Svalbard has more than two thousand glaciers. Those that carry names carry rather more: Norse gods, European courts, and the patrons who paid for polar expeditions.
The Names on the Ice
Reading Time: 7 min
Institution: Pomor Museum / Art Arctic Gallery
Contributor: Tatiana Betcher
Four families of names
01/07
Not all of those two thousand-odd glaciers have been named. But the names that do exist can be read as a syllabus: geography and astronomy, Scandinavian epic and mythology, the history of the royal courts of Europe, and the names of polar pioneers, of scientists, and of those who paid for expeditions that were extremely expensive to mount.
They fall into four broad families.
They fall into four broad families.
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The short version is here. The long version is a field trip.
The largest is Austfonna, on Nordaustlandet — the second largest ice cap in Europe, after the ice cap of Severny Island, and the seventh largest in the world.
Svalbard carries more than 2,100 glaciers, large and small, with a combined area of over 35,000 square kilometres.
Source: To be generated · BB Research
Names for crowned heads
04/07
— Kongsfjordbreen
— Princess Margaret Glacier
— Queen Mary Glacier
— Edward VII Glacier
A third family belongs to the courts of Europe.
Why the names matter
07/07
To preserve the glaciers of Svalbard is also to preserve its historical memory.
But a glacier is also a memory of millennia of the earth's history, and it is the melting itself that allows scientists to reach into very distant epochs. Svalbard offers unusual opportunities for the study of glaciers and permafrost — a way not only to learn about the past, but to model the planet's future.
Glaciers across the archipelago are melting fast, and their departure is changing the relief of the islands, their flora and fauna, the climate of the planet, and our idea of a kingdom of the Snow Queen.
Aldegondabreen
06/07
One glacier shows what is now happening to the register itself.
Aldegondabreen was named in 1891 after Aldegonda, infanta of Portugal and wife of Prince Henry of Bourbon-Parma. It is retreating quickly: its area has fallen by 23.1 per cent and its volume by 36.4 per cent. Each year it loses a layer of nearly two and a half metres. On current projections it may melt away entirely within thirty years.
Aldegondabreen was named in 1891 after Aldegonda, infanta of Portugal and wife of Prince Henry of Bourbon-Parma. It is retreating quickly: its area has fallen by 23.1 per cent and its volume by 36.4 per cent. Each year it loses a layer of nearly two and a half metres. On current projections it may melt away entirely within thirty years.
Names for scientists and explorers
05/07
— LOMONOSOVFONNA an ice plateau of some 800 square kilometres, for the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765)
— NEGRIBREEN for the Italian geographer Cristoforo Negri
—ESMARKBREEN for Jens Esmark, a pioneer of glacial theory and professor of mineralogy at the University of Christiania
— NORDENSKIÖLDBREEN for the Swedish scientist and student of Svalbard who first completed the Northeast Passage in 1878–79
— LIBREEN in the centre of the archipelago between Dickson Land and Bünsow Land, running into Adolfbukta off Billefjorden, for Benjamin Leigh Smith, the British traveller, yachtsman and polar explorer
The fourth family records the people who came to look, and those who mapped what they found.
Names drawn from the sagas
03/07
— MUNINBREEN for Munin, one of Odin's ravens
— FRIGGKÅPA for Frigg, Odin's wife and the foremost of the goddesses
— ÅSGARDFONNA for Asgard, the dwelling of the Æsir
— JOTUNFONNA from jotun, a giant
And not only glaciers. The mountain Garmakla, which stands beside Jotunfonna, takes its name from Garm, the guardian of Helheim, the cold world of the dead. Imersbukta is named for Ymir, the primordial giant from whose body the world was made. There are valleys and mountains of Odin and of Thor; the mountains Sif and Frigg; the passes Huginn and Muninn, Odin's two ravens; and the river Mimir, for the giant who guards the spring.
A second family reaches into Scandinavian mythology.
Source: To be generated · BB Research
Source: To be generated · BB Research
Names that simply describe
02/07
— EDGJØKULLBREEN the glacier at the island's edge.
— VESTFONNA the western ice cap
— AUSTFONNA the eastern ice cap; a fonn is an ice cap or ice field
— KONTINENTALSOKKELBREEN for the continental shelf
— STORBREEN the large glacier; breen is Norwegian for glacier
The plainest names do no more than say what a thing is, or where it lies.
True-colour satellite view · Svalbard Archipelago
Source: NASA Earth Observatory ·
Available for use
Source: NASA Earth Observatory ·
Available for use
