Guidebook: Spitsbergen-Svalbard

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Borebukta and Erdmannflya (northern side)

Borebreen, Nansenbreen and Tundraodden: glacier and tundra landscape in Isfjord

Borebukta and Erdmannflya are located on the north side of Isfjord.

Borebukta actually consists of two bays, separated by a mountain ridge and each with a glacier with a calving front. However, these two bays do not have individual names, they are simply called Borebukta together, after Boreas, the ancient Greek god of the cold northen wind. That suits the area well.

Like most glaciers in Svalbard (and worldwide), Nansenbreen in southern Borebukta is currently receding and therefore doesn’t stand out too much in comparison. Its neighbour to the north, Borebreen, is quite different. It has advanced considerably in recent years (2024, 2025).

View over Erdmannflya (foreground left side) and Borebukta
from the scheduled flight to Longyearbyen, late May.

The Ymerbukta-Erdmannflya page already has a lot of information about Erdmannflya, the vast tundra plain that borders Borebukta to the south. But the northern part of Erdmannflya, Tundraodden and surroundings, is also very exciting and fits well on this page due to its position next to Borebukta, so I include it here.

There is a separate page dedicated to Bohemanflya, the large tundra plain adjoining Borebukta to the east.

Borebukta and the surrounding area are located in the Northern Isfjord National Park.

Geology

Sediments from the Mesozoic era can be found almost all around Borebukta. These sediments are from the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic periods, i.e. deposits around 230 million years old. Specifically, these are sandstones and siltstones that were deposited in shelf sea of medium depth, which you can imagine to be similar to today’s North Sea. Also in terms of the climate that prevailed at that time, this will not be too far off.

Layers in Triassic bedrock at Borebreen.

But there were differences. Back then there were no ships and no oil and gas platforms, but shells, ammonites, fish and marine dinosaurs such as plesio-, plio- and ichthyosaurs. Remains of these animals can in principle be found in these layers, although you will certainly not come across dinosaur bones on a short walk along the beach, unfortunately. But it is not unrealistic to find imprints of ammonites and shells (it is forbidden to take them with you, as it is a National Park).

At Tundraodden you will find quite striking, coarse, quartz-rich sandstones. These are much younger, dating back to the Lower Cretaceous period. At 110-120 million years old, they are only about half as old as the Triassic to the north. This sandstone was also deposited in the sea, but in an area closer to the coast, where rivers and beaches could deliver sand.

Lower Cretaceous sandstone at Tundraodden.

Landscape

All the shorelines of the Borebukta are covered with extensive moraine landscapes, which clearly show the extent to which the glaciers have retreated since the 18th/19th century (‘Little Ice Age’). The trend towards retreat has increased significantly since the 1990s due to current climate change.

Wide moraine landscape at Tundraodden.

Borebreen advanced considerably in 2014 and 2015, by at least two kilometres. This does not mean that climate change has been cancelled: this is a behaviour known as a ‘glacial surge’. In this process, the glacier slowly builds up an excess of mass in the upper area (accumulation zone) over decades, as it does not flow fast enough to continuously discharge the accumulating ice masses. At some point, the increasing weight causes the entire glacier to slip and start moving. It can then increase its speed many times over over a shorter period of time, usually one to two years, and can reach over 10 metres per day! A surging glacier accordingly has a very wild and jagged surface and, when it reaches the shore, it has a very active calving front.

The calving glacier front of Borebreen (2024).

In 2023, we made a landing on a small island about 600-700 metres from the Borebreen glacier front. When we got there again in 2024, with the idea of visiting the islet again, it had disappeared under the glacier. The glacier had actually advanced a good distance beyond it into Borebukta!

Little island near Borebreen (2023). In 2024, the glacier had advanced beyond the island.

Borebreen is clearly the main scenic attraction in Borebukta. It is also framed by striking mountains.

Enjoying a cruise in ice-filled waters near Borebreen.

The extensive, generally flat tundra plains that extend on both sides are striking: Erdmannflya lies to the south of Borebukta with Tundraodden at its northern tip, while Bohemanflya stretches to the north. As mentioned, both are bordered by huge moraine landscapes along the shores of Borebukta. The otherwise rather flat, wide-open landscape of these plains is in itself a striking, interesting landscape element, where you can find many fascinating small features: Ice wedges and stone rings, uplifted beach ridges as evidence of post-glacial land uplift, small lakes, streams and wetlands, …

Wide-open tundra with small rivers, lakes and wetlands on Erdmannflya.

Flora and fauna

In principle, you can see all the wildlife that roam Spitsbergen’s fjords in Borebukta: Sometimes a few walruses lie somewhere on the beach, perhaps a polar bear roams somewhere over the moraine hills on the shore or over the fjord ice when the bay is still frozen over early in the summer. But these animals roam across vast landscapes, sometimes they are there, sometimes they are somewhere else. Seals often swim in the water and sometimes a bearded seal or a ringed seal lies on a piece of ice.

Bearded seal in Borebukta.

In the tundra of Erdmannflya and Bohemanflya, the animals typical of this landscape are of course around. In addition to numerous reindeer and the odd arctic fox, these include a wide variety of birds, including rather rare species such as king eiders and grey phalaropes, and of course the ‘usual suspects’ of the tundra such as various geese, purple sandpipers and others.

Reindeer on Erdmannflya.

On windless summer days, you can sometimes see (and feel) the odd swarm of mosquitoes in the tundra areas.

History

This section can remain short, not much has happened here. At some point in the not too distant past, probably in the 1970s, someone once put a small cutter on dry land on Tundraodden to have a kind of hut; Straumsjøen, a lake around three kilometres further southwest, was and is a popular body of water among locals for angling and net fishing for Arctic char.