Eas­ter is high sea­son for the out­doors in Scan­di­na­via, and the same is true for Search and Res­cue (SAR) forces – depen­ding on the wea­ther. This year, the wea­ther was not very sta­ble during the Eas­ter weekend, with lots of snow­fall and some strong winds, which in some regi­ons rea­ched gale force.

In the end, the local SAR forces had to air­lift 26 per­sons out from their Eas­ter trips. This includes a group of 19 on Aka­de­mikar­breen (not 16 as men­tio­ned ear­lier), who had got stuck in bad wea­ther, with 2 tents alre­a­dy des­troy­ed in gusts. They got their ride back to Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Satur­day. The same day, a per­son was evacua­ted from Petu­ni­abuk­ta (near Pyra­mi­den) after a snow mobi­le col­li­si­on. Yes, such a thing can hap­pen, even in the wide-open wil­der­ness of a fro­zen fjord. Espe­ci­al­ly in strong winds with poor visi­bi­li­ty.

Bey­ond this, one per­son had to be air­lifted from Kapp Lin­né and ano­ther one from the rese­arch ves­sel Lan­ce, both with inju­ries.

All per­sons are well, the­re were no serious inju­ries.

Hap­py Eas­tern …

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

Eas­tern is high sea­son for the out­doors in the who­le of Scan­di­na­via, but unfort­u­na­te­ly also high sea­son for SAR (search and res­cue) ope­ra­ti­ons. On Eas­ter Sun­day, again an emer­gen­cy bea­con has been acti­va­ted in Spits­ber­gen. A group of 16 ski­ers, inclu­ding 3 gui­des, is curr­ent­ly stuck in a storm on Aka­de­mikar­breen, in cen­tral parts of eas­tern Spits­ber­gen, bet­ween New­ton­top­pen and Storfjord. With a satel­li­te pho­ne they infor­med the Sys­sel­man­nen that 2 tents are alre­a­dy des­troy­ed in the storm.

Next to the SAR heli­c­op­ters, which are curr­ent­ly on the way, the SAR forces are pre­pa­ring a snow mobi­le expe­di­ti­on, as it is uncer­tain whe­ther the heli­c­op­ters can land in the pre­vai­ling bad wea­ther.

Curr­ent­ly, the­re is no fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on about the situa­ti­on of the group available.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

In the north and east, the drif­ting sea ice is now more and more clo­sing around Spitsbergen’s coast, but the fjords remain lar­ge­ly ice-free this year. Even fjords that usual­ly free­ze over quite relia­bly, such as Tem­pel­fjord, Bil­lefjord, Dick­son­fjord, Ekm­anfjord (all bran­ches of Isfjord) as well as Wij­defjord and Van Mijenfjord are far more open than they usual­ly are, much to the reg­ret of tho­se who are enjoy­ing the cur­rent ski, dog sledge and snow mobi­le sea­son – and, more important­ly, the wild­life, who needs the ice to give birth to their off­spring, such as Rin­ged seals, or to find food, as the polar bear does.

At least, some fjords are fro­zen in their inner­most parts. Dick­son­fjord had an ice cover that came clo­ser to nor­mal stan­dards than in the case of most other fjords.

Recent­ly, from 8 to 10 April, the rese­arch ves­sel Lan­ce bro­ke a lead of seve­ral kilo­me­t­res into the fast ice of Dick­son­fjord. This was done as part of a field cour­se in sea ice, ori­gi­nal­ly sche­du­led to take place in Horn­sund, but as ice con­di­ti­ons the­re did not deve­lop sui­ta­b­ly, UNIS appli­ed for per­mis­si­on to break a lead of “seve­ral ship’s lengths” into Dick­son­fjord.

The result is an ope­ning seve­ral kilo­me­t­res long. At the inner­most posi­ti­on, the ice thic­k­ness was a mere 35 cen­ti­me­t­res. Fur­ther out, it was even less. It can accor­din­gly not be expec­ted that the ice free­zes solid again during the cur­rent sea­son. It seems rather likely that the long crack may decrease the sta­bi­li­ty of the who­le fjord ice, poten­ti­al­ly con­tri­bu­ting to an ear­lier break-up of the ice in Dick­son­fjord.

