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Frigga Kruse At the end of the world: industrial archaeology on Spitsbergen in Svalbard

Zusammenfassung

Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, einem Publikum von Kolleg*innen in der gemäßigten Zone ein polares Beispiel für Bergbaugeschichte und indus-trielle Archäologie vorzustellen. Das Erkennen der Unterschiede ist ein-fach. Die Herausforderung besteht darin, arktische Besonderheiten so darzustellen, dass sie zur Erforschung von Gemeinsamkeiten einladen und die Forschung über physische und disziplinarische Grenzen hinweg motivieren. Anhand des britischen Bergbaus und der britischen Explo-ration in Spitzbergen (arktisches Norwegen) zwischen 1904 und 1953 als Fallstudie unterscheide ich zwischen Historischer Archäologie als Methode, Industrieller Archäologie als Disziplin und kulturellem Erbe als wertvollem Beitrag zur Gesellschaft. Ausgewählte archäologische Stätten unterstreichen den wichtigen Unterschied zwischen Bergbau-unternehmen und Explorationsunternehmen. Die Pionierbemühungen der letzteren, die oft als Misserfolg herabgesetzt wurden, schufen un-terschiedliche archäologische Landschaften der Erforschung und der Wissenschaft. Jede Stätte, ob fragil oder monumental, ist ein Punkt auf der Karte, mit der beim Verbinden aller Punkte wesentliche Teile des Niemandslandes der Arktis beansprucht werden konnten. Die Standor-te und Karten waren wirksame Werkzeuge für Macht und Kontrolle. Die archäologischen Landschaften in Spitzbergen haben nicht nur ein gro-ßes Forschungspotential; für Studierende der Historischen Archäologie oder ähnliches bietet die arktische Peripherie auch Lehren, die aus der europäischen Kernregion nicht mehr gezogen werden können.

Abstract

The purpose behind this paper is to introduce a polar example of mining history and industrial archaeology to an audience of peers in the tem-perate regions. Spotting the differences is easy. The challenge lies in por-traying Arctic peculiarities in such a way that invites the exploration of commonalities and motivates research across physical and disciplinary boundaries. Using British mining and exploration in Spitsbergen (Sval-bard, Arctic Norway) between 1904 and 1953 as a case study, I differ-entiate between historical archaeology as a method, industrial archae-ology as a discipline, and cultural heritage as a valuable contribution to society. Selected archaeological sites emphasise the important differ-ence between mining companies and exploration companies. The pi-oneering efforts of the latter, often belittled as failures, created distinct

ArchäologieHistorischeSonderband 2020

Zitation:/cite as:F. Kruse, At the end of the world: in-dustrial archaeology on Spitsbergen in Svalbard. In: F. Jürgens/ U. Müller (Hrsg.), Archäologie der Moderne. Standpunkte und Perspektiven. Sonderband Histor-ische Archäologie 2020 (Onlineversion), 147–158 ‹doi 10.18440/ha.2020.111›

148 Historische Archäologie 2020 | Archäologie der Moderne

archaeological landscapes of exploration and of science. Each site, whether fragile or monumental, was a dot on the map that, when joined, claimed substantial parts of the Arctic no-man’s-land. The sites and maps were potent tools of power and control. The archaeological landscapes in Svalbard do not only have great research potential. For students of his-torical archaeology or similar disciplines, the Arctic periphery also holds lessons that can no longer be learned from the European core region.

Introducing Spitsbergen with an s

The Fourth International Polar Year 2007–2008 was an exciting time dur-ing which many far-reaching research projects were launched. One of them was the international and interdisciplinary LASHIPA (Large-scale Historical Exploitation of Polar Areas) Project hosted by the Arctic Cen-tre of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Primarily rooted in the distinct yet complementary fields of polar history and industrial archaeology, LASHIPA investigated the history of three exploitative in-dustries (whaling, hunting, and mining) at both poles over the last four centuries. LASHIPA essentially told the stories and illuminated the lega- cies of commercially-driven natural resource extraction in the Arctic and the Antarctic with the aim of providing illustrative examples of how people have utilised and are utilising raw materials around the world.

One of the LASHIPA sub-projects focused on British mining, explo-ration, and geopolitics on Spitsbergen in Svalbard between the years 1904 and 1953. This sub-project culminated in the doctoral thesis “Fro-zen Assets” (Kruse 2013). This thesis forms the basis of this paper, and unless otherwise stated, detailed information and references can be found there.

