Mushamna and Villa Oxford, on the Woodfjorden of Svalbard

Svalbard means roughly “cold coast”. This arctic archipelago is also known under the name of Spitsbergen.

Svalbard Islands, in the North Atlantic ocean, are an arctic archipelago under sovereignty of Norway since 1920. The islands are populated mainly in its capital town Longyearbyen, in an international scientific station, Ny Ålesund, and in a small Russian mining station; all those surrounded by sceneries of breathtaking fjords and glaciers. Besides, there are several wooden huts for traditional hunters' seasonal occupation scattered along the northern coast.

Mushamna, Worsleyhamna (Villa Oxford) and Gråhuken, on the northernmost shores of Svalbard.

Mushamna is a bay on the east shore of Woodfjorden, across from Liefdefjorden, in the farthest northern coast of Svalbard.

Here, the Liefdefjorden meets the Woodfjorden.

Mushamna seen from the fjord

This station has been for many years a seasonal shelter for traditional trappers, hunters who build traps to catch their preys. A cabin is situated on a headland about 1 km north of the lagoon. Another smaller cabin, at Gråhuken, was occupied by the Austrian writer Christiane Ritter in 1930; it's located on the same coast, 15 km to north, at almost 80º N. I have published on the subject in a previous post:
http://ultima0thule.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-woman-in-polar-night-by-christiane.html


Mushamna, northern Svalbard
Coordinates: 79° 35' N, 14° 00' E

The first trapping station in Mushamna was the work of  Hilmar Nøis in 1927; legendary trapper Reidar Hovelsrud built a new one with driftwood in 1987, and it's now the largest trapping hut in Northern Svalbard.

The cabin has an outer compartment for storing skins, a central compartment with workshop and an inner compartment with living room, kitchen and sleeping area.

Recently a small sauna has been added for comfort:

Around the cabin, piles of fire wood and a rack where food and furs can hung out of reach of the polar bears.

The trapping station with skins of ringed seals hung up to dry.

The tenancy begins late July and lasts for one year. The main prey is the Arctic fox, which is captured using trapdoors or hit traps. Seals, ptarmigan, pink-footed geese and a small number of reindeer are also captured.

An increasing number of visitors from arctic cruises stop by Mushamna for a visit to the site.

The skin rack at twilight

Auroras happen with some frequency, one of the most expected gifts of Nature.


Villa Oxford

Coordinates: 79°41' N, 13°37' W

Worsleyhamna – also known as Villa Oxford – is located on the northern shore in Liefdefjorden. It was built as a satellite station by Hilmar Nøis in 1924. Nøis furnished his cabin with pannels from a transport crate for a seaplane, at the end of the first expedition around Svalbard for mapping and aerial photography.

-----------------------------
Let's just hope the number of arctic foxes will always keep in balance...

Cape Dorset, part IIDorset Fine Arts

Cape Dorset, Inuits' Kinngait

The Kinngait Studios house the co-op's graphic arts program and produce a print collection each year.

Founded in 1959, the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative printmakers started turning sketches into lithographs or stone-cuts. Limited numbers of each work are now printed and sent each autumn across North America. But the best venue to view these beautiful works and meet with the famed artists themselves is the re-named Kinngait Co-op at Cape Dorset.

The Kenoujaq Cultural Center is a recent venue, a small museum/gallery for visitors.

"When you see this work hanging on a wall, it's not what you expect. It's new, provocative, edgy and often joyful."

      Bill Ritchie,
                  manager of Kinngait Studio.

Some selected artists:

Kenojuaq Ashevak ( ? - 2013) was the first and most acclaimed artist in the Dorset Print Co-op, a pioneer mainly dedicated to lithographies of arctic birds. Honorary doctor at Queen's and Toronto, she has works at all major Canadian museums.

Birds over the sun.

Loon with purple flowers.

Dancing Ravens.

Ashevak died in 2013 at age 87. She signed: ᑭᓇᐊᓯᐃ.


Abraham Etungat (1911-1999), a carver in soapstone and serpentine from Cape Dorset, has one of his works reproduced in large scale at Ontario:

Bird of Spring, soapstone, 1975.

A bronze replica (1981) at Calgary's Devonian Gardens, Alberta.


Kavavaow Mannomee (fr. Qavavau Manumie) (1958 -) also makes some magnificent bird prints - loons, owls...

Loons take flight, 1992.

Grey Owl, 1993.

Feathering the nest.


