Trekking on an otherworldly volcanic island north of Iceland and east of Greenland
By Andy Yemma
I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Neil and Buzz round the corner ahead of me in their jaunty lunar suits. That’s how much the landscape on the tiny volcanic island of Jan Mayen resembled the surface of the moon.
Oh, there was the occasional patch of native green flora managing to survive in the gritty volcanic sand, even flowering in the Artic summer. In winter, these plants will be smothered under meters of snow.
[Photos by Andy Yemma]
We are on an Abercrombie & Kent Arctic Cruise Adventure: “In Search of the Polar Bear.” There are no polar bears here. This island is too remote, has no prey, and there is no sea ice for those CUDDLY AND CARNIVOUROIS creatures to hop-scotch across to get here.
We’ve spent most of a week cruising and zodiac-ing around the islands of the Svalbard Archipelago, north of Norway. For the past two days we have been at sea on the way to Greenland and then Iceland. The brief stop in Jan Mayer was a great opportunity to stretch our sea legs. In all I hiked about 5 miles, as did the majority of the 120 expedition members.
Approaching Jan Mayen this morning, the 7500-foot-tall, cone-shaped Beerenberg volcano peeked through the fog. What a sight! While it’s peak was obscured by clouds, its sides were lined with glaciers. Someone shouted that they had spotted whales in the distance. Alas, it may have been a false alarm.
Named after the Dutchman Jan Jacobs May of Schellinkhout, who visited here in 1614, the island is about 350 miles north of Iceland and 279 miles east of Greenland. It is shaped a bit like a spoon. It is Norwegian territory and a garrison of 17 Norwegian soldiers maintains a small weather research and observation station here. We were greeted by the commander when we came ashore in our zodiacs.
We hiked up a winding road that the commander said has to be rebuilt pretty much from scratch every spring due to the erosion caused by the harsh Arctic winter. Giant boulders – or as we say in Colorado “large boulders the size of small boulders” – loomed uphill. No place to loiter in my opinion.
The line of expeditioners in their bright red A&K supplied parkas wound up the trail for probably a quarter mile, resembling the long march of Mao Tse Tung. Many of us are seniors – I’ll hit the three-quarters mark next week – but we were undaunted by the chance to experience this landscape, chatting and joking and taking each other’s photos all the way.
Days like this remind me of how much there is to see in the world, how little time there is to see it, and how you never know what you’ll find, including in this case the remains of several sea birds who had met their end on this strange but beautiful island. Back on our ship, the Ponant Le Lyrial, martini in hand, I say: “Here’s to you Jan Jacobs May of Schellinkhout, that’s my name too!”