It may seem obvious to some, but it is important to stress to a non-po-lar readership that the poles really are very different places to the tem-perate regions. It may not occur to a researcher working in Germany to define the country’s location and climate; for a scientist in Spitsbergen, Arctic peculiarities almost always form an integral part of the introduc-tion. As such, Spitsbergen (with an s) is actually only the main island of the Norwegian archipelago nowadays known as Svalbard. Throughout this paper, Spitsbergen will be used because the archaeological remains highlighted are indeed situated on this island. The capital Longyearbyen lies at 78°13 N 15°38 E. Whilst that is very much in the High Arctic and will be for a while yet, no matter how the various Arctic definitions are shift-ing in the light of advancing climate change, the town lies 838 km north of Norway’s North Cape and is still 1 316 km away from the geographic North Pole.

Invariably bound to this northern latitude, the two factors that have awed and overwhelmed people ever since Spitsbergen was first doc-umented by the Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz in 1596, are the cold and the dark (Fig. 1). Imagine any factor and every obstacle that have ever been associated with German mining – and now add average summer highs of typically 3 to 7 °C and, more pointedly, average winter highs of

−11 to −13 °C. A record low of –46.3 °C has been recorded. In Longyear-byen, the midnight sun may be conducive to working around the clock for 127 days (from 19 April to 23 August). On the other hand, it is not just an urban myth that people have frozen to death trying to find the out-house in a snow storm during the polar night that lasts for 121 days from 27 October till 14 February. Snow, sea ice, and polar bears add signifi-cantly to the drama.

149Frigga Kruse | At the end of the world: industrial archaeology on Spitsbergen in Svalbard

Drama there has been very much from the fi rst time that Spitsbergen has knowingly come into human view. Although there is no archaeolog-ical evidence that Barentsz has gone on shore, he produced a very ac-curate map of its west coast that cannot be discredited. Several men as well as the navigator himself died on the Dutch expedition to discover a north-east passage in 1596/7. They actually passed away on Nowaja Semlja on the east coast of the Barents Sea, but bears and scurvy may well have got the better of them already in Spitsbergen. It took many more expeditions to build up the necessary experience with which to effect safe Arctic voyages and successful overwinterings.

Although the survivors of the Barentsz expedition reported a barren and hostile land, there were enticing reasons why people should want to return as soon as possible. Svalbard was an uninhabited archipelago: no archaeological remains have as of yet been found to prove beyond doubt any human contact pre-dating Barentsz. Like any unknown place, it had a great potential for natural resources waiting to be exploited by

Fig. 1. Ice chart of Svalbard. This ice chart does not focus on terrestrial de-tails; it shows the sea ice conditions in the Arctic island group, which control maritime accessibility (Graphic: Norwegian Meteorological Institute Ice Service, cryo.met.no).

26th April 2019Valid 15:00 UTC

Forecasting Division for Northern Norway, N- 9293 Tromsø, NorwayTel: +47 90 47 20 48 E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @istjenesten

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those who dared. The fact that the archipelago was one of the world’s last remaining no man’s lands until the signing of the Spitsbergen Treaty in 1920 meant that the exploitation of natural resources and the extrac-tion of minerals was not hindered by any laws and regulations. Spitsber-gen was free for all – and many an article has been written about the ensuing Tragedy of the Commons!

The project background and research context

For research in mining history and industrial archaeology, Spitsbergen and Svalbard represent a remarkable case study. The location is very well delineated in space and time. We benefit from clear and simple processes; processes that have become very complex and complicat-ed in other industrial regions on the globe and in many cases have also been masked by later restructuring of the industries themselves or by re-development of the sites. In the British sub-project, these processes have been structured using the Actor-Network Theory (ANT). ANT has its limits, but it has certainly been useful to visualise who was who and who did what at the time in question.

The general research questions concerned the mineral resource ex-traction in Spitsbergen, especially that of coal. We wanted to know how the extraction actually took place “at the end of the world” and why. We wanted to investigate the different consequences of this development. Very specifically, the sub-project looked at British mineral exploration (prospecting) as well as mining between 1904 and 1953. Spanning two world wars and the onset of the Cold War, this could not be tackled without also looking into the political situation and especially the geo-political aspects of the British involvement in the Arctic

As with an introduction to the otherness of the Arctic, the concept of “Britishness” is deserving of a few words here to provide at least the notion that there is a distinct cultural context in which the research is founded. Few will disagree that a leading coal industry and a global em-pire have featured prominently in the national identity and pride of the British. In addition, the so-called Heroic Age of Polar Exploration has had its fair share of English and Scottish protagonists, some more fortu-nate and successful in surviving than others:

“[…] the success and failure of different British expeditions of the period reflects the degree to which they were, and were not, imaginatively cap-tured by a vision of the Arctic as bleak, blank, hostile. Those explorers least able to perceive the Arctic as it was – indifferent rather than har-sh, full rather than empty, a problematic dwelling space rather than a moral playground – were also least likely to survive there” (Spufford 1996, 58).

