hunt. One had to beware of large swells, tides and currents. If you look at Svalbard, this is a country that is rich in natural resources in many ways: coal and other mineral resources, seals, walruses, polar bears, foxes, reindeer and in addition eggs and down are resources that have been in demand. In parallel with the extraction of mineral resources, hunting and trapping, scientific expeditions and tourist trips have always taken place, to varying degrees.

If we first take the traditional seal hunt in the North Ice, what is popularly referred to as seal trips, then there were trips that often started in mid-May and continued again in late summer. The trips went to the east and north side of Svalbard, the catch was harbor seals, fur seals, and polar bears, and a large part of the ships also collected eggs and down. If you talk to those who conducted this hunt for a long time, you also learn that there could be several barrels of meat from Svalbard reindeer, even though this was protected. The ships that had seine nets, for example, took these with them on the seal trips and used them for the Svalbard trout. Many of the ships started their trips by going to the East Ice, and then followed the ice edge north and west until they were in the North Ice, i.e. in the area east of Spitsbergen.

In addition to the ships that fished in the West and East Ice, there were also some small ships or boats that only fished in this summer season in Svalbard, so it is difficult to put a minimum size on the ships that took part in this catch, in any case there were boats well under 50 feet long that took part.

The hunt continued from early times until the 1970s. Later, there has been some research, transport and tourism in the area.

Here the catch was from March onwards. Soft winter ice dominated, but slightly harder ice could emerge from Kvitsjøbukta. The danger was being caught by the ice and possibly being pushed towards land by the north wind. Smaller ships from Northern Norway were the traditional vessels in this area. The Austisen and Nordisen were the areas that the Northern Norwegian ships went to as a second trip, just as the Sunnmørings went in the Danish Strait. It is still ships that are caught here.

From ancient times, the ice east of the warm Atlantic Ocean current that flows north on the west side of Spitsbergen was called Austisen, while the ice to the west was called Vestisen. This is the historical reason for the name Austisen. In the future, the name Austisen is used for the fishing area north of the Kvitsjø estuary and further east. After the Second World War, Norwegian ships have not been allowed to fish in the Kvitsjø Bay. The delimitation of the fishing area has formally been the ice east of 20^o east, further delimited by the Russian twelve mile line. For the Kvitsjø estuary this would mean a straight line 12 nm north of Cape Svetoi and Cape Kanin; Cape Svetoi is on the west side of the estuary, Cape Kanin is the northern tip on the east side.

Norwegians have been engaged in seal hunting outside the Kvitsjø estuary, seal and walrus hunting eastwards past both Kalkov northwards along Novaya Zemlya and into the gate to the Kara Sea and inside the Kara Sea, for several hundred years. In the years from 1946 and onwards, it was often the case that at least those ships that were of a certain size and in good condition made their first trip to the West Ice (fishing started around 20 March), and then took the next trip to the East Ice. But there are many examples of those that made their first trip in the East Ice, and then went to the West Ice later in the season when conditions were better. In general, it was probably the case that the ships that had the East Ice as their main fishing ground were the smallest, had the smallest engine and perhaps also the least powerful hull.

We focus here on the ice west of the Karahavporten and stick largely to the period after World War II.

The harp seal enters the White Sea to molt (give birth), and the seal follows the ice drift northward out of the White Sea mouth. Since the catch does not occur in the seal molt itself, there has been very little catch of harp seal pups (0 to 12 day old harp seal pups) in this catch area. Furthermore, there are no hooded seals in the White Sea/Austisen.

The ice on which this catch was carried out came mainly from the White Sea. It was ice that had often been through several storms and churning in the bay, most of the ice was winter ice and thus not of the hard variety. Mixed in with the soft ice were sometimes also some flakes that were formed from fresh water ice from rivers that flowed into the White Sea. Furthermore, the ice floes were often covered with snow, and since they might have been through one or more ice churnings, they were often very uneven, with dangerous holes under the snow layer, and everything from small, low ice floes to what had become large ice colossuses that protruded several meters above the sea surface. If the wind was southerly, the ice drifted outwards, and ice floes could also form that drifted long distances north through the sea.

