The history of Ny-Ålesund began in 1610, when coal deposits were discovered around Kongsfjorden. Not until the 1860s were they investigated more carefully. Ålesund-based Peter Brandal bought the claims in 1916 and established the company Kings Bay. The town, originally known as Brandal City and Kings Bay, was founded that summer when coal mining commenced. The first research installation, a geophysical station at Kvadehuken, was established in 1920. The mining was soon unprofitable and was kept running through state subsidies. In the mid-1920s the town was used for a series of airship expeditions towards the North Pole.
Mining operations shut down in 1929 and Kings Bay was nationalized. The town was maintained during the 1930s, when saw the installation of a fisheries station and the establishment of a tourist hotel. The town was resettled with miners on 7 May 1940, just to experience an evacuation in August 1941. Miners returned on 13 August 1945 and the town was gradually expanded, including construction of a school, and new mines were opened. During the late 1950s Norsk Polar Navigasjon attempted to build an airport, but never received permission.
Ny-Ålesund experienced a series of mining accidents, with the ones in 1948, 1951 and 1952 each killing more than ten men. Safety measures were enforced, causing mines to be closed for upgrades and production remaining low. The final accident occurred on 5 November 1962, killing twenty-one miners. The succeeding Kings Bay Affair caused Kings Bay to terminate all mining operations from 5 November and forced Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet to resign.
Kings Bay retained the company town and gradually transformed it into a research community. Kongsfjord Telemetry Station and Ny-Ålesund Airport, Hamnerabben commenced operations in 1967, and the following year the Norwegian Polar Institute established itself in Ny-Ålesund. Starting in the 1970s the town experienced a gradual growth in research and tourism, with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research an early agent. Cultural heritage became an area of focus from the 1980s and from 1992 the authorities permitted foreign research institutions to establish permanent stations in town.
Establishment
The coal deposits at Kongsfjorden were first discovered by Jonas Poole during a whaling expedition in the area in 1610. They did not receive more careful analysis until 1861, when Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand on Otto Torell's expedition carried out surveys. Additional samples were collected by a Swedish expedition in 1870. A/S Bergen–Spitsbergen Kulgrubekompani was founded in 1901 and, led by Skipper Bernhard Pedersen, laid claims at both Kings Bay and Adventfjorden. The claims at Kings Bay were never properly followed up as the company instead chose to focus on its other find. Ernest Mansfield claimed to have made claims to coal fields on the south side of Kongsfjorden in 1905 and 1906, which were sold to The Northern Exploration Co. Ltd. in 1910. During a scientific expedition in 1909 and 1910, later professor Olaf Holterdahl conducted geological sampling. In the ensuing five years, Green Harbour Coal Co. sent expeditions from Green Harbour. This included the construction of a test shaft.Hanoa: 9 A hut was built in 1912 by the expedition on MK Onsø.Hanoa: 10
Green Harbour's owner, Christian Anker, died in 1912. The estate unsuccessfully attempted to sell the claim for four years. In the end it proposed that Ålesund Municipality buy the rights. At this point Ålesund shipper Peter Brandal was desperately looking for a source of coal, as he had been black-listed by the United Kingdom. The rights cost 250,000 Norwegian krone (NOK). Brandal dispatched two ships and sixty men to Kings Bay for the summer of 1916. They arrived on 21 July and immediately started breaking surface coal and in the shaft. In the latter alone the first expedition succeeded at collecting 300 tonnes. Brandal formally transferred the ownership of the claims to the newly established company Kings Bay Kull Comp. A/S on 14 December 1916. In addition to Brandal, it was owned by M. Knutsen, Trygve Klausen and Tryge Jervell and the company received a share capital of NOK 500,000. The company set up its offices in Kristiania (Oslo),Hanoa: 12 although they moved to Ålesund within a year.Hanoa: 16
Jens K. Bay was hired as the first managing director.Hanoa: 14 Thirty people were sent by SS Carl to Kings Bay for the 1917 season. Planning of the mining community started, first with the site of the town. SS Deneb arrived with 100 men and supplies such as railway tracks and two locomotives on 26 August. By winter thirteen buildings had been erected and of railway laid. The company was not permitted to erect a radio telegraphy station.Hanoa: 15 This caused communications to have to be sent by skiers by land to Longyearbyen, which resulted in an amputation in February 1918. The company therefore pressed for permission to establish a telegraphy station. A post office opened in 1918.Hanoa: 147
Sixty-four people stayed the winter of 1917–18, with mining being carried out in the Agnes Mine. They were supplemented from May 1918, bringing the summer population to 300. Jervell sold his shares to the other owners on 2 April. The 1918 season saw twenty shipments and the arrival of a third locomotive. Nine additional buildings were constructed,Hanoa: 18 and the Advokaten Mine was opened.Hanoa: 23 The winter of 1918–19 saw 143 people stay the winter, rising to 250 the following summer. During the first years several names were in use for the settlement, including Kings Bay, Kingsbay and Brandal City. Ny-Ålesund came into use in the early 1920s and was soon the official name of the settlement.Hanoa: 19
First mining period
The mining was hit by two strikes in 1919, the first lasting from the summer to October, and the second from November to January 1920. Shipping took place from May through October, with 35,000 tonnes being shipped out in 1920.Hanoa: 21 The company hired Trygve Klausen as managing director and built a quay and a shed in Harstad. By 1919 the company had fallen into severe financial difficulties. A British consortium offered to buy the mine. The issue was brought to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, who presented the issue for Parliament.Hanoa: 22 The importance of keeping a Norwegian mining operation was articulated both in lieu of keeping a Norwegian presence on archipelago, which would soon fall under Norwegian sovereignty, but also in the need for keeping Norwegian jobs. A deal was struck whereby the ministry bought 30,000 tonnes of coal for NOK 6 million, while the owners were obliged to not sell the company without state permission.
