The most isolated weather station in the Barents Sea — 178km from Svalbard, no tourism, and a seal colony the size of a small city
Bear Island (Norwegian: Bjørnøya) lies in the Barents Sea roughly midway between the Norwegian mainland and Svalbard, one of the most remote inhabited points in Europe. It supports no permanent civilian population — only a Norwegian Meteorological Institute weather station staffed by a rotating crew of four. The island is mostly flat tundra, with a dramatic southern cliff coastline rising to 100m. The surrounding waters are extraordinarily rich in marine life: the island sits at the boundary between Atlantic and Arctic water masses, making it one of the great seabird and seal breeding sites i…
Bear Island was discovered by the Dutch navigator Willem Barents on June 9, 1596 (the same voyage on which he later discovered Svalbard); the name derives from the polar bears encountered on the island. Dutch and British whalers used it as a seasonal base in the 17th century, and coal deposits discovered in the 19th century prompted several failed mining attempts — the last mine closed in 1925. Germany attempted to establish a weather station on Bear Island in 1941 that was repelled by Allied forces. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has maintained a continuous weather station since 1920…