Guidelines

Visitor Guidelines

AECO’s main objective is to ensure that expedition cruises are carried out with the utmost consideration for the fragile, natural environment, local cultures and cultural remains. From our comprehensive set of guidelines we have picked out a few basic rules that we ask you to read carefully and act in accordance with. You can also watch the video on general visitor guidelines in the Arctic.

Small Boat Operational Guidelines

Small boats are fully inflated vessels, semi-rigid or rigid hull inflatable boats, or similar crafts used for regular passenger landings and sightseeing cruises. These guidelines apply at all times – with or without passengers in the boat.

Borgarfjörður eystri

Borgarfjörður eystri is a tranquil and quirky little village with around 100 inhabitants. Rich with spectacular nature, unique history and friendly people and welcomes you to explore its wonders and untouched landscape.

Environment & Cultural Remains

Guidelines for Arcitc wildlife.

Site-Specific

Specific Guidelines for Svalbard Sites

Research station specific

Guidelines for remote research station visits.

Operational & Marketing

Community & Research Station

Guidelines for Guests

The Northerners

Visitors may sometimes get the impression that Northerners, like their climate, are cold. Please do not be mistaken.

Template for Research Station- Specific Guidelines

Clean Seas Guidelines

When travelling to the polar regions, there are steps you can take to reduce the amount of plastic and other waste produced.

Sundneset

Whether you land on the eastern or the western side of Sundneset, the area will strike you as welcoming for walks. And it is. Walk to get a view of the freshwater-ponds that also attract birds, or head for the hill east of Sundbukta, for a nice view of the bay. But as you walk, allow time to look at the many whale bones scattered in the area. They are several thousand years old and remain from a time when the shoreline looked quite different.

Kapp Lee – Dolerittneset

The returned walrus resting at the beach, Stretehamna, may at first glance be the largest attraction by Kapp Lee and Dolerittneset. But the area offers much more. From early historical walrus slaughtering, cultural remains bring you through history up to present scientific projects, everything surrounded by a beautiful landscape.

Andréetangen

Henry Rudy found the perfect spot for his trapper cabin as Petter Trondsen had done before him. Already as you approach Andréetangen the beauty of this site catches your eyes. Today walrus occupy the beach, often in different groups. Sometimes they surround the cabin. From the ridges behind there is a nice view of Bjørnbukta and its birdlife.

Fuglehuken

At Fuglehuken you are part of an exclusive group to have visited this site. Situated at the very northern tip of Prins Karls Forland, Fuglehuken is characterized by steep mountains with bird cliffs, rich vegetation and numerous cultural remains. The coastline is dented with bays where you can get ashore – however they are all quite exposed to swells from the Arctic Ocean.

Smeerenburg

”Blubber town” was the main base for Dutch whaling in the first half of the 1600s. The blubber produced oil for lighting, paint, soap and other products in demand, in the increasingly-expanding urban Europe. Contrary to the myth of 20 000 inhabitants and a hectic party-life in Smeerenburg, the reality was 200 hard-working men in a growing oil industry at almost 80° North.

Ytre Norskøya

For the whalers, catching sight of the whales as early as possible was of utmost importance. The important “spotters” were positioned in lookouts with good views of the ocean. While waiting they enjoyed their clay pipes and wine. When the first whalers arrived in 1611, the waters were “boiling” with whales. About 200 years later the big whales in the north were almost exterminated. Today visitors can walk on the old whalers` paths to enjoy the sight from this last point of land before the North Pole.

Sallyhamna

Sallyhamna ticked off all the needs for the earliest whalers. Some of the best preserved cultural heritage from the hey-days of bowhead whaling of the 17th Century are found here. Visitors will leave the place with a vivid imagination of the hardships of flensing the whale, rendering down blubber to oil and preparing the barreled oil for shipment to mainland Europe.

Crozierpynten

Swedish scientists did more than contribute to the knowledge about the shape of the world. Piles of broken glass from hundreds of bottles are signs showing that harsh conditions and remoteness did not preclude enjoying good port wine.