Spitzbergen | Spitsbergen

The Little auk colonies that are in many places on the slopes high above Longyearbyen are active, something that is easy to hear now. Snow buntings are playing their spring games on snow-free patches of tundra, which are growing larger day after day. And the geese have arrived after their spring migration. Summer on 78 degrees north is on its way.

The winter has come to an end in Spitsbergen, and it is being replaced by a short in-between season. The snow mobiles are calm now, the snow is getting wet and heavy and the snow-free patches larger and larger. Around 20th/21st June, the first small runlet was flowing down over snow in the river bed of Longyearelva, the river in Longyearbyen.

Calm days, nothing big happening here otherwise. Good.

A recent visit of the Norwegian environmental minister Bård Vegar Solhjell to the research settlement Ny Ålesund in Kongsfjord has put climate change back in the political debate in Norway. According to leading local scientists, the boat excursion into Kongsfjord would have happened with snow mobiles just 10 years before, following exactly the same route. The loss of solid fjord ice in many fjords on the west coast of Spitsbergen especially during the last 2 years is indeed alarming. This leads to massive problems for example for Ringed seals, who cannot give birth and raise their offspring without good fjord ice. Hardly any Ringed seal, generally the most abundant arctic seal, has been born and raised successfully in Kongsfjord in recent years.

The loss of solid fjord ice in the fjords on the west coast of Spitsbergen especially during the last two winters is indeed dramatic. This involves problems for example for Ringed seals, which need solid ice and good snow conditions to raise their offspring successfully. Hardly any young Ringed seal has survived in Kongsfjord during the last 10 years.

The increase of sea surface temperatures on the west and north coasts of Spitsbergen during the last 2 years is significant and has reduced the drift and solid ice considerably. In eastern Spitsbergen, the development is less dramatic and the ice conditions are comparatively normal. On the west coasts, many fjords remain largely open. Mostly, only inner reaches of the fjords are frozen over.

The Norwegian environmental minister has spoken of clear signals for an already ongoing warming.

Source: Aftenposten

The Norwegian mining company Store Norske is currently operating deeply in red numbers. After several good years, an exception in Spitsbergen’s mining history, the loss was near 234 million Kroner (29 million Euro) in 2012, and 2013 is not expected to be much better. The main reasons are said to be low prices on the world market for coal and the increasingly difficult conditions in the main mine Svea Nord near Sveagruva, which is now operating in marginal parts of the coal seam, with lower quantities and inferior qualities.

A new mine is expected to operate from 2015 at Lunckefjellet, north of the current mine Svea Nord, but only until 2018.

Store Norske reacts by cutting down costs. Employees will have to face release, and the daughter company Store Norske Gull, which has been prospecting for gold for years at St. Jonsfjord on the west coast of Spitsbergen, will not continue its activities in 2013.

Source: Finnmarken.no

The ongoing arctic winter season has, so far, turned out to be very productive from a photographic perspective. Next to a high number of conventional images, more than 50 360 degree panoramic shots have been taken and published so far during a couple of weeks. These photos give the impression to stand in the middle of the landscape, which can be moved on the screen to all directions. This is the beginning of a project which aims at a more comprehensive documentation of landscapes all over the Svalbard archipelago.

The panorama images can be seen free of any charge on this website, either through a map which sorts the panoramas geographically, according to where they were taken. Or in the travel reports/photo gallery section. Enjoy!

Tourism in Spitsbergen is on the growth in certain parts. Especially the number of large cruise ship passengers has increased significantly from 24,000 (2011) to 42,000 (2012). The figures had dropped significantly in the years of the crisis following 2007.

The number of overnights in hotels in Longyearbyen has been more or less stable for a couple of years, ranging between 83,000 and 89,000. Compared to early 2012, the hotel business is currently quite happy. One important reason is said to be the airline Norwegian, which started to fly to Longyearbyen again recently. The competition with SAS has led to more affordable seats on flights to Longyearbyen, an important bottleneck for almost all tourism in Svalbard.

The numbers of those venturing out into remoter parts on their own has always been fluctuating to some degree, between 400 and 750, without any clear trend. The same goes for snow mobile tourism, which depends on the duration of the season, which again depends on the weather in late April and early May and is accordingly impossible to predict.

Such and similar figures can be read in the tourism statistics, recently published by the Sysselmannen.

The arctic spring is just around the corner: signs of warmer days are more and more visible even in the high arctic. No darkness anymore since early April, and the midnight sun is officially shining in Longyearbyen since yesterday (April 20). The first birds, including Snow buntings and Little auks, have returned to their breeding areas.

The next days are even supposed to be quite warm, around zero degrees, but the forecast is promising temperatures well below freezing again later – let’s hope they are right. But a warm spell in mid April followed by colder temperatures until early or mid May is quite normal.

The ice conditions are also more “normal” again than last year. The east coast is packed with dense drift ice or even fast ice. The drift ice is also coming closer and closer to the north coast.

After a polar bear had already been shot in self defence in late March, a similar incident occurred only a few weeks later in Isbukta on the southern east coast of Spitsbergen. Two persons skiing Spitsbergen „på langs“ (the whole north-south distance of the main island) were camping on the ice in Isbukta when a bear came near and turned out to be impossible to scare away by noise and other means. The two felt threatened and shot the bear.