The lead bro­ken by Lan­ce is met with cri­ti­cism from seve­ral sides. Among­st others, Harald Sol­eim, a Nor­we­gi­an trap­per who has lived in Dick­son­fjord for many years, is less than amu­sed. During spring, he uses the fjord ice to tra­vel within his hun­ting area by snow mobi­le. He was not even infor­med about the lead bro­ken by Lan­ce and descri­bed the unex­pec­ted ope­ning as “direct­ly life dan­ge­rous”. UNIS reg­rets not having infor­med Sol­eim in advan­ce. If brea­king up fjord ice in times of low ice cover, at the cost of wild­life and humans, is jus­ti­fied for a sci­en­ti­fic field cour­se, may be dis­pu­ted. It is doubtful that per­mis­si­on had been given if stan­dards for sci­en­ti­fic ope­ra­ti­ons were equal­ly strict as for tou­ristic acti­vi­ties.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen (Felt­logg), Sval­bard­pos­ten

The simi­la­ri­ty to the next to last head­line is no coin­ci­dence: again, a ski­er fell down a crev­as­se on a gla­cier in Spits­ber­gen. And again, it went well in the end.

A group of five tou­rists led by one gui­de was on the way back from a trip to New­ton­top­pen, Spitsbergen’s hig­hest moun­tain. In the area of Con­way­jø­ku­len, nor­the­ast of Bil­lefjord, the group got into crev­as­sed area. At the time (Thurs­day, 16 April) the wea­ther was bad in the area, with strong winds and drif­ting snow and visi­bi­li­ty accor­din­gly poor. The six ski­ers were roped up into two groups of three per­sons each, when the gui­de, lea­ding the first group, well down into a crev­as­se. His two fol­lo­wers could, howe­ver, stop his fall after 6 met­res. The second team approa­ched the crev­as­se and final­ly mana­ged to retrie­ve the emer­gen­cy bea­con, which the gui­de had with him.

Due to the poor visi­bi­li­ty on the ground, the res­cue heli­c­op­ter was not able to land, despi­te seve­ral attempts. Res­cue forces in Lon­gye­ar­by­en pre­pared a ski expe­di­ti­on, and the heli­c­op­ter pre­pared to winch the six per­sons all up indi­vi­du­al­ly, when the wea­ther impro­ved slight­ly, allo­wing the heli­c­op­ter to land. Mean­while, the five ski­ers on the ground had mana­ged to get their gui­de up from the crev­as­se. He had suf­fe­r­ed light should­er inju­ries, but was other­wi­se unhurt.

All six and their dog could then board the heli­c­op­ter and return to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The exact posi­ti­on of the crev­as­se has not been published. The wide gla­cier are­as of Lomo­noss­ov­fon­na are gene­ral­ly thought to have few crev­as­ses only. It is pos­si­ble that the group had ended up some­whe­re they would not have gone in bet­ter visi­bi­li­ty. It is not known if the crev­as­se had been visi­ble under bet­ter con­di­ti­ons.

Sources: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten

The high­ly con­tro­ver­si­al pro­cess of new regu­la­ti­ons in the lar­ge natu­re reser­ves in East Sval­bard is now lar­ge­ly coming to an end: the new law is coming in force on 01st May 2014. The quar­rel has been open and part­ly hea­ted sin­ce at least 2007.

The result is lar­ge­ly fol­lo­wing the Sysselmannen’s pro­po­sal from Janu­ary 2013. It remains, in the eyes of the pre­sent aut­hor, valid and true that the exper­ti­se behind the new regu­la­ti­ons is, in lar­ge parts, weak or not exis­tent. Nevert­hel­ess, most of tho­se tra­ve­ling the are­as in ques­ti­on should at least lar­ge­ly find them­sel­ves able to get used to the new situa­ti­on (and if not, they will have to, any­way) wit­hout too dra­stic chan­ges. Regar­ding some poten­ti­al­ly important details, it remains to see how it will work in prac­ti­ce. This con­cerns access to the new, so-cal­led sci­en­ti­fic refe­rence are­as.

The important chan­ges are the fol­lo­wing (part­ly quo­ted from Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news, Janu­ary 2013. Updated and added to as nee­ded).

Six part­ly new zones will be deter­mi­ned in the lar­ge Natu­re Reser­ves in East Sval­bard. Some of them are lar­ge, others rest­ric­ted to sin­gle loca­ti­ons. Dif­fe­rent regu­la­ti­ons app­ly to the­se zones (see map below):

Zone A (yel­low): “Sci­en­ti­fic refe­rence are­as”. Anyo­ne who wants to tra­vel the­re needs to noti­fy the Sys­sel­man­nen at least 4 weeks in advan­ce. The Sys­sel­man­nen can requi­re chan­ges of plans or stop them altog­e­ther. The result could poten­ti­al­ly still come clo­se to a com­ple­te clo­sure of the are­as in ques­ti­on, which are lar­ge, alt­hough most­ly (but not com­ple­te­ly) irrele­vant for tou­rism. The sci­en­ti­fic need for and value of such refe­rence are­as remains very con­tro­ver­si­al, no solid argu­ments that sup­port such a need or value bey­ond gene­ral, rather dif­fu­se remarks of gene­ral pre­ven­ti­on, have been put for­ward. This did not keep DN and other inte­res­ted par­ties from decla­ring that such are­as were neces­sa­ry. By the way, an obli­ga­ti­on to app­ly for per­mis­si­on to tra­vel in the East Sval­bard Natu­re Reser­ves – which cover the pro­po­sed refe­rence are­as and far more – is alre­a­dy in force and has been so for many years. Time will have to show what the new regu­la­ti­ons will real­ly bring. Any­thing is pos­si­ble from a litt­le bit more paper­work befo­re the trip to a fac­tu­al clo­sure of lar­ge are­as.