And it was not just what actually happened that made these men heroes; a vital driving force of the historical process was the public perception and imagination of what might have taken place at the poles.This imag-ination and not least a touch of romance went a long way in attracting British investors to Arctic business ventures.

Sources, methods, madness

For the 420+ years since Barentsz’ documentation, there exists a wide range of written as well as material sources. This is also true for the time


Fuel costs are the limiting factor that may weigh on the decision to walk some of the distances instead. In which case, you must carry all your Arctic camping gear and clothing, your food, occasionally your drink-ing water, your downscaled fi eld gear, but always your gun! After a long day working and hiking, the tent must be set up for the night that does not get dark because of the midnight sun. A two-man tent is enough for three people, because one of you will always be on bear watch. Bear watch comprises a number of hours of solitary sentry duty, so you can take the necessary actions if a polar bear does take a fancy to your camp. You would think bear watch in endless daylight is an easy task, but add

range of the British sub-project. Of course, the sources are not complete, but it is our task as historical archaeologists to interpret and make sense of them. Historical archaeology is the method with which we approach contemporaneous documents and cultural heritage in archival research and on Arctic fi eldwork, respectively. The contribution from oral history has been interesting but limited. A Scottish foreman had in fact been interviewed about his experience in Spitsbergen and recorded on tape. One Scottish woman knew about her father’s trips up north and had some thrilling photographs in her possession, but as a child, she always thought that he had just gone on a slightly eccentric holiday there. None-theless, we have treated these oral histories like gemstones in our work. And while we see historical archaeology as the method we employ, we understand industrial archaeology as the scholarly theme and industrial cultural heritage as the social relevance to which we contribute.

Archaeological fi eldwork always seems to comprise a good pinch of madness, and Arctic fi eldwork is no exception. We should have known this when the vacancy for the PhD positions read “must be physically fi t and able to handle a gun”! Longyearbyen can in fact be reached very civilly by airplane, but all civilisation ends the moment you leave town. If you are lucky, you can charter a small yacht which will transfer you to the fi eld sites: these yachts usually carry a small dinghy with which to reach the shore, but hauling the dinghy from the boat into the water, up onto the shore, and then on the return out of the water onto the yacht can take the proportions of an Olympic discipline (Fig. 2). Still, you are relatively mobile, and you can sleep soundly in the safety and comfort on board.

Fig. 2. Accessibility is greatest dur-ing the summer months, which is also the best time for archaeological fi eld-work. Boats are the best but by no means easiest way to get around. In this photograph, my colleagues and I had just landed on Storholmen in Kongsfj orden (Photo: D. Avango, LASHIPA Project, 2008).


thick fog to that equation and you will feel positively eerie. From expe-rience we know that sleep deprivation and early blizzards in August do not make fieldwork any easier.

Most archaeologists will have heard the question, “Is there anything left to discover?”, and in Svalbard, too, we meet those who believe that we already have found everything and that we also know everything. This is not true, and during the fieldwork for the LASHIPA project, we discovered quite a number of sites that had not been registered in the Norwegian database for cultural heritage. Some of the sites are very small and would-be ephemeral, were it not for the fact that the cold and dry Arctic climate promotes their survival even as surface finds. This is coupled with the fact that there is no agriculture or other destructive form of land use away from a handful of settlements. Sites are usually not stratified, and after abandonment, most were left as they were. Arctic warming and increasing tourism are the greatest threats the remains are now facing (Barr 2019).

Hence, we were delighted to find extremely fragile sites such as the location of a former British army bell tent still marked by a circular ar-rangement of discarded wooden tent pegs. We regularly refer to such features as tent rings. It is interesting to note, therefore, that the leading thesauri for cultural heritage in Britain have no suggestions for tents or tent rings: such transitory things simply have not survived in the dynam-ic temperate region. They are arguably comparable to hunter-gatherer camps. This particular tent ring dates to 1919; we have a very detailed ac-count of the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate referring to torrential rains at the time of camping.

