Isfjord (Svalbard)

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For the village in Møre og Romsdal, Norway, see Isfjorden.

Isfjord lies on Spitsbergen's west coast.

Isfjord is the second longest fjord in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. It lies on the west side of Spitsbergen, an island in the Arctic Ocean about midway between Norway and the North Pole, and the largest in the archipelago. A portion of Isfjord is included in the national parks of Norway as Nordre Isfjorden Land National Park.

Around the fjord lie many of the largest settlements in Svalbard: Barentsburg, Longyearbyen and Pyramiden.

Isfjord

A Basque whaling ship from San Sebastian, piloted by the Englishman Nicholas Woodcock, was the first to establish a temporary whaling station here in 1612. In 1613 French, Basque, and Dutch whaling ships resorted to Safehaven (Trygghamna) on the north side of Isford or in Green Harbor on the south side of the fjord. All were either driven off by armed English ships or were forced to pay a fine of some sort. In 1614 the Dutch agreed to give Isfjord to the English. The English continued to use Isfjord as a whaling base until at least the late 1650s.