Nordaustlandet

Nordaustlandet is the second largest island of Svalbard, most of it buried under the ice caps of Austfonna and Vestfonna. Along its southern coast the Bråsvellbreen forms one of the longest glacier fronts in the world, a wall of ice around two hundred kilometres long from which meltwater waterfalls pour into the sea in summer. Walruses haul out on the beaches, polar bears roam the coast and the pack ice, and the island is part of a nature reserve with no residents. Only expedition ships sailing around Svalbard reach it, and many circumnavigation voyages pass here on their way around the archipelago, depending on the ice.