Nearby, on the top of Hvitsark Rock is a compass of lead fashioned into circles and straight lines.

According to Olaus the place was first settled in 1494 by the pirates Pining and Pothorst, two rogues who had been chased that far north by the Danes because of their piracy. "They lived there outlawed with their fellow-rovers and inflicted many atrocities on every seafarer, whether sailing close at hand or at a distance" (Magnus 1996, I:104). The pirates made the compass to help them in determining the shortest direction to go in their "profitable plundering forays." Notice that the latitude of Hvitsark is 83 degrees; in this map Scandinavia reaches over the top of the North Pole!