Victor Campbell and Michael Barne in Svalbard: the 1914 voyage of Willem Barents

AbstractIn 1914 the Northern Exploration Company of London employed Commander Victor Campbell (the leader of the Northern Party of Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913) to voyage to Spitsbergen in charge of a mineral-prospecting team. Campbell sailed in the schooner Willem Barents, taking Michael Barne (the second lieutenant on the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1904) as mate. There was a mixed British and Norwegian crew. Between May and August, Campbell took the schooner to various sites between Recherchefjorden and Krossfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, maintaining two-way contact with London through the Norwegian radio station at Grønfjorden. Hearing that war was about to break out, the expedition visited the German meteorological station at Ebeltofthamna, then sailed back to Norway, from where the British members returned to England.