Zone B (oran­ge): No admis­si­on bet­ween May 15 and August 15. This means in prac­ti­ce a clo­sure of parts of Lågøya and all of Tusenøya­ne for most of the rele­vant sea­son. This is the only “detail” whe­re the map below needs to be updated: the clo­sed area does not include the who­le island, but the west coast and the nor­t­hern tip. The lat­ter is the only part of the island that is regu­lar­ly visi­ted by tou­rists. A simi­lar regu­la­ti­on is alre­a­dy in force for the bird reser­ves, but the­se are rest­ric­ted to smal­ler are­as and loca­ti­ons, most­ly the actu­al bree­ding colo­nies on smal­ler islands, rather than lar­ger islands and who­le island groups.

Zone C (green dots): site-spe­ci­fic regu­la­ti­ons are to app­ly. This is a pro­ce­du­re which is get­ting incre­asing­ly com­mon for polar tou­rism, for exam­p­le in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca. The site-spe­ci­fic rules are to be com­pi­led by the tou­rism indus­try (repre­sen­ted by AECO) under the Sysselmannen’s super­vi­si­on. A lot of work on the­se site-spe­ci­fic regu­la­ti­ons has alre­a­dy been done. In the east Sval­bard natu­re reser­ves, the­re are 4 rele­vant loca­ti­ons: Polar­sta­rod­den (Storøya), André­e­ne­set and Kræ­mer­pyn­ten (Kvi­tøya), Dole­ritt­ne­set (“Kapp Lee”) and André­e­tan­gen (Edgeøya).

Zone D (red dots): smal­ler are­as around cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge sites that are clo­sed com­ple­te­ly year round. In force sin­ce 2010.

Zone E (red): This is Kong Karls Land. No admis­si­on around the year. Has alre­a­dy been in force sin­ce for many years.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, it has been deci­ded that ships sai­ling in the east Sval­bard natu­re reser­ves may not car­ry more than 200 pas­sen­gers. Grey water and toi­let waters may not be dischar­ged within 500 met­res off shore and not at all in Rijpfjord, a site for long-term ocea­no­gra­phic stu­dies. Tog­e­ther with the ban on hea­vy fuel on board ships tra­ve­ling insi­de the natu­re reser­ves, which has alre­a­dy been in force for some time, the­se parts of the new regu­la­ti­ons make a lot of sen­se from a con­ser­va­ti­on per­spec­ti­ve.

This map is from the Sysselmannen’s pro­po­sal from Janu­ary 2013 and is used here for prac­ti­cal reasons. The only details that needs some updating is Lågøya, which is not com­ple­te­ly clo­sed (15 May-15 August), but only along the west coast and nor­t­hern tip (Purchas­ne­set), indi­ca­ted by the red line on the map. The offi­ci­al maps as enc­lo­sed with the new law text can be acces­sed in the Nor­we­gi­an online law libra­ry

Click here for a lar­ger ver­si­on of this map.

Source: Press release of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment: east Sval­bard Natu­re Reser­ves .

Here you can read the com­ple­te law (Nor­we­gi­an), inclu­ding maps.

On Sun­day, a ski­er fell 25 met­res down into a crev­as­se in a gla­cier on Nor­dens­ki­öld­fjel­let near Lon­gye­ar­by­en. With a lot of luck and swift reac­tion by the local SAR forces, the man could be res­cued essen­ti­al­ly wit­hout inju­ries.

The moun­tain Nor­dens­ki­öld­fjel­let, 1050 met­res high, is the sou­thern, hig­her part of Pla­tå­ber­get and a popu­lar desti­na­ti­on for spor­ti­ve outings from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The crev­as­ses in the hig­her, stee­per part of the gla­cier are not unknown. Com­mon rou­tes lead eit­her over parts of the gla­cier gene­ral­ly assu­med to be safe (in a distance of the crev­as­se in ques­ti­on) or over rocky rid­ges at eit­her side to the gla­cier. The lat­ter opti­on is dif­fi­cult or imprac­ti­ca­ble in win­ter, when the rocks, which include some stee­per steps, are fro­zen over with ice.

