We made our way ashore at Gravnesodden (also known as Gravneset), one of the most evocative landing sites on Spitsbergen's west coast. The beach held the remnants of a 17th-century whaling station, and we walked across a white landscape where weathered blubber ovens and rows of small grave mounds marked the final resting place of Dutch whalers who never made it home. A deep blanket of snow covered everything, and those with the energy pushed up to the ridge, rewarded with a sweeping panorama of the fjord and mountains. In the afternoon, our Zodiacs followed the edge of fast ice stretching in an unbroken sheet across Bjørnfjord.