Krossfjorden

Krossfjorden (English: Cross fjord) is a 30km long fjord on the west coast of Spitsbergen. To the north it branches into Lillehöökfjorden, Möllerfjorden and Kollerfjorden. To the south it is separated from Kongsfjorden by a line from Collinsodden on Mitrahalvøya east to Kapp Guissez.

History

The English explorer (and later whaler) Jonas Poole entered Krossfjorden in 1610, naming it "Close Cove". The Englishman John Daniel labeled the fjord "Closse Sound" on a map of the following year. A small bay in the southwestern entrance of Krossfjorden, named "Cross Road" by Poole (1610), and now known as Ebeltofthamna, was the location of the first whaling station in Spitsbergen in 1611. The remains of a later, semi-permanent station have been found there as well on a long, low arm of the beach between the fjord and a lagoon. On the other side of the lagoon's mouth exists a graveyard from this period. The name of this small harbor soon referred to the fjord as a whole, resulting in the modern name of Krossfjorden.

The name originates from the placing of a cross by Poole in 1610 on the side of a hill a mile west of Ebeltofthamna, on which he wrote the day and year of his arrival, as well as who sent him.

References

*Conway, W. M. 1906. No Man’s Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country. Cambridge: At the University Press.

* Norwegian Polar Institute [http://miljo.npolar.no/placenames/pages/searchE.asp Place Names of Svalbard Database]