The ski­er was in a group of altog­e­ther 9 per­sons who were on the way down from the sum­mit. On the way, the 9 had split up into 2 groups. Once the man, who is in the mid twen­ties, had fal­len into the crev­as­ses, his com­ra­des did not dare to move any­whe­re, but alar­med the Sys­sel­man­nen. Res­cue forces of Sys­sel­man­nen and Red Cross whe­re soon on the sce­ne with 2 heli­c­op­ters and after about 2 hours in total the man was in safe­ty again, lucki­ly wit­hout any inju­ries despi­te a fal­ling distance of 25 met­res. It can be assu­med that the crev­as­se was not ver­ti­cal, which would not be uncom­mon for a crev­as­se near the steep cont­act bet­ween ice and rocks at the hig­her end of a gla­cier.

The posi­ti­on of the crev­as­se is given as N78 10.95 E15 26.55 by the Sys­sel­man­nen, which is in accordance with the crev­as­se mark­ed in the pho­to below. The pho­to was taken on July 19, 2009 and shows the gla­cier with less snow cover than curr­ent­ly. At the time of the acci­dent on last Sun­day, the crev­as­se was cover­ed with snow and accor­din­gly invi­si­ble at the sur­face.

Source: Felt­logg Sys­sel­man­nen

Impres­si­ons from the Trap­pers Trail 2014, Spitsbergen’s lar­gest dog sled race. Sin­ce 2009, the Trap­pers Trail is an annu­al event. The rou­te is in toal 75 kilo­me­t­res long and takes the teams from Lon­gye­ar­by­en via Toda­len and Bøda­len to Kapp Lai­la on the first day, whe­re the teams, orga­ni­zers and visi­tors enjoy a memo­rable evening with bon­fi­re, oven-hea­ted tents and a grand view over Isfjord. The second day takes the teams through Fard­a­len and up to Lon­gye­ar­breen. The slo­pe up to the pass to the gla­cier is the toug­hest part of the rou­te, which is, altog­e­ther, well within reason for reason­ab­ly well trai­ned teams.

The­re are seve­ral disci­pli­nes, depen­ding on the num­ber of dogs per team and the kind of sledge. “Ski and pulk” is a group on its own. This year, “Lon­gye­ar­by­en Hun­de­klubb” has announ­ced a record-brea­king num­ber of par­ti­ci­pan­ts: 23 teams with 38 mus­hers and 199 dogs. The win­ner was not yet cer­tain at the time of wri­ting.

Trap­pers Trail (gal­lery)

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

This weekend (April 05/06) it’s time again for Spitsbergen’s big­gest dog sledge event, the famous Trap­pers Trail race. This time, records have been bro­ken befo­re the race even star­ted: No less than 22 teams with 38 mus­hers and 199 dogs have signed in to par­ti­ci­pa­te. This is an all time record until now. The Trap­pers Trail race is an annu­al event sin­ce 2009.

As the wea­ther fore­cast is pret­ty good – over­cast, but litt­le wind – the teams, orga­nisers and visi­tors are loo­king for­ward to a gre­at dog sledge weekend. The rou­te is on Satur­day from Lon­gye­ar­by­en via Toda­len and Bøda­len to Kapp Lai­la, whe­re Lon­gye­ar­by­en Hun­de­klubb has got a hut, whe­re the par­tic­pants will stay until Sun­day. The rou­te back is going through Fard­a­len and up the rather steep slo­pe to the pass over to Lon­gye­ar­breen. The total distance is 75 kilo­me­t­res.

Good trip! Loo­king for­ward to it …!

More: Lon­gye­ar­by­en Hun­de­klubb

Tem­pe­ra­tures in Janu­ary and espe­ci­al­ly Febru­ary were far abo­ve the long-term avera­ge (see Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news: Febru­ary tem­pe­ra­tures in Lon­gye­ar­by­en 15 degrees abo­ve avera­ge). Now, win­ter has final­ly come to Spits­ber­gen the way it should be, but it looks as if it is too late for the sea water to cool down and allow the fjords to free­ze pro­per­ly. Even fjords that are usual­ly relia­bly fro­zen such as Van Mijenfjord, Tem­pel­fjord and inner Wij­defjord are lar­ge­ly open, and fjord ice cover is curr­ent­ly limi­t­ed to rela­tively thin sheets in the inner­most parts.

Noor­der­licht, usual­ly fro­zen in the ice in Tem­pel­fjord during the spring sea­son, has can­cel­led the “ship in the ice” for this sea­son and is ins­tead run­ning the first sai­ling excur­si­ons in Isfjord with geo­lo­gy stu­dents.

