An attractive retrospective map of Spitsbergen, published in the eight-map portfolio accompanying R.G. Bennet and J. van Wijk Roelandszoon’s Verhandeling over de Nederlandsche ontdekkingen. The prize-winning Verhandeling celebrated Dutch achievements in overseas exploration, with particular attention to identifying Dutch place names and restoring them to maps. The portfolio was issued at Dordrecht in 1829, two years after publication of the text.

Wieder describes the map as “the last Dutch historical map of Spitsbergen,” based almost entirely on the earlier cartography of Giles and Rep, with somewhat later additions. Cornelis Giles and Outger Rep were Dutch whaling commanders whose early-18th-century voyages greatly improved knowledge of the archipelago. Their observations were incorporated into Gerard van Keulen’s landmark chart of Spitsbergen, described by Wieder as “the most complete old map of Spitsbergen” and copied throughout the 18th century and later. Its longevity was remarkable: as late as 1827 Lieutenant Henry Foster, surveying Hinlopen Strait during Parry’s Arctic expedition, could still recognize “almost every feature” shown on the old Dutch chart (Click here for our description of the Van Keulen chart.)

Van Wyk also drew on a later state of Cornelis Gijsbertsz Zorgdrager’s “Nieuwe Kaart van ’t Eyland Spitsbergen,” originally published with his 1720 account of the Dutch Arctic whale fishery.

It’s worth noting that in 1829 Spitsbergen was still “terra nullius,” under the sovereignty of no state, and would remain so for nearly another century. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognized Norwegian sovereignty, and in 1925 the treaty took effect and the archipelago was formally incorporated into the Kingdom of Norway.

References
Phillips, Atlases, #1134-1. F. C. Wieder,  The Dutch Discovery and Mapping of Spitsbergen (1596–1829), #285, pl. 44. Martin Conway, No Man’s Land: A History of Spitsbergen from its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country, pp. 340–41, 346.