Bear Island

Bear Island, or Bjørnøya, is the southernmost island of the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago. It lies in the Norwegian and Barents seas, about halfway between Spitsbergen and Norway's North Cape, on a shallow bank that falls away into deep water farther west. The island covers roughly 178 square kilometres. A triangular mountain mass with Miseryfjellet rising to 536 metres occupies the south, while the northern two-thirds form a rocky lowland strewn with shallow lakes. Willem Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerck reached the island on 10 June 1596 and named it for a polar bear seen swimming nearby. Its remote coast later attracted walrus hunters, whalers, seabird-egg collectors and a short-lived coal settlement, though no settlement lasted long. in that era the only residents are personnel at a meteorological and radio station. Southern cliffs shelter large colonies of fulmars, kittiwakes, guillemots and other seabirds; seals live in the adjacent water, and polar bears arrive with winter pack ice.