The pho­to below shows the ice edge in Tem­pel­fjord as of last Satur­day (March 29). It is only behind Kapp Schoultz/Kapp Mur­doch that the fjord is fro­zen. The days to come are sup­po­sed to be reason­ab­ly cold and we hope they may bring more ice. Locals and tou­rists can cho­se alter­na­ti­ve rou­tes inde­pen­dent of fro­zen fjords for their excur­si­ons, for exam­p­le to Barents­burg or to the east coast, but the regio­nal envi­ron­ment would great­ly bene­fit from nor­mal ice con­di­ti­ons, for exam­p­le Rin­ged seals, which give birth to their off­spring on fjord ice later in spring.

As so many other acti­vi­ties in the Arc­tic, most rese­arch acti­vi­ties are very sea­so­nal and lar­ge­ly con­cen­tra­ted in the sum­mer, when working con­di­ti­ons are – well, not easy, but easier than in the polar win­ter, which brings cold, bad wea­ther and dark­ness 24 hours a day.

So far it was lar­ge­ly belie­ved that it would somehow be simi­lar with ani­mal life, lar­ge­ly. Of cour­se, polar bears don’t hiber­na­te and reinde­er have to look for food 12 months a year, and most ani­mals who can move long distance make sure they spend the win­ter some­whe­re more plea­sant. But whoe­ver stays, redu­ces his acti­vi­ty, from move­ment to meta­bo­lism, to a mini­mum. At least accor­ding to com­mon assump­ti­ons, lar­ge­ly based on a lack of bet­ter know­ledge.

Some „light“ has now been shed into this dark­ness during a rese­arch expe­di­ti­on of the Nor­we­gi­an ves­sel Hel­mer Hans­sen (form­er­ly known as the Jan May­en), just a few weeks ago in Kongsfjord. The idea was to make obser­va­tions and coll­ect data to veri­fy or cor­rect tho­se old assump­ti­ons.

In times of a nor­mal day-night-cycle, plank­ton will move towards the sur­face to feed during dark­ness and back into lower, dar­ker water lay­ers at day­ti­me to keep away from pre­da­tors. This regu­lar move­ment bet­ween food-rich sur­face waters and the dark­ness of the deep is the big­gest natu­ral move­ment of bio­mass on Earth. One of the rese­arch ques­ti­ons is if a simi­lar move­ment is still taking place in times of 24 hour dark­ness. Even if it will take time for data to be ana­ly­sed and results to be published, it is alre­a­dy now clear that the­re is much more acti­vi­ty in the water, inclu­ding move­ment, than belie­ved so far.

Pre­da­to­ry fish spe­ci­es are appear­ent­ly able to find food to a hig­her degree than assu­med. This is one result of ana­ly­sis of sto­mach con­tent of fish caught during the expe­di­ti­on with Hel­mer Hans­sen. Fish had prey in their sto­mach which requi­res at least a mini­mum of visu­al per­cep­ti­on to be caught. This indi­ca­tes that the­se fish have some kind of night visi­on, at least to some degree. Eyes of such fish will now be ana­ly­sed to find out how this might work.

Quite hea­vy equip­ment was used for ocea­no­gra­phic work inclu­ding the move­ment of orga­nisms in the water column. As a first result, the assump­ti­on that arc­tic fjords are a slee­py place in the polar night can safe­ly be put asi­de. It is alre­a­dy clear that mari­ne bio­lo­gists who don’t mind cold and dark­ness will have a lot of work to do in the years to come.

Simi­lar inves­ti­ga­ti­ons in the Ant­ar­c­tic have alre­a­dy shown that the­re is much more acti­vi­ty during the polar night in the south polar sea, too.

Ano­ther important rese­arch field is the ques­ti­on of the reac­tion of mari­ne orga­nisms to envi­ron­men­tal chan­ges, ran­ging from low con­cen­tra­ti­ons of oil in the water to cli­ma­te chan­ge which will redu­ce the ice cover in space, thic­k­ness and time and bring hig­her water tem­pe­ra­tures. The­se ques­ti­ons will invol­ve a lot of labo­ra­to­ry work on fish and plank­ton caught ali­ve during months and years to come.

The work on Hel­mer Hans­sen in Kongsfjord was coor­di­na­ted by Nor­we­gi­an sci­en­tists, but invol­ved inter­na­tio­nal rese­ar­chers. Mari­ne bio­lo­gists and spe­cia­lists from all over the world are loo­king for­ward to the results.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

The rus­si­an nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne Kras­no­dar is on fire sin­ce Mon­day mor­ning near Mur­mansk. Kras­no­dar is a Oscar II class boat, simi­lar to the Kursk, and one of the last Rus­si­an sub­ma­ri­nes from the days of the Cold War to be taken out of ser­vice in 2012 for scrap­ping.

