Yes­ter­day (Wed­nes­day, 15 Octo­ber) a polar bear visi­ted Lon­gye­ar­by­en (see yesterday’s post here). The bear was final­ly dri­ven away by the Sys­sel­man­nen (poli­ce), who fol­lo­wed it seve­ral kilo­me­t­res by heli­c­op­ter to make sure it would return direct­ly.

But it did. Now, the polar bear is some­whe­re on the sea shore of Advent­fjord adja­cent to Advent­da­len, clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Tog­e­ther with the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te, the Sys­sel­man­nen is now pre­pa­ring an attempt to seda­te the polar bear and then fly out out to a remo­te loca­ti­on in the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go.

The Sys­sel­man­nen asks ever­y­bo­dy to stay away from the­re area until this has been done.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

Polar bears were seen in the vici­ni­ty of Lon­gye­ar­by­en seve­ral times during the last cou­ple of weeks, for exam­p­le in Hior­th­hamn, on the north side of Advent­fjord about 3 km from town, in late August, and in near­by Advent­da­len.

Last sun­day (12 Octo­ber) mor­ning, a polar bear was seen just east of Isdam­men, the lake east of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, near the road. But the “high­light” was cer­tain­ly the bear that actual­ly ente­red the lower part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, near Advent­da­len, today (Wed­nes­day, 15 Octo­ber) in the ear­ly mor­ning. The polar bear came from Advent­fjord and wal­ked past Inge­niør Paul­sen (a shop) and to the row of resi­den­ti­al buil­dings east of Forsk­nings­par­ken (the UNIS/Svalhardmuseum buil­ding), wal­king direct­ly next to the hou­ses in vei 238, part­ly bet­ween them. Then, it went back into Advent­da­len, whe­re it was found by the poli­ce near the first dogyard, only a few 100 met­res from town. The Sys­sel­man­nen (poli­ce) scared the bear away and fol­lo­wed it for a while by heli­c­op­ter to make sure it would not return straigh­ta­way. It went into Mälard­a­len, a val­ley on the oppo­si­te side of Advent­da­len.

It was an unp­lea­sant sur­pri­se for the inha­bi­tants of the hou­ses in vei 238 to see the polar bear tracks whe­re some had been wal­king late­ly in the evening befo­re. The thought of sud­den­ly mee­ting a polar bear on the way home from school, work or the pub is quite unp­lea­sant. At least, most peo­p­le do not lock their doors, so in the worst case most hou­ses offer shel­ter in case it is urgen­tly nee­ded.

The Sys­sel­man­nen asks ever­y­bo­dy to be careful, espe­ci­al­ly as the dark sea­son is now start­ing and a bear may be dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble to see befo­re it is actual­ly clo­se.

Quel­le: Sys­sel­man­nen

Seve­ral polar bears have been han­ging out in the Bil­lefjord area, north of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, for quite a while alre­a­dy. The­se have ben seen many times by tou­rists and the 14 per­sons who are working and living in the lar­ge­ly aban­do­ned Rus­si­an sett­le­ment Pyra­mi­den. Seve­ral times during the sum­mer, a bear has been seen insi­de Pyra­mi­den, also direct­ly next to hotel Tuli­pan, whe­re seve­ral peo­p­le live and whe­re guests are lodged.

Now, the polar bear has lite­ral­ly gone a step too far: during the night to Mon­day, it went through a win­dow into the bar to have a look around. The human inha­bi­tants of the hotel were woken up by the noi­se, but pre­fer­red to lea­ve the polar bear alo­ne to its busi­ness. No infor­ma­ti­on has been published about dama­ged that is likely to have hap­pen­ed, other than that the living bear was not inte­res­ted in his pad­ded con­spe­ci­fic fel­low. It is not known if the polar bear show­ed any inte­res­ted in the strong drinks that are stored in the bar.

In any case, it had alre­a­dy left when the Sys­sel­man­nen arri­ved on the sce­ne. Despi­te a 1.5 hour heli­c­op­ter search, the bar bear could not be found.

