Kvitøya

Infobox Islands
name = Kvitøya

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image caption = Map of Svalbard, showing Kvitøya in the north-east
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location = Arctic Ocean
coordinates = coord|80|09|05|N|32|35|37|E|type:isle_region:NO|display=inline,title
archipelago = Svalbard
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area = 682 km²
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country = Norway
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Kvitøya (English: "White Island") is an island in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, with an area of 682 km². It is located at coord|80|09|05|N|32|35|37|E|display=inline, making it the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Norway. The closest Russian Arctic possession, Victoria Island, lies only less than convert|62|km|nmi|0|abbr=on|lk=on to the east of Kvitøya.

The island is almost completely covered by an ice cap (Kvitøyjøkulen, with an area of 705 km²) with the classical, hourglass-shaped dome, which has given it its name. The few ice-free land areas are each only a few km² large and very barren and rocky, the largest being Andréeneset (see below) on the southwest corner of the island. Kvitøya is a part of the North East Svalbard Nature Reserve.

Kvitøya was probably discovered by the Dutchman Cornelis Giles in 1707, and it was seen under the name 'Giles Land' on maps in different shapes, sizes and positions throughout the centuries. The present name was given by whaler Johan Kjeldsen of Tromsø in 1876.

The island was the resting place of the Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 organised by S. A. Andrée. The expedition had attempted to overfly the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, but crashed on the pack ice about 300 km north of Kvitøya on July 14, less than three days after their launch. They reached the island on foot by October 6 and settled on the only ice free part on the island, on what is now called Andréeneset. The fate of the expedition was for many years one of the great mysteries of the Arctic, until the remains of the expedition were discovered by the Bratvaag Expedition in 1930, over thirty years later, and journals and film were recovered at the site. It turned out that the three members of the expedition died within a few weeks after they reached the island. The three dead polar pioneers were brought back to Sweden in 1930 with great honour. A monument commemorating the three people that died, S. A. Andrée, N. Strindberg and K. Frænkel is erected on the island. Another monument, put there by the "Stockholm-expedition" in 1997 to commemorate the 100 years anniversary of the tragic event, was later deliberately destroyed by the Svalbard authority as being illegally erected.

See also

* Svalbard
* List of islands in the Arctic Ocean
* List of islands of Norway

External links

* [http://www.gonorway.no/norway/sidevisning.php?id=204 GoNorway - Kvitøya]
* [http://www.zwoje-scrolls.com/zwoje41/text08p.htm Article in Polish by Andrzej M. Kobos with many haunting pictures of the balloon expedition and the island of Kvitøya]