The bear was young and with a weight of 119 kg either not fully grown or not well fed or a combination of both.

As the case from March, the incident will routinely be investigated by the local police (Sysselmannen). Polar bears are completely protected in Spitsbergen and may only be shot in self defence. The Sysselmannen has already mentioned that the circumstances point towards a case of legal self defence.

Source: Sysselmannen

Sysselmannen and local Red Cross have documented a slight increase in the numbers of search-and-rescue operations (SAR) in Spitsbergen. The number has recently been near 80 per year, including evacuations of crew members from fishing vessels. There are cases where the rescue services are called in, as it seems, situations where it should not have been necessary, such as the recent case of two ski travellers who had completed less than 10 % of their intended route, but were too exhausted to continue even in good conditions. The Sysselmannen reminds everybody of the importance of good preparation and their own responsibility for individual safety.

Altogether, however, the use of SAR capacities is well within the frame of what they have been calculated and established for. The includes the recent Easter weekend, when traditionally a lot of people travel in the field. This is also due to the good weather conditions.

Potential major accidents which involve a larger number of persons remain a worry. Local SAR capacities are not sufficient for such major accidents.

Source: Sysselmannen

The frequency of Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com-news postings is currently a bit reduced, because the author is currently mostly in the field in Spitsbergen. As a result, there is a large number of recent photos being posted. Important news will be posted anyway, but possibly with minor delays.

On March 24, a polar bear was shot while it tried to enter a hut through the window. The hut was used by a couple from Longyearbyen, who tried to scare the bear away with noise and by throwing items at it. When this turned out to be unsuccessful, the bear was shot at short distance with a revolver.

The incidence happened in Hyttevika, an old trapper’s hut on the west coast north of Hornsund. The couple went there from Longyearbyen by snow mobile for the weekend. Both are considered locally very experienced outdoor persons.

The case is routinely investigated by the local police (Sysselmannen). Polar bears are completely protected in Spitsbergen and may only be shot in self defence. The authorities have already made known that the circumstances seem to indicate a case of legal self defence.

The case received some criticism during the following debate regarding the potential use of pepper spray, which is often used for example in North America to solve similar conflicts without loss of human or animal life. In Spitsbergen, however, the local authorities have officially declared that they do not support the use of pepper spray for self defence against polar bears. The owner of this website and current author means that pepperspray is certainly not suitable for stopping a bear that it vigorously attacking in open terrain, but may well be used successfully from the relative safety of a hut or even a tent to save the lives of bears and humans alike. A bear thus scared away is unlikely to go near a hut again.

This was the first case of a polar bear being shot since the lethal attack in Tempelfjord in August 2011.

Source: Svalbardposten

An accident has happened today (April 04) in the coal mine in the Russian settlement Barentsburg. A worker was killed by a falling block. The Norwegian authorities are currently investigating the incident.

Source: Sysselmannen

A fire in the museum of science in Naples (Napoli) in Italy hast led to the loss of irretrievable artifacts from polar history. The exhibition was meant to focus on those aspects of polar history which are shared by Italy and Norway, such as the airship expeditions to the North Pole by Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile, who started 1926 and 1928 in Ny Ålesund. Now, both countries have lost some of their polar heritage.

According to media, fire raising was the reason for the disaster, which has destroyed the museum and thus 175 jobs. There is no information about people being injured. The motive is believed to be a local conflict about the attractive museum estate.

Some of the lost artifacts were brought to Naples from Norway especially for the exhibition. Lost are, amongst others, the skies that Fridtjof Nansen has supposedly used during his famous crossing of the Greenland inland ice in 1888, clothes used by Nobile during his North Pole flight with the Italia in 1928 and the logbook of the Norge, the airship that was used by Amundsen, Nobile and Ellsworth and their crew on their famous flight from Ny Ålesund across the North Pole to Alaska in 1928. It was most likely on this occasion that the North Pole was seen by man.

Source: Aftenposten

Spitsbergen is currently coming under strong pressure – regarding the weather. The meteorological stations in Svalbard are registring record-high air pressure values, stronger than anything that has been measured in history of local measurements, which is partly going back into the 1920s. A new record has been established at the automatic weather station on small Karl XII Øya (-island) north of Nordaustland, where 1054,7 hPa were registered a few days ago, significantly more than the old record of 1051,9 hPa from 1929.

Northern Greenland has currently partly even higher values. The high pressure is responsible for a period of calm, clear and cold weather, much to the delight of locals and tourists. The forecast for the Easter weekend in Spitsbergen is, however, predicting clouds, but still temperatures well below freezing. The cold weather is also beneficial for wildlife and the development of fast ice in fjords and drift ice east of Spitsbergen. The north coast is still largely ice-free, due to the influence of more temperate waters that have come up with the West Spitsbergen Current (“Gulf Stream”) from further south. On the eastern side, the drift ice has recently even reached Bjørnøya (Bear Island), where the first polar bears in 2 years have already been seen!

Source: adressa.no

Our plans for an expedition to Jan Mayen in 2014 are getting shape. We are now aiming at the time from 28 June to 12 July 2014 (from and to Isafjordur, Iceland). Click here for more information about this exciting trip. We have already more interested people than places available, so please get in touch soon if you are interested in joining (contact).