As repea­ted attempts to sca­re the polar bear away from Pyra­mi­den have not yiel­ded any­thing bey­ond short-term suc­cess, the Sys­sel­man­nen has now deci­ded to tran­qui­li­ze the bear and move him to a remo­te desti­na­ti­on when he comes back.

It is likely the same polar bear that bothe­red a stu­dent camp near Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen oppo­si­te Pyra­mi­den a few weeks ago (when the gre­at pho­to with the bear and the Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken pla­s­tic bag was taken).

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten

Pro­ba­b­ly, you have to read the head­line twice to belie­ve it: yes, peo­p­le were grun­ting at wal­rus­ses, not the other way around. This remar­kab­le event is said to have hap­pen­ed on July 16 at Tor­ell­ne­set in Hin­lo­pen Strait during a pas­sen­ger landing from MS Expe­di­ti­on.

A guest wro­te a let­ter later to Sys­sel­man­nen and Sval­bard­pos­ten, becau­se 2 “wild­life spe­cia­lists” from the ship dis­tur­bed wal­rus­ses to achie­ve “good” pho­to­graphs. The 2 “spe­cia­lists” are said to have approa­ched wal­rus­ses in shal­low water to distances of about 2 met­res and then to have “bark­ed” and “grun­ted”, assu­ma­b­ly to make the wal­rus­ses move for “bet­ter” pho­to­graphs. Later, other staff jus­ti­fied this beha­vious by say­ing the “spe­cia­lists” knew what they were doing.

Accor­ding to the Sval­bard envi­ron­men­tal act, it is for­bidden to “hunt, catch, harm or kill” ani­mals. The Sys­sel­man­nen will inves­ti­ga­te if the inci­dent is a breach of legal regu­la­ti­ons. In any case, an acti­ve approach of less than 30 met­res distance is not allo­wed accor­ding to AECO-regu­la­ti­ons. AECO is an orga­ni­sa­ti­on of ship-based arc­tic tour ope­ra­tors with, among­st others, the pur­po­se of self-regu­la­ti­on. To achie­ve this, AECO has crea­ted gui­de­lines which are often stric­ter than legal requi­re­ments. The­se gui­de­lines are bin­ding for mem­bers such as the ope­ra­tor of the MS Expe­di­ti­on, who has announ­ced inter­nal inves­ti­ga­ti­ons and con­firm­ed a gene­ral dedi­ca­ti­on to high envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards. AECO is now con­side­ring to dis­cuss the inci­dent on their annu­al mem­ber mee­ting.

In any case, an approach to about 2 met­res distance to wal­rus­ses for tou­ristic pur­po­ses is defi­ni­te­ly not accep­ta­ble. It is also com­ple­te­ly unneces­sa­ry: wal­rus­ses, usual­ly rather lazy and inac­ti­ve on shore, are often lively and curious in the water. It is not too unu­su­al that curious wal­rus­ses them­sel­ves approach peo­p­le who are stan­ding on land near the water­line to clo­se distances – wit­hout any dis­tur­ban­ce of wild­life by bar­king or grun­ting or wha­te­ver.

It is usual­ly easy to see on pho­to­graphs if ani­mals have been dis­tur­bed. Such pho­tos are today hard­ly accept­ed any­mo­re by pro­fes­sio­nal publishers.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

After a delay of near­ly four months, the Sysselmannen´s new ship Polar­sys­sel could be named and offi­ci­al­ly taken into ser­vice on Satur­day, Sep­tem­ber 20th. The cerem­o­ny was held at the ‘Gam­mel­ka­ia’ in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the pre­sence of the Nor­we­gi­an Minis­ter of Jus­ti­ce Anders Amund­sen.

