Danes Island (Danskøya) lies to the northwest of Spitsbergen.
Danes Island[1][2][3] (Norwegian: Danskøya) is an island in Norway's Svalbardarchipelago in the Arctic Ocean with an area of 40.6 km2 (15.7 sq mi).[4] It lies just off the northwest coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the archipelago, near to Magdalenefjorden.[5] Just to the north lies Amsterdam Island. Most of Svalbard's islands, including Danes Island, are uninhabited; only Spitsbergen, Bjørnøya and Hopen have settlements.[6]
In 1631 the Danish established a permanent station in Robbe Bay (Kobbefjorden), which was abandoned in 1658.[7] Another station was established by the Dutch in Houcker Bay (Virgohamna), on the north side of Danes Island in the 1630s. It was called the "Cookery of Harlingen." The remains of this station were seen by Friderich Martens in 1671.[8]
^Peter Joseph Capelotti. 1999. By Airship to the North Pole: An Archaeology of Human Exploration. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. xii ff.
^Dalgård, Sune (1962). Dansk-Norsk Hvalfangst 1615–1660: En Studie over Danmark-Norges Stilling i Europæisk Merkantil Expansion. G.E.C Gads Forlag.
^Conway, W. M. 1906. No Man's Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country. Cambridge: At the University Press.