A few Arctic sites reach the monumental dimensions that touch on the large-scale industrial heritage in Germany. Grumantbyen, for instance, is a former Soviet coal mining town, in which the imposing buildings and mining structures find expression in Soviet proportions, and which have been crumbling since the coal mines here were abandoned in the ear-ly 1960s. Many of the structures are not automatically covered by the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act, which protects any material re-mains dating to before 1946. Some of them, however, enjoy a level of protection that may prevent the Russian owners from starting to mine again without further ado. We feel that Grumantbyen, although of very recent age, warrants greater protection and appreciation as a material manifestation of the Cold War era in the Arctic. Where, however, should the necessary funds come from to conserve and promote?

Adventures cannot only be had on Arctic fieldwork. The international archives, too, hold boundless fascination, and many a historian will say that looking for the right documents is like searching for gold, includ-ing the euphoria when finding said gemstones. For the British sub-pro-ject, the British National Archives in Kew were of key importance. While getting into them involved the security checks worthy of Fort Knox, the materials and services at our disposal were phenomenal. Rather than needing to photocopy a limited number of pages, we were able to pho-tograph whole folders at a time and delve into them back in our offices. The same security measures did not apply to the Norwegian National Archives in Oslo, where we were the only customers for most of the time: the Norwegians do not seem to dabble in genealogy as much as the Brit-ish and Commonwealth citizens. The archivist simply waved when he left for lunch and left us alone. The librarian at the Norwegian Polar In-stitute in Tromsø even gave us the key to the collections! All in all, both the field campaigns and the archival trips have been very fruitful and most enjoyable.


Archaeological highlights

Drawing on both fieldwork and archival research, “Frozen Assets” (Kruse 2013) presented the actor-networks of four very different English and Scottish mining and exploration companies that took part in the devel-opment of Spitsbergen at the beginning of the twentieth century. While documentary sources primarily populated the companies’ global net-works with details about economic actors, political actors, other allies, and competitors, material evidence provided crucial information about the local networks, about employees and local allies, but in particular about actants like climate, landscape, resources, symbols of occupation, the manifestations of the companies as well as the products. Neither historical nor archaeological information dominated the analyses and interpretations: both were very well-balanced; both were absolutely necessary for a complete image of historical British mining in Svalbard. In fact, the “very impressive integration of archaeological and archival sources provides a useful model for all historians conducting this sort of study in the Arctic or elsewhere” (Howkins 2014, 557).

Not all four companies are treated in this paper. Instead, we pick out the Northern Exploration Company, Ltd of London (1910–1932) and the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate of Edinburgh (1909–1953). On our LASHI-PA expeditions in 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010, we were able to visit and record 40+ different archaeological sites in Spitsbergen, most of them associated with one of these two firms. In the following paragraphs, we describe a few archaeological highlights to illustrate the richness and potential of this Arctic resource.

As suggested by its name, the Northern Exploration Co. was an explo-ration company. We do not tire to point out the essential difference be-tween exploration companies, whose prime aim lay in claiming prom-ising land and selling the claim to others, and said others, who were by and large mining companies involved in the business of actual mining. The Northern Exploration Co. has been criticised for failing to establish any mines – but that, of course, was never its goal. Instead, what we ob-serve on Spitsbergen is an archaeological landscape of mineral explora-tion. Its manifestations are slight and again raise the age-old question of

“What is a site?”, but the manifestations are nevertheless there for those who keep an open mind.

Based on historical accounts, for instance, we went searching for ex-ploratory signs in the carbonate rocks, arguably low-grade marble, in Tinayrebukta. We discovered a small rock face that on second glance looked to have been cleared and investigated, leaving no other signs of such a momentary action than some rubble at its base that had a differ-ent size, angularity, and colour to the other debris around (Fig. 3). When we found one of the three boreholes we had come for, it was just that: a solitary hole, maybe 7 cm in diameter and blocked after half a metre. No borehole records exist. Yet, this borehole features prominently in our lectures about pioneering processes at the end of the world: just start thinking about what had to happen before, during, and after the drilling to create the site that we are met with today and you will easily fill several pages.