The Polar­sys­sel replaces the Nord­sys­sel which in Sep­tem­ber last year, after it´s ele­venth sea­son in ser­vice for the Sys­sel­man­nen, left Spits­ber­gen for the last time. To com­pen­sa­te the new ship´s delay the begin­ning of this year´s sea­son, start­ing in May, was run by a ship of the Ice­lan­dic coast­guard cal­led Tyr.

Unli­ke for­mer ships of the Sys­sel­man­nen, the new Polar­sys­sel was cus­tom-built for ser­vice in Spits­ber­gen and is equip­ped for the spe­cial requi­re­ments of the Sys­sel­man­nen. The vessel´s main tasks will be in the fields of res­cue ope­ra­ti­ons, envi­ron­men­tal moni­to­ring and the pre­ven­ti­on of oil pol­lu­ti­on.

The Polar­sys­sel is equip­ped with a heli­c­op­ter deck, a winch to tow other ves­sels, infrared and optic came­ras to find per­sons or lea­king oil, water can­nons to fight fire, a medi­cal room, two work-boats which can be laun­ched quick­ly and the faci­li­ties for an exter­nal power sup­p­ly to save fuel when the ship lies at the pier in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. With the Polar­sys­sel a ship with the ice class 1B was cho­sen, dif­fe­ring from its ante­ces­sor ‘Nord­sys­sel’ which had the hig­hest ice class 1A Super. The Polar­sys­sel has a crew of 9 per­sons, cabin space for 21 pas­sen­gers and a capa­ci­ty for 35 day-pas­sen­gers.

The hull was built in Tur­key and the ship was then moun­ted and equip­ped in the Havyard shi­py­ard in the Nor­we­gi­an town Leir­vik. She is lea­sed out to the Sys­sel­man­nen by the ship­ping com­pa­ny Remøy Manage­ment. Owner of the ves­sel is the Ice­lan­dic com­pa­ny Faf­nir Off­shore. The con­tract for using the Polar­sys­sel ends in 2020 for the time being. After this, the Sys­sel­man­nen has the opti­on to renew it until 2024. The cos­ts for using the ship will be 329 mil­li­on Nor­we­gi­an Kro­ner in the first ten years. Though, each sea­son the Polar­sys­sel will only stay in Spits­ber­gen for six months, from May to Novem­ber. During win­ter time it will ser­ve on other occa­si­ons for exam­p­le as a sup­p­ly ves­sel for the off­shore oil indus­try.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten, Sys­sel­man­nen

The famous Okto­ber­fest in Munich, said to be the world’s lar­gest folk fes­ti­val, has its litt­le brot­her in Spits­ber­gen: On Thurs­day (25th Sep­tem­ber), the local Okto­ber­fest in Lon­gye­ar­by­en was ope­ned with a litt­le pro­ces­si­on. The hard nights of drin­king over­pri­ced beer (but more than 120 kinds of it!) in an over­c­row­ded tent, live music and pre­sen­ta­ti­ons about beer were to fol­low until Satur­day, inlcu­ding the choir of the Nor­we­gi­an mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske and the “Schnaps­ka­pel­le”, a gathe­ring of local musi­cal talents exclu­si­ve­ly brought tog­e­ther for the occa­si­on.

The pre­sent aut­hor does not know any more about it, as he pre­fer­red the view over some silent val­leys in gor­ge­ous late Sep­tem­ber light at the time in ques­ti­ons.

The Lon­gye­ar­by­en Okto­ber­fest has been a regu­lar event now for seve­ral years and it is safe to assu­me that you can join next year if you want to.

This snapshot is defi­ni­te­ly among­st this summer’s bet­ter ones: A polar bear was stal­king a camp of stu­dents in Bil­lefjord for a while last week, until it was deci­ded to evacua­te the camp and let the bear do wha­te­ver it wan­ted to. On that occa­si­on, Eli­da Lang­stein mana­ged to get this pho­to of the polar bear lea­ving a tent with a Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken pla­s­tic bag in his mouth.