Accor­ding to the web­site Barents­ob­ser­ver, scrap­ping a nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne starts with rem­oval of spent nuclear fuel. Next is remo­ving the rub­ber cover of the outer hull. This seems to be a dan­ge­rous pro­cess, as fires of the outer rub­ber lay­er during rem­oval have occur­red befo­re more than once. It seems as if the pre­sent fire is a simi­lar case.

The rem­oval of the nuclear reac­tors is the last step of scrap­ping a nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne. In other words, the 2 reac­tors are still on board, with con­sidera­ble amounts of radio­ac­ti­ve mate­ri­als.

Kras­no­dar is in the Rus­si­an navy shi­py­ard Ner­pa north of Mur­mansk, only about 100 km from the Nor­we­gi­an bor­der. Despi­te an infor­ma­ti­on exch­an­ge agree­ment, Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties were infor­med by media about the fire befo­re they got any infor­ma­ti­on from offi­ci­al Rus­si­an sources. The Nor­we­gi­an dis­trict gover­nor descri­bes a fire on a nuclear sub­ma­ri­ne as a serious issue.

Accor­ding to Rus­si­an infor­ma­ti­on, no radio­ac­ti­vi­ty has escaped so far.

Source: Barents­ob­ser­ver

The snow mobi­le sea­son has star­ted a few weeks ago in Spits­ber­gen. Some locals start alre­a­dy during the polar night, while most others and most tou­rists start their snow mobi­le excur­si­ons when the light comes back around mid Febru­ary. The sea­son lasts as long as snow and ice make it pos­si­ble to be out, usual­ly into the first days of May or until mid-May if it works well.

Snow mobi­le excur­si­ons make it pos­si­ble to see ama­zing places which are other­wi­se hard to reach, if not impos­si­ble for most, but they bear their spe­ci­fic risks. If you don’t know the local ter­rain and you do not have expe­ri­ence with snow mobi­les, then it is defi­ni­te­ly a good idea to join a gui­ded group. This is also the offi­ci­al recom­men­da­ti­on by the Sys­sel­man­nen (gover­nor).

Some inci­dents of the last cou­ple of weeks:

• In ear­ly March, tou­rists had to be evacua­ted with heli­c­op­ters in two cases after having suf­fe­r­ed frac­tures while fal­ling with their snow mobi­les or, rather, tur­ning them over in uneven ter­rain. Both inci­dents hap­pen­ed near Sas­send­a­len, one in the morai­ne of Rabot­breen and one in Bratt­li­da­len. Both per­sons were mem­bers of gui­ded groups.
• On Tues­day (March 18), a man had to be air­lifted with chest inju­ries after he had dri­ven his snow mobi­le over a steep slo­pe, fal­ling down 6 met­res. Other mem­bers of his group cal­led the res­cue forces with mobi­le pho­nes, but could not pro­vi­de a posi­ti­on as they did not exact­ly know whe­re they were. The group was not gui­ded and did not have GPS or local know­ledge. The inci­dent hap­pen­ed on the coast bet­ween Coles­buk­ta and Barents­burg, a fre­quent­ly used rou­te, but with seve­ral steep slo­pes which are hard to see and serious­ly dan­ge­rous at ina­de­qua­te speed.

In ano­ther case, a per­son went uncon­scious and fell from his snow mobi­le at low speed in Grønfjord, south of Grøn­da­len. First aid was given, but his life could not be saved. The infor­ma­ti­on available seems to indi­ca­te a heart attack or simi­lar medi­cal emer­gen­cy.

The first two cases indi­ca­te that acci­dents can natu­ral­ly also hap­pen while on tour with gui­ded groups. But at least local­ly know­led­geable gui­des will make sure ade­qua­te speed is being used, which is espe­ci­al­ly important in case of ter­rain obs­ta­cles such as steep slo­pes which can be very dif­fi­cult to see. Ade­qua­te speed is of vital importance. Gui­ded groups also have emer­gen­cy equip­ment inclu­ding satel­li­te pho­nes. The mobi­le pho­ne cover in Spits­ber­gen is unre­lia­ble or, rather, inexis­tent over wide are­as.

