Englishman claims sovereignty over Norwegian island Thursday

May 11, 04:59 PM By James Kilner

OSLO (Reuters) - The Barents Sea island of Nymark wants to break away from the King of Norway and be a republic. Or so says Alex Hartley.

The English artist is the self-proclaimed discoverer and ruler of Nymark, an uninhabited island the size of a football pitch. Nymark emerged in recent years as a glacier warmed and retreated from the sea.

"About two weeks ago I wrote to the Norwegian Prime Minister, the Norwegian Foreign Office and the governor of Svalbard saying I wanted to secede,"

Hartley, 42, told Reuters by telephone from London.

"I have also written to the United Nations for official recognition as an independent nation."

He said he discovered the island in 2004 while on a trip around the Svalbard archipelago and named it Nymark -- "New Ground" in Norwegian.

A 1920 treaty signed by the major world powers of that era gave sovereignty of the Arctic islands to Norway.

But while the treaty says Norway rules the main islands around Spitsbergen "together with all islands great or small and rock", Hartley says it does not apply to Nymark as it had not been discovered then.


"I was the first person to land on the island. I built a cairn and left a claim in a tin can," he said.


And since then he has held architecture and flag design competitions for his new fiefdom.

The Norwegian government is fighting back and dismisses the Englishman's claim, saying the 1920 treaty covers the entire archipelago area, including Nymark.

The Norwegian Polar Institute also says it has known about the island through satellite photographs since 1998.

"The ice cap withdrew and uncovered it," the institute's information officer Gunn Sissel Jaklin. "Anyway we don't consider it big enough to be an island."

The islands of Svalbard have a long history of being claimed and counter claimed by adventurers, sailors and explorers dating back to the Vikings. Jaklin said there are already 16,614 place names on the islands, reflecting some previous visitors.

Hartley said he would not give up on the island. He wants to highlight the effects of global warming which he says caused the glacier to retreat by about 1 mile (1.6 km) over the last decade to unveil Nymark.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/11052006/80...an-island.html



The first step to a new British empire

What the heck, I would at least claim sovereignty over some small atoll in Polynesia not some icy rock in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

Originally Posted by Italian Guy

What the heck, I would at least claim sovereignty over some small atoll in Polynesia not some icy rock in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

Yeah, you could call it something like Fargon. Ya Fargon Atoll, now that would be a country to be reckoned with. I can just see the flag designs now.

Originally Posted by DTop

Yeah, you could call it something like Fargon. Ya Fargon Atoll, now that would be a country to be reckoned with. I can just see the flag designs now.

Oh thanks, Top! That was the best laugh I've had in days!

This Englishman is living my dream... now when is he moving there?

Stay away from my island!!!

Ye Fargon Atoll?

I guess you have to be a punster to get that one, bulldogg. Ya Fargon Atoll = "You far gone a**hole".

hehe, ahhh.. men.., they are interesting..
Own land, own castle, a few peasants.. yep, and a bunch of knights.. ahh, good old days

I got it... I was taking a shot at the Boss with it...