It is not known what exact­ly was insi­de the bag.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

This is the his­to­ri­cal dis­co­very of the year in the Arc­tic – at least: The Cana­di­an govern­ment has announ­ced to have found the wreck of one of the two ships of John Franklin’s expe­di­ti­on.

John Frank­lin was out to find the Nor­thwest Pas­sa­ge with 2 ships, HMS Ere­bus and HMS Ter­ror, and 129 men, sai­ling into the pas­sa­ge in 1845. Both ships and all men dis­ap­peared. Many expe­di­ti­ons were sent out to res­cue Frank­lin and his men or to find out what had hap­pen­ed. This was a boost for geo­gra­phi­cal explo­ra­ti­on in the Cana­di­an arc­tic, but the fate of Franklin’s expe­di­ti­on was never ful­ly resol­ved. After years, the first traces were found; it beca­me clear that the men had left the ships, try­ing to reach safe­ty, a hope­l­ess effort con­side­ring the vast distances and the harsh cli­ma­te. The­re were signs of can­ni­ba­lism, but most must have died of star­va­ti­on, cold and scur­vy. Lead poi­so­ning may have added to an over­all health decli­ne. Frank­lin had alre­a­dy died befo­re the ships were deser­ted.

The 2 ships had been equip­ped with ever­y­thing one could think of at that time, it was one of the lar­gest arc­tic expe­di­ti­ons ever and its loss was a trau­ma for the Bri­tish Roy­al Navy. The dis­co­very of one of the 2 ships 169 years later is a sen­sa­ti­on. It is so far unknown if it is the wreck of the HMS Ere­bus or the HMS Ter­ror.

The Cana­di­an govern­ment has put the search for Franklin’s ships on the agen­da some years ago.

Source: Spie­gel Online

The new Spits­ber­gen calen­dar 2015 by Rolf Stan­ge is now here, fresh from the prin­ter and it can be orde­red from now on. 12 impres­si­ons from Spits­ber­gen: around the island and through the sea­sons, encoun­ters with wild­life, sce­n­ery, light and flowers from the polar night to the mid­night sun.

As befo­re, the Spits­ber­gen calen­dar 2015 is available in the han­dy A5 for­mat and lar­ge in A3. Click here for more infor­ma­ti­on, images and orde­ring.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en is not just the che­a­pest accom­mo­da­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but also one of the most popu­lar places to stay, as you are in the midd­le of natu­re the­re: in good wea­ther, the view across Isfjord is gre­at. Reinde­er, polar foxes and a ran­ge of dif­fe­rent birds are regu­lar guests, and if you are lucky, you can even see belugas near the shore, that hap­pens seve­ral times every sum­mer.

On a nice day in August, I shot a pan­ora­ma tour which is now online, so you can walk across Lon­gye­ar­by­en Cam­ping now on the inter­net. The­re is also a pan­ora­ma of the camp­si­te taken in the polar night, when it is obvious­ly clo­sed, but nevert­hel­ess a very inte­res­t­ing place to visit …

It has been a good sum­mer with a lot of fine wea­ther, and Lon­gye­ar­by­en Cam­ping has done very well with about 2800 guest nights. As an expe­ri­ence, it is wort­hwhile to men­ti­on that you need to bring your own slee­ping bag, insu­la­ti­on blan­ket and tent if you want to stay the­re. Lon­gye­ar­by­en Cam­ping has limi­t­ed amounts of ren­tal equip­ment, but the capa­ci­ty may be in full use in peak sea­son. When guests come, as hap­pen­ed seve­ral times, wit­hout any­thing and wit­hout a reser­va­ti­on for ren­tal equip­ment (or a “reser­va­ti­on” made very short­ly befo­re arri­val), then bad luck may strike and not­hing is available, which trans­la­tes as: you don’t have a place to sleep. Not gre­at. So: just bring your own stuff or get in touch with Lon­gye­ar­by­en Cam­ping well in advan­ce to make sure they have got what you need. And then: have a good time the­re 🙂

A polar bear has been obser­ved roa­ming around near Lon­gye­ar­by­en for more than a week. Sin­ce 21st August, the bear has been seen in Hior­th­hamn, on the north side of Advent­fjord, a few kilo­me­t­res away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, whe­re more than 2000 peo­p­le live.