For safe tours with snow mobi­le and ski, the fol­lo­wing are recom­men­ded or should be con­side­red:

• Ava­lan­che equip­ment (snow sho­vel, ava­lan­che pro­be), unless you stay in cle­ar­ly ava­lan­che-safe ter­rain.
• Local know­ledge or good advice from peo­p­le with local expe­ri­ence. GPS with digi­tal map, spa­re bat­te­ries (!), and prin­ted map and com­pass as a back­up.
• Emer­gen­cy equip­ment. Prepa­re for a pro­lon­ged stay in the field in case of sud­den bad wea­ther or snow mobi­le break­down. Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on equip­ment inde­pen­dent of mobi­le pho­ne grid such as satel­li­te pho­ne and PLB. Tent, slee­ping bag, iso­la­ti­on mat­tress, cam­ping sto­ve and fuel, extra warm clo­thes. Be rea­dy to stay out for at least 24 hours in bad wea­ther.
• Rif­le and other polar bear safe­ty equip­ment.
• Stay with an expe­ri­en­ced per­son or join a gui­ded group if you don’t have expe­ri­ence with snow mobi­les.
• Make sure you know how to deal with minor, com­mon repairs such as exchan­ging the v-belt.
• Snow mobi­les like to break down, espe­ci­al­ly when it is most unwel­co­me. Con­sider this for any trip fur­ther away than you can walk back.
• If you don’t real­ly know the ter­rain: expect ter­rain obs­ta­cles that are dif­fi­cult to see.
• Obser­ve regu­la­ti­ons: you need hel­met and dri­ving licen­se, zero alco­hol and, for lar­ge parts of Spits­ber­gen, insu­rance cover and noti­fi­ca­ti­on to the admi­nis­tra­ti­on in advan­ce. The­re are scoo­ter-free are­as. If you don’t know the regu­la­ti­ons and boun­da­ries, you have to join someone who does, such as a gui­ded group.

This list is not com­ple­te, but it includes some important points.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten, my own expe­ri­ence.

On Sval­bard, sale and pro­duc­tion of alco­ho­lic drinks are curr­ent­ly regu­la­ted more strict­ly than in main­land Nor­way. Apart from bars and restau­rants, alco­ho­lic drinks are only sold by the govern­men­tal mono­po­list “Nord­po­let” in Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and the­re the allo­wan­ce is limi­t­ed for ever­yo­ne. Locals have a card and tou­rists use their flight ticket to docu­ment purcha­ses. Pro­duc­tion of alco­ho­lic drinks is com­ple­te­ly pro­hi­bi­ted, both for com­mer­cial pur­po­ses and for pri­va­te con­sump­ti­on.

The­se regu­la­ti­ons are now under recon­side­ra­ti­on and it seems they might soon be histo­ry. It is four years ago that Robert Johan­sen cont­ac­ted the Nor­we­gi­an Health Depart­ment to app­ly for the con­ces­si­on for a bre­wery in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. This was not pos­si­ble under given legis­la­ti­on, but for once, aut­ho­ri­ties were wel­ling (after all, it was about beer!) so this tur­ned out to start the pro­cess for a legis­la­ti­ve amend­ment.

Curr­ent­ly the Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties deci­de on the sus­pen­si­on of the regu­la­ti­ons, which date part­ly back as far as 1929. The Depart­ments of Health and Agri­cul­tu­re did alre­a­dy signal that a chan­ge of regu­la­ti­ons is wel­co­me and that no reasons are seen against it. If the legis­la­ti­ve amend­ment comes, the pro­duc­tion of alco­ho­lic drinks will be made pos­si­ble as a start. Later the quan­ti­ta­ti­ve limi­ta­ti­on for the sale of alco­hol may be abo­lished.

If ever­y­thing pro­ceeds as expec­ted, Robert Johan­sen wants to offer beer “made in Lon­gye­ar­by­en” as soon as sum­mer 2014. His bre­wery will be cal­led Sval­bard Bryg­ge­ri AS and will start with a pro­duc­tion of ca. 100.000 liters per year. Sale of rela­ted sou­ve­nirs is also plan­ned. The­re are reac­tions on the expec­ted amend­ment in Barents­burg as well. The­re the Rus­si­an mining com­pa­ny Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol alre­a­dy appli­ed for the con­ces­si­on for a bre­wery – which alre­a­dy exists sin­ce 2013 as part of the mining com­pa­ny.

When the bre­wing in Lon­gye­ar­by­en real­ly starts, Sval­bard Bryg­ge­ri will be the nor­t­hern­most bre­wery in the world. Curr­ent­ly Mack Bre­wery in Trom­sø claims this title and it might keep it offi­ci­al­ly as with an annu­al pro­duc­tion of 100.000 liters Sval­bard Bryg­ge­ri would be a microb­re­wery accor­ding to Nor­we­gi­an law. This term descri­bes small bre­we­ries with an annu­al pro­duc­tion lower than 600.000 liters. Seve­ral mcrob­re­we­ries are curr­ent­ly plan­ned in Nor­way, north of Trom­sø, for exam­p­le in Ham­mer­fest and in the muni­ci­pa­li­ty of Gam­vik.

