A week in the Arctic: Longyearbyen, Svalbard.
For a week in August I left my partner in crime (so she could gallivant around the Greek Islands) and headed to Longyearbyen, the worlds northern most town*. Located at a whopping 78 degrees North and well into the midnight sun zone, Longyearbyen had a lot to offer this curious adventurer.
Longyearbyen is the largest settlement on the island of Svalbard, a Norwegian Archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. With a population of just over 2000, Longyearbyen survives on tourism, a university research station and a small coal mine.
Svalbard, a brief summary:
Svalbard attracts a huge range of visitors for the wildlife, research opportunities and adventuring in this one of a kind landscape consisting of 60% glacier, 27% barren rock and 13% vegetation. Year round skiing and snowmobiling, hiking, kayaking and bird, whale and polar bear watching are just some of the attractions. The majority of the locals work in tourism or are researchers with the local university campus.
With over 3000 polar bears living on the archipelago, it is the prime spot to see the world’s largest land predator. With this comes the safety responsibility of visitors, it is illegal to leave the settlement of Longyearbyen without the protection of a rifle, flare gun and GPS locator. It’s common to see signs at the entrance to shops stating “leave guns and shoes at the door”.
*Not my picture
While technically part of Norway, the Svalbard Treaty gives equal rights to all the 40 or so original signatory countries (including Australia!) giving them free access to commercial activities on the archipelago. In short, this means that Svalbard:
is an entirely visa free zone. Any person can live and work here indefinitely regardless of nationality.
has little or no taxes. For someone used to Norway’s ridiculous prices, this means cheap clothes, beer and snüs.
is a demilitarized zone. No country can have military bases or activities within the archipelago.
The Museums:
Keeping up the mantra of the sabbatical “Always read the plaque”, we visited the two museums in Longyearbyen to learn as much as we could about the area.
Svalbard Museum shows the sad history of the Archipelago from it’s discovery in 1596 by Dutchman Willem Barentsz through to present day. It’s easy to think of Svalbard as the wild west of the arctic, with the European seafaring nations occupying the area and fighting over the natural resources. Hard to believe that no country claimed nor took control of the islands until Norway ratified the Svalbard Treaty in 1920.
Throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, the wildlife of Svalbard was targeted for resources, following the pattern of hunting one species to near extinction, then moving onto the next. Firstly, whales and walruses for blubber, meat, ivory and baleen, then polar bears, seals and finally arctic foxes for pelts. Once humans started to realise their mistakes (and the populations decreased to the extent that hunting wasn’t financially viable... sigh), coal mining operations started, some much more successful than others.
Nowadays, Svalbard relies on tourism, research and some small scale coal mines and operates in a much more sustainable nature. It is also the home of the Global Seed Vault, a bomb shelter type structure that holds more than 400,000 samples of the worlds cultivated seeds for preservation.
The North Pole Expedition Museum documents the first attempts to reach the illusive North Pole by foot, boat and airship. With too much information to include here, I can just say that it is well worth reading up on the many interesting attempts (some a lot more ridiculous than others) or better yet, going for yourself.
One of the best parts of the museum was learning of Roald Amundsen’s raising funds, a crew and ship to reach the North Pole, only to change his mind and heading to the South Pole instead. After setting out. Without telling the crew.
He became the first man to reach the South Pole on this expedition.
Mine 2B:
Set half way up the eastern side of the Longyearbyen ravine, Mine 2B is the entrance to an abandoned coal mine that provides a look into the old mining operations and is conveniently located within the polar bear safe zone.
After hiking up to the mine, you can enter into the wooden cable car station and walk up through the buildings to the mine entrance. For this engineer, it was great to see the old structures and be able to explore throughout, something that would never be allowed in an OH&S loving country like Australia.
The law on Svalbard states that any structure built before 1945 cannot be removed or modified in any way as a preservation of the history of the islands meaning many of the old mines and cable car towers can be seen scattered around the mountains.
Kayaking on Adventfjord:
Kayaking through Adventfjord is a great way to see Longyearbyen from the water. We took a guided tour along the fjord, out to the migratory bird cliffs nearby then across to the other side of the fjord to see the old Norwegian mining settlement of Advent Town.
We bombarded the guide with questions of the area and the surrounding wildlife, managing to learn a lot in the process. We also saw a huge range of birds, including the much sought after puffins, and a herd of reindeer, complete with two calves who were amazingly cute compared to their stocky parents.
Stay tuned for more Svalbard adventures and even a sighting of the elusive polar bear!
C.O’S