By 1921 the number of women living in Ny-Ålesund grew to twenty-two and there were twenty-three children who spent the winter. Falling coal prices in 1921 saw the company receive further subsidies from the state. Throughout the 1920s the population varied from year to year. The peak summer population hit 319 men, 29 women and 8 children in 1923, and a low 188 employees in 1929. The winter population varied between 276 in 1926–27 and a low 158 in 1928–29.Hanoa: 27 From the 1920s and onwards there was a limited amount of tourist traffic visiting Ny-Ålesund.Hanoa: 69
The Geophysical Institute of Tromsø established a geophysical station at Kvadehuken in 1920, consisting of a small hut and a radio mast allowing communication via Ny-Ålesund. It carried out meteorological surveys and geomagnetic field measurements and was manned by four men.Hanoa: 44 Two of these died in February 1922 while attempting to rescue a trapper. The station was closed in 1924 due to lack of funding.Hanoa: 45 The Church of Norway never established a presence in Ny-Ålesund, although the minister at Svalbard Church in Longyearbyen visited Ny-Ålesund irregularly.Hanoa: 121 Most of the children in town were below school age. However, during the 1920–21 winter there were 23 children in town and an improvised school was taken into use for the year.Hanoa: 125
The Ministry of Trade and Industry carried out geological surveys in 1922 and renewed the purchase agreement. Production hit 91,000 tonnes in 1923, and then stabilized for the rest of the 1920s, at between 89,000 and 99,000 tonnes per year. Production moved to the Olsen Mine and the Sofie Mine in 1924.Hanoa: 28 Kings Bay attempted coal liquefaction from 1924 to 1927 in cooperation with Greaker Cellulosefabrik. Four hundred tonnes of oil were produced, but the endeavor failed to become profitable.Hanoa: 38 The labor union, Kings Bay Arbeiderforening, was founded in 1925, although many of the workers had previously ad hoc organized themselves.Hanoa: 134
Northern Exploration Company had conducted trial operations with mining on Blomstrandhalvøya, a headland across Kongsfjorden from Ny-Ålesund, in 1906.Hanoa: 31 The British company set forth claims to the southern part of the bay in 1919, arguing that they had conducted a valid occupation of that area as well.Hanoa: 32 An agreement was struck between the British company and the Government of Norway on 26 October 1925, whereby two-thirds of the land in question was waived and variously given to Kings Bay, Kulspids, Stavanger Spitsbergen and the government for £37,000. The remaining areas were bought by the state in 1932. Falling coal prices led to a production halt during the winter of 1925–26, in which only 17 men stayed the winter.Hanoa: 30 Ordinary operations resumed in 1926, with production commencing in the Ester Mine.Hanoa: 33
Between 1925 and 1928, four attempts were made to reach the North Pole by air from Ny-Ålesund. In May 1925, Roald Amundsen used Ny-Ålesund as a base for two flying boats, but the expedition failed to come closer than 88 degrees north.Hisdal: 102 On 9 May 1926,Hanoa: 47 Floyd Bennett and Richard E. Byrd used Ny-Ålesund as both the starting and landing for their expedition. Although they claimed to have reached the pole, there is strong evidence that they could not have accomplished this.Hisdal: 103 On 11 May, Amundsen and Umberto Nobile's airship Norge left Ny-Ålesund and traveled via the North Pole to Alaska. This is regarded as the first successful expedition to the North Pole. After two short skirmishes, Nobile's airship Italia left Ny-Ålesund on 23 May 1928 to reach the North Pole, but crashed on the return.Hisdal: 49 The flying boats did not require any specific infrastructure, although they had to be brought by ship to Ny-Ålesund, where they were assembled. They took off from a manually groomed air strip on snow.Hanoa: 46 For the airship expeditions, a hangar and a mast were needed, completed on 15 February 1926.
The first fatal mining accident took place in the Ester Mine on 16 December 1926, killing two miners. Four men were killed on 20 April 1927 when a section of a shaft in the same mine collapsed after a gas explosion.Hanoa: 34 An accident on 16 August 1929 killed to miners,Hanoa: 39 and from that season the ministry decided to terminate the subsidies and halt production due to the company's lack of profitability.Hanoa: 40 The company hired three to four men to stay in the town each winter, including a telegraphist.Hanoa: 61
Nationalization
As of 1 January 1929 Kings Bay owed NOK 6.2 million plus interest of NOK 3.6 million to the government and NOK 8.8 million to Aalesunds Kreditbank. The government paid the bank NOK 125,000 for its claims on 24 February 1931, becoming the sole creditor. The owners agreed to transfer their ownership to the state on 4 November 1931, which took effect on 23 December 1933. Ny-Ålesund was kept in a state of readiness to resume production. Kings Bay negotiated purchasing Nya Svenska Stenkolaktiebolaget Spetsbergen's mine at Svea, which had been dormant since a 1925. This was not carried out and instead the mine was sold to Store Norske.Hanoa: 63