The Mack Bre­wery faces the ari­sing com­pe­ti­ti­on posi­tively but as a big bre­wery it clas­si­fies its­elf in ano­ther cate­go­ry. Some years ago for finan­cial reasons the Mack Bre­wery moved its beer pro­duc­tion to Nordk­jos­botn wich is loca­ted south of Trom­sø. Mack nevert­hel­ess claims the title “the world´s nor­t­hern­most bre­wery” becau­se the company´s head­quar­ter is still in Trom­sø.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

The arc­tic drift ice cover usual­ly rea­ches its maxi­mum dis­tri­bu­ti­on in mid March. In 2014, howe­ver, the Febru­ary ext­ent was far behind the nor­mal values. The avera­ge was 14.4 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­t­res or 910,000 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­t­res less than the long-term avera­ge. This puts Febru­ary 2014 on the fourth place in the nega­ti­vensta­tis­tics sin­ce 1979, the begin­ning of sys­te­ma­tic obser­va­tions.

Febru­ary 2005 holds so far the abso­lu­te nega­ti­ve rekord.

In Febru­ary 2014, the ice cover grew with about 14,900 squa­re kilo­me­t­res per day. The cor­re­spon­ding long-term value is, howe­ver, 20,300 squa­re kilo­me­t­res. Short-term fluc­tua­tions against the gro­wing trend in Febru­ary are due to ice move­ment rather than mel­ting.

In Febru­ary 2014, the tem­pe­ra­tures in lar­ge parts of the Arc­tic were 4 to 8 degrees abo­ve the long-term avera­ge.

Source: Snow and Ice Data Cent­re

It is almost 25 years ago that the oil tan­ker Exxon Val­dez hit a reef on the south coast of Alas­ka. The Exxon Val­dez achie­ved sad fame when an alco­ho­lic cap­tain and an over­char­ged third mate stee­red the ship on rocks on March 24, 1989. 37,000 tons of cru­de oil were spil­led and pol­lu­ted 2,000 km of coast­li­ne. The result was and is an eco­lo­gi­cal and eco­no­mic­al dis­as­ter for a who­le regi­on.

Sci­en­tists have now had 25 years to stu­dy the con­se­quen­ces of an oil spill in cold (but not high arc­tic) coas­tal waters. The results are sobering:

• A cle­a­nup of a major spill of cru­de or hea­vy oil is impos­si­ble. Despi­te using resour­ces of about 2 bil­li­on US-$, Exxon has mana­ged to clean up a mere 7 % of the pol­lu­ted coast­li­ne. After the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon cata­stro­phe in the Gulf of Mexi­co, BP has used an astro­no­mic 20 bil­li­on US-$ but “clea­ned” no more than 3 % of coast­li­ne and sur­face waters, lar­ge­ly by using other toxic che­mi­cals. Con­clu­si­on: it is impos­si­ble to clean up a spill of hea­vy or cru­de oil once it has hap­pen­ed.
• Once dama­ge is a fact, it will last a long time, if not fore­ver. In Alas­ka, 32 habi­tats and popu­la­ti­on have been moni­to­red after the Exxon Val­dez dis­as­ter. Out of the­se, only 13 are con­side­red ful­ly “reco­ver­ed” or “very likely reco­ver­ed.” Thou­sands of tons of oil are still in the sedi­ment, pol­lu­ting their sur­roun­dings for a very long time.
• Eco­lo­gi­cal dama­ge can­not be repai­red by man, only by natu­re its­elf. To make this pos­si­ble, eco­sys­tems have to be int­act.
• The risks of oil spills, both the likeli­hood of such an event and the fol­lo­wing impact, is usual­ly unde­re­sti­ma­ted or down­play­ed by aut­ho­ri­ties and indus­tries.
• Pre­ven­ti­on is the only stra­tegy that real­ly makes sen­se. Curr­ent­ly, the indus­try tends to a redu­ce spill risk to “As Low As Reason­ab­ly Prac­ti­ca­ble” (ALARP); ins­tead of “As Low As Pos­si­ble” (ALAP), regard­less of cost” alt­hough “pre­ven­ti­on is cle­ar­ly cost-effec­ti­ve”.
• In cold are­as, the eco­lo­gi­cal impact and tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties increase stron­gly. Any attempt of clean-up in ice waters are high­ly unrea­li­stic to be suc­cessful.

The­se are some of the key results pre­sen­ted by Pro­fes­sor Stei­ner in an artic­le in the Huf­fing­ton Post. On the long term, only abs­ti­nence of oil will pre­vent oil spills. This was one of the demands of the 1989 dis­as­ter in Alas­ka, but the glo­bal need for oil has obvious­ly increased dra­ma­ti­cal­ly sin­ce. Sus­taina­bi­li­ty