Otherwise, from 1965 onwards, the catch was regulated in such a way that a maximum of 12 vessels were allowed to catch in the Eastern Ice. At about the same time, the catch was further regulated in such a way that it was not allowed for a vessel to catch both in the Western Ice and the Eastern Ice in the same season. Furthermore, an upper limit of 100 gross tonnage tons was introduced for the vessels that would catch in the Eastern Ice. In 1981, the Soviet Union introduced a ban on dumping carcasses of seals and whales within the Soviet economic zone. In other words: Vessels that would catch seals in the Soviet economic zone, i.e. in the Eastern Ice, had to have tank capacity to be able to take the carcasses home. This was then the final nail in the coffin for the small wooden vessels. Although the ice in the Eastern Ice is often said to be of the "soft ice" type, and although the weather, wind and ice conditions were generally far better than in the Western Ice Age, Arctic ships have both sunk and been in difficulty in this area.

There was activity here from early March onwards. The ice was slightly harder here than in the East Ice, some fresh water ice from the Kvitsjøbukta, many shoals, a lot of current, and a big difference between high and low tide. Many shipwrecks, but rarely any danger to the crew. This area was closed to Norwegian ships after the Second World War. The First World War brought with it a great time for Arctic sea fishing. Many new ships were equipped and financed. With the increasing number of ships and at the same time decreasing resources in the Vester Ice, the Denmark Strait and the East Ice and in the areas around Svalbard, it was important to find new areas to catch. The market for seal skins had grown, and it was important to find new fishing grounds if there was not to be a sharp decline for this industry. This was the basis for the fact that in 1918 there were more ships equipped for fishing in the White Sea.

As early as 1867, ships from Northern Norway had been fishing in the Kvitesjø estuary and further east, but the small ships with sails for propulsion were unable to get further in than the ice floe at the edge. They could not get through the pack ice, and they also reached the field so late in the spring that it was too late to reach the seal cast. In Kvitsjøen, the harp seal casts (gives birth) in late February and early March.

Skipper Sigvald Brandal with the Arctic ship "Helga" started the Norwegian hunt inside the White Sea in 1911. He fought his way through the ice and got to the seal cast. When the demand for furs came a few years later, it was Sigvald Brandal's experience that made the ships in 1918 make a new attempt to get into the ice masses in the White Sea to catch the newly cast (newborn) harp seals. They succeeded in this, and it was the start of more than 20 years of adventurous hunting (and terrible shipwrecks) in the White Sea.

Kvitsjøen quickly proved to be a rich fishing ground, so not only the largest and most powerful ships went there. Compared to a crossing to the Vesterisen, the trip to Kvitsjøen was generally easier. In the Vesterisen, ships were always broken down by heavy seas and ice, in Kvitesjeøen the danger was ice drift. Because of the great difference between the ebb and flow of the sea, the ice moves many miles in and out with each change in the current, and over the shallow banks, ice drift can occur that no ship could tolerate.

But of course, it was the prospect of a good trip that made the sealers choose the White Sea over the Vesterisen.

In 1923, an agreement was negotiated with the Russians that allowed Norway, in return for a concession, to catch a certain total tonnage in the White Sea up to a straight line between Cape Orlov and Cape Kanushin. There are many stories of ships being arrested because they had been within the border, or at least what the Russians believed had been within the border.
The White Sea fishing area is considered to be the area north of a straight line between Cape Orlov and Cape Kanushin, which was the concession limit for fishing in the interwar period. Norwegian vessels fished in this area up to and including 1939. Unlike in the West Ice, where most of the fishing takes place on the ice edge, the animals in the White Sea were concentrated far inside the ice, and one was dependent on good ice conditions and/or high engine power to get in to catch them.

Although the ice was year-round ice, sometimes with a little admixture of ferry ice, but thus not of the “rock pile” type, it was the ice drift that was the dominant danger in this field. There is no other field that has claimed as many ships as the White Sea. It is said that some ships that went fishing in the 1920s and 1930s were in very poor condition. This may be a good thing to take into account when explaining the many shipwrecks of those years. It has been said in popular parlance that the seabed in the White Sea is littered with Norwegian ice-going ships.

Ice drift, large differences in tides and springs and thus a lot of currents, and life-threatening conditions are the key words when it comes to the White Sea. Add in conflict with the Russians over capture at the border, arrests, shipwrecks, long treks across the ice to find salvage, and long stays on land before being transported home, and you cover much of what happened in the approximately twenty years that Norwegian vessels were allowed to fish in the White Sea.

The last year a Norwegian ship was captured in the White Sea was 1939.