In Kongsfjord, the Northern Exploration Co. claimed some actual marble, and we find the remains of some trial quarrying. It is unlikely that the company began to quarry by their own efforts, but we have not been able to pinpoint any third party, any mining company that would have benefitted from the trial. Judging by the rusty remains of large channelers, a type of marble-cutting saw, the company’s network had expanded into the United States of America prior to the First World


War. The channelers had been provided by at least two different Ameri-can companies, and representatives of these companies had visited the site to get some fi rst-hand experience of what is possible in the Arc-tic. These channelers had of course been put to work in the summer months when the water for raising steam had not been frozen; although the resultant surface works were not very deep, the technology never-theless impresses, and the grooves and blocks that had been cut are still clearly visible. This is one of the locations where the company seems to have grossly overspent, but we argue that the relatively large number of prefabricated huts, sophisticated technology, and modern conveni-ences had been necessary to put an Arctic development into a favoura-ble light, thus attracting buyers.

In Bellsund, the Northern Exploration Co. had taken over an earlier British claim and had prospected for gold. The collapsed mine shaft with the two sets of rails sticking out of it is a popular tourist destination, especially since the story told to visitors is one of pyrite, “fool’s gold”, and tragic failure. We persistently work against such ridicule and over-simplifi cations. Failing in a location like Svalbard is a very complex mat-ter indeed that warrants thorough investigation and explanation, and great respect. The company was, however, guilty of pre-dating its metal claim signs to 1905 when it had only been founded in 1910. Its justifi ca-tion would have been that the English prospector Ernest Mansfi eld fi rst claimed this area in 1905, after which he entered into the services of the Northern Exploration Co. Based on the claim sign, however, compet-itors could and did accuse the company of lying about its possessions. Claim disputes were rife in the Arctic no man’s land.

After the First World War, the political situation was markedly changed, and the Northern Exploration Co. intensifi ed its activities in Svalbard. At their rhetorical centre stood the occurrence of coal and iron ore, the two resources most needed in the rebuilding of Great Britain. Yet the government representative who was on board the fi rst post-war expedi-tion did not fi nd the company’s claims worthy of offi cial protection. Two additional examples of exploratory work that we would like to mention here are a handful of trial holes into some copper ore and a couple of quarries into asbestos. The hard-rock mining into the copper ore was in fact done by Cornish miners. The Cornish claim that they mined any-where in the world and there now is a Spitsbergen example to support

Fig. 3. This rock face constitutes an archaeological site in Tinayrebukta, Krossfj orden. A century ago, some-one investigated this rock for its eco-nomic potential (Photo: D. Avango, LASHIPA Project, 2008).


this statement. Without going into detail, the asbestos quarries provide distinct archaeological evidence of a claim dispute between the North-ern Exploration Co. and a Norwegian firm – and proves that the Norwe-gians were within their right, although they later had to pay compensa-tion to the English.

Whilst it appears natural that in this paper, we should first describe the mineral resources and their exploration, in the field, it is in fact more logical that we should focus on houses, huts, and other sites for shelter before setting out to investigate the surroundings from there. The tour-ism industry does this all the time and often only this. The guides ferry their guests to the best possible landing site, at which at one time, ma-terials would have been unloaded and if suitable, huts would have been erected. In many cases, the huts, or at least their ruins, remain, and they usually form the centre of more or less tragicomic anecdotes. The land-ing sites and the visibility of the remains dictates this, but where we can, we advocate that visitors should look past any houses and huts at what was actually commercially important: the exploration of minerals and their extraction.

On the topic of shelter, however, it is very interesting to note that the Northern Exploration Co. not only made use of sturdy pre-fabricated huts and standard British army bell tents; they acquired a large number of former Norwegian hunting huts on their claims as well. We do not think that the English actually overnighted in these minuscule sheds, but huts of any kind could be used as so-called claim huts that strengthened your claim on an area. The company continued to allow hunters access to these claim huts.

The Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate was also primarily an exploration company with many of the same material expressions that the London-ers used to defend their claims (trial works, claim signs, claim huts, etc.). However, the syndicate was originally promoted by the prominent Scot-tish scientist William Speirs Bruce, and it never lost its association with the gentlemanly pursuit of science. As such, the material remains of the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate additionally give rise to an archaeologi-cal landscape of geological and geographical science.

The aforementioned tent ring on Prins Karls Forland is one of those necessary shelters in the Arctic that we need to look past if we want to see why the Scots were busy on that small island. With nothing more than conspicuous landmarks to go by, we came to a small trial pit that had been dug into some iron ore. Tools such as a sledge hammer, a pick axe, and a long crow bar had been left at this pit. This was a common strategy if the prospectors wanted to give the impression that work had been done here and that they would be coming back. It practically con-stituted a claim sign.

