Spitzbergen: 1910

In August 1910 Coleman went on an excursion to Spitzbergen with colleagues from the International Geological Congress that was being held that summer in Stockholm, Sweden. Baron Gerard De Geer, the founder of geochronology, was the leader of the expedition. Coleman describes the voyage out to the island on the Aeolus.

...“After two days in the ice pack with shrouded skies, the fog thinned and became silvery with blue sky above, and at last, when the engines stopped to take a sounding, we heard the distant roar of waves on a shore and knew that Spitzbergen was at hand. It was hours later, however, before the tantalizing fog finally lifted, disclosing a fairy-like vision of mountain and glacier gleaming in the sun a mile away. It was Mt. Alkornet at the entrance to Icefjord and we had reached our destination.

… I have entered many harbors but never one with a more splendid setting, and the approach, veiled by fog, was wonderfully stage managed.

Manuscript. A.P. Coleman. ca 1931 “Chapter II—Spitzbergen.” A Geologist’s Adventures in the North.(Typescript) : 61—62. .