The­re is a num­ber of weekend huts in Hior­th­hamn, and some of them have suf­fe­r­ed dama­ge by the polar bear, which is always loo­king for food, bes­i­des gene­ral­ly being a curious ani­mal any­way. It has sin­ce been seen in side val­leys (Mälard­a­len, Hanas­kog­da­len), and most recent­ly in Advent­da­len near Jans­sonhau­gen, whe­re it seems to have found a dead reinde­er, secu­ring food for some days. It is, howe­ver, not 100 per­cent cer­tain that it is real­ly one and the same polar bar.

The­re is signi­fi­cant traf­fic in all the­se are­as: tou­rists are on tour the­re, and so are stu­dents and locals in their free time. Addi­tio­nal­ly, it is reinde­er hun­ting sea­son.

Ever­y­bo­dy moving around on his own is remin­ded that poten­ti­al­ly aggres­si­ve polar bears have to be expec­ted any­whe­re and at any time out­side the popu­la­ted sett­le­ments. A sui­ta­ble, hea­vy calib­re wea­pon is neces­sa­ry for tours even clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Addi­tio­nal­ly, a deter­rent such as a signal pis­tol with spe­cial noi­se-making ammu­ni­ti­on to sca­re polar bears away does not only make a lot of sen­se, to sol­ve dan­ge­rous situa­tions wit­hout doing harm to a bear, but it is also legal­ly bin­ding now to have a deter­rent. Pep­per spray is, howe­ver, not recom­men­ded by the aut­ho­ri­ties in Spits­ber­gen, alt­hough it can make an important con­tri­bu­ti­on if used, for exam­p­le, from the rela­ti­ve safe­ty of a hut to get rid of a very curious or even aggres­si­ve bear wit­hout doing harm to it. It must, howe­ver, not be reli­ed on as the only means of “safe­ty”.

The polar bear near Lon­gye­ar­by­en has, so far, not been aggres­si­ve. Gene­ral­ly spea­king, polar bears are usual­ly not aggres­si­ve towards man, but the­re are excep­ti­ons to the role, such as a very hun­gry bear. Also in Pyra­mi­den, a Rus­si­an sett­le­ment lar­ge­ly deser­ted sin­ce 1998, polar bears have been seen seve­ral times during the sum­mer, also in cen­tral parts.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

The arc­tic sea­son 2014 ist not over yet, but a good num­ber of pho­to gal­le­ries are alre­a­dy online, and so is my arc­tic blog, of cour­se. The recent trips in Spits­ber­gen with SV Anti­gua and SY Arc­ti­ca II have both been ama­zing. Both yiel­ded a wealth of impres­si­ons and memo­ries, some of them cap­tu­red with the came­ra, and you are wel­co­me to join the­se trips now online.

• The expe­di­ti­on to Jan May­en was deman­ding, but the efforts were rich­ly reward­ed, as the pho­to gal­le­ries will show cle­ar­ly.
• Join SV Anti­gua here for the cir­cum­na­vi­ga­ti­on of Spits­ber­gen in the second half of July 2014.
• Pho­tos from an exci­ting trip around Spits­ber­gen with SY Arc­ti­ca II in August.

More sto­ries from the icy road in my arc­tic blog (click here).

Within a few weeks, I will add slide­shows of the indi­vi­du­al trips on the respec­ti­ve sites, and the­re is still one more trip to come in Sep­tem­ber.

Enjoy some vir­tu­al tra­vel­ling in the Arc­tic!

The Green­peace-ship ‘Espe­ran­za’ which is curr­ent­ly sai­ling in the waters around Spits­ber­gen has repea­ted­ly vio­la­ted the new pilo­ta­ge regu­la­ti­ons, being step-by-step estab­lished sin­ce July 2012.