At Brucebyen, the syndicate left a large boring rig. In Gipsdalen, the remains of a very early Fordson tractor instantly attract any visitor. On the one hand, this equipment may simply have been too heavy to bring back on board. On the other hand, the Scots did not know at the time that global depression and another world war would keep them from their claims until the late 1940s. They were only able to last this long be-cause they had no debts to speak of. When they did return, however, they found that their claims had lapsed. They needed to register – and pay for – new claims if they wanted to keep prospecting in Svalbard. Yet, the buoyant markets that followed the Second World War did not last either, and the Scottish Syndicate dissolved as the other British compa-nies had done before it.


Fig. 4. The archaeological remains of four former British companies in Svalbard (in this case without Bear Island) constitute the physical proof on which the fi rms founded their widespread mineral claims. The black areas indicate the largest extent of the combined British claims in 1920- (Basemap: Norwegian Polar Institute; claim areas: F. Kruse).

Fig. 5. Location of Svalbard in relationto the British Empire. This map from 1918 indicates the ambition of the Northern Exploration Company Ltd to consolidate their claims in Svalbard and integrate the island group into the British Empire, undoubtedly fur-thering their economic goals (North-ern Exploration Company 1918, map).


So what?

To this point, we have merely demonstrated how minerals were explored and how claims were made and defended on Spitsbergen, but we are far from providing the promised illustrative examples of how people have utilised and are utilising raw materials around the world. So we return to the 40+ archaeological sites that we visited in the course of the LASHIPA project and begin to join the dots. Because every hut, tent ring, trial pit, sledge hammer, and claim sign must be viewed as an intentional mani-festation of British work and purpose on Spitsbergen and in Svalbard as a whole.

And when we join all these dots, when we map all these sites and fill the spaces between, we arrive at a very potent claim map over large areas of the archipelago (Fig. 4). This is no coincidence. This was a process driv-en by the exploration companies themselves, using mainly geopolitical tools in an attempt to get the government and the public on their side and rally against international competitors, too. The Northern Exploration Co. in particular was so forceful that the British Government at one point ex-pected outright violence and another provocation of war. The company’s ultimate goal of integrating the island group into the British Empire is sug-gested in Figure 5. In the case of British annexation, all British possession would be protected and subject to British laws and regulations.

Throughout the period in question, 1904–1953, British Government, however, had no such ambitions. Following the Paris Peace Treaty, the Spitsbergen Treaty was signed in 1920 in favour of Norwegian sovereign-ty. It was ratified on August 24, 1925. The claim disputes were not settled until 1927, by which time it was too late for the British companies, who had by and large gone bankrupt.

Hence, we have taken the opportunity in this paper to present a quick insight into some aspects of Arctic mining history and industrial archae-ology, which are so very different to the situation in Germany and West-ern Europe. The knowledge of mining history in this part of the world is very incomplete because the research has been done quite unsystemat-ically on a site-to-site basis. It would benefit from much more compara-tive work. Similarly, the archaeological landscape of mineral exploration is very little known; in fact, the LASHIPA project was the first time it was picked up in Svalbard. The limiting factors are time and money to organ-ise scientific expeditions. Citizen science is not an option here because much experience is needed to recognise these ephemeral sites for what they are and constitute.

Historical archaeology is the tool that promises to complete this pic-ture. Industrial archaeology is the thematic context in which this re-search is anchored. On top of more comparative research between the different actors in Svalbard, we are curious to find out if our approach, our experiences, and our findings also apply to other regions, other times, and other industries.

References

Barr 2019: S. Barr, Cultural heritage, or how bad news can also be good. In: N. Sellheim/Y. V. Zaika/I. Kelman (eds.), Arctic Triumph. Northern Innovation and Persistence (Cham 2019) 43–57.

Howkins 2014: A. Howkins, Review of Kruse 2013. Arctic 67, 4, 2014, 556–557.Kruse 2013: F. Kruse, Frozen assets. British mining, exploration, and geopolitics on

Spitsbergen, 1904–53. Circumpolar Studies 9 (Groningen 2013).


Northern Exploration Company 1918: Northern Exploration Company, Coal and iron in Spitsbergen (London 1918).

Spufford 1996: F. Spufford, I may be some time. Ice and the English Imaginati-on (London 1996).

Frigga KruseInstitute for Ecosystem Research

Christian-Albrechts-UniversitätOlshausenstr. 75

D-24118 [email protected]

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