Ningeokuluk Teevee (Cape Dorset, 1963 - ) works on more elaborate compositions:

Owls in the Moonlight, 2007

Crosscurrent, 2005

 Arctic appetizer, 2009

Surfacing, 2005

Osuitok Ipeelee (1922-2005) was one of the Dorset Art school's founders; he is a fine carver of elegant caribous, in green soapstone and caribou antlers:

He is also a gifted stonecutter, look at these Owl, Fox and Hare :

Tim Pitsiulak (Cape Dorset, 1967 -) is one of this century's revelations; he draws beautifully stylized animals.

Bowhead in Amautik, 2012.

Three running Caribous.

-----------------------------------------------

If you want to know more about Cape Dorset, read the previous Part I.

Cape Dorset (Nunavut), an art capital on the Arctic Archipelago, part I

-------------------------------
As I was writing this post, it became too long to publish in full just once. 
So I divided it in two, this is just a first part, in a few days the second part will appear.
-------------------------------

Cape Dorset Inuit: Kinngait, high mountains) is situated on flat ground at Dorset Island, close to Foxe Peninsula at the southwestern tip of Baffin Island. Surrounded by arctic landscapes, Dorset Island supports many forms of arctic wildlife, including herds of caribou or, sometimes, a wandering polar bear or two, and in Summer arctic wildflowers dappling the tundra valleys with vivid colours.

The Inuit settlement of Cape Dorset became well known for its modern community's outstanding artists: graphic artists, weavers, carvers, that have made the small settlement an Inuit art capital.

Cape Dorset sits on the northwest shore of Dorset Island, surrounded on one side by rocky hills and on the other by the Hudson Strait.

Most houses are improved containers or wooden cabins, carefully insulated from permafrost.

Cape Dorset

Coordinates:  63° 22’ N, 90° 51’ W
Population:    ~1300

People keep traditional life patterns, namely hunting and fishing as main activities.

The Hotel (above) and Northern store (below) are two small luxuries in town.

Recently a wooden red gazebo was installed at a view point; it is an unusual landmark for such a northern community, but they love it.

It was installed for residents to better enjoy the community and for visitors to mingle with residents. The scenery, overlooking the sea inlet and more distant mountains, is beautiful from every direction, there is enough room there for children and adults to be walking around outside.

View to the harbour at sunset.

Life in the far North flows slowly, marked by light and darkness, water and ice, remoteness and tradition.

Mallik Island

Mallikjuaq, just a few miles Cape Dorset, is an island of rounded rock hills and low tundra valleys, notable for hosting an ancient Dorset archaeological site. A thousand years ago, the Thule people lived on Mallikjuaq in low stone houses framed with whalebone ribs, which were roofed with hides and sod. The eastern end of the island contains the remains of nine winter houses with stone foundations still in place. Archaeological evidence indicates that earlier people from the Dorset Culture also inhabited the island for centuries before the Thule.

Dorset Culture ('Tuniit' or 'Sivullirmiut'):  500 BC to 1500 AD
Thule Culture (Proto-Inuit):                   
1000 AD to 1600 AD
Inuit Culture (Eskimo):                         
1600 AD to present-day


Tips of recent History

From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, whalers and missionaries visited the area. In 1913, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) set up a trading post in Cape Dorset.

The settlement began to grow around it, Inuit people traded furs, tanned skins and ivory narwal tusks for supplies like kerosene, flour, tea and sugar. Between 1938 and 1953, Anglican and Roman Catholic missions were constructed in Cape Dorset. The first school and the first hospital ward were established in 1950.

By that time Cape Dorset started as a permanent settlement, and developped since then with health care, post office and co-op store, high school, airstrip and lounge...

The wreck of the Nascopie

One of the most historic and celebrated ships of the Hudson's Bay Company was the Royal Mail Ship Nascopie,  a 2500 ton steamer-icebreaker designed and built in England in 1911.

The RMS Nascopie started to make a yearly Arctic voyage, going farther and farther north, as far as Arctic Bay in 1926. At the time the Nascopie was the principal sea-lift resupply vessel used by the Hudsons Bay Company. The people in Cape Dorset used to celebrate the arrival of the Nascopie with fresh supplies, as they were happy go aboard and drink tea.

But in 1947, the Nascopie struck an uncharted reef and finished wrecked near Cape Dorset harbour.

Kananginak Pootoogook, "Aulajijakka" (Things I Remember): the wreck of the Nascopie.


-----------------------
-----------------------
NEXT: Part II - Dorset Fine Arts