The ‘Espe­ran­za’ is pre­sent around Spits­ber­gen this sum­mer to call atten­ti­on to the impact of cli­ma­te chan­ge to the arc­tic and to pro­test against the expan­si­on of oil explo­ra­ti­on to the Barents Sea. As a pro­mi­nent sup­port­er for this cam­paign among­st others the Bri­tish actress Emma Thomp­son was aboard.

In the end of July it was noti­ced that the ship vio­la­ted the new pilo­ta­ge regu­la­ti­ons on Spits­ber­gen for seve­ral times. For a round-trip which was accom­pa­nied by the actress Emma Thomp­son the­r­e­fo­re a pilot was taken aboard. In the Midd­le of August the cap­tain of the ‘Espe­ran­za’ then again acted against the regu­la­ti­ons as he led the ship towards Lon­gye­ar­by­en wit­hout a pilot. As befo­re, the inci­dent was repor­ted to the Sys­sel­man­nen and this time the cap­tain had to pay a fine of 50.000 Kro­ner.

The Sys­sel­man­nen and the Nor­we­gi­an Kyst­verk reg­ret that it was just Green­peace who vio­la­ted a regu­la­ti­on which actual­ly is sup­port­ed by the orga­niza­ti­on. In the same spi­rit Green­peace expres­sed their reg­ret. Green­peace app­re­cia­tes the estab­lish­ment of pilo­ta­ge regu­la­ti­ons on Spits­ber­gen and, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in mind, gene­ral­ly sup­ports regu­la­ti­ons that con­tri­bu­te to safe­ty in the mari­ti­me traf­fic. In the inci­dents in the end of July Green­peace was not awa­re of the fact that their ship was alre­a­dy affec­ted by the new regu­la­ti­ons, espe­ci­al­ly as they had an own ice-navi­ga­tor aboard sup­port­ing the cap­tain. In the recent inci­dent in August the cap­tain had, as he said, wai­ted 1.5 hours for the pilot who was delay­ed. After that he deci­ded to sail towards Lon­gye­ar­by­en wit­hout a pilot.

Com­pul­so­ry pilo­ta­ge gets step-by-step estab­lished on Spits­ber­gen sin­ce the 1st of July 2012 (see also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news from July 2012). Curr­ent­ly, for the sea­son 2014, it affects ves­sels with a length of 70 meters or more and pas­sen­ger ves­sels with a length of 24 meters or more, except expe­di­ti­on crui­se ves­sels. In the sea­son 2015 the­re will no lon­ger be such excep­ti­ons and the regu­la­ti­ons will be the same as on the Nor­we­gi­an main­land.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten, Kyst­ver­ket

Not just in win­ter the gla­ciers and moun­ta­ins sur­roun­ding Lon­gye­ar­by­en (some known for their crev­as­ses) pose dan­ger. Also in sum­mer it is very important to pay clo­se atten­ti­on; for exam­p­le, to the part­ly steep and rocky sub­sur­face tun­nel­ed by melt water.

Just recent­ly when des­cen­ting (from) the Sar­ko­fa­gen (which is situa­ted at the west­side of the Lars­breen/Lars-Gla­cier), a 21 year old nor­we­gi­an gui­de bro­ke her leg. Becau­se the­re was no cell­pho­ne ser­vice available at the site of the acci­dent, mem­bers of the group had to hike back up the moun­tain to call for help by informing the Sys­sel­man. The hurt tour gui­de and her enti­re group of tou­rist from various nati­ons were then flown out to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, whe­re she got a cast at the local hos­pi­tal and was later trans­por­ted to Trom­sø.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

As last year explo­si­ves of he Word War II have been found arround Lon­gye­ar­by­en this time on the moun­tain Pla­tå­ber­get. Due to the fin­ding traf­fic in the area is ban­ned. The gre­na­de could been deac­ti­va­ted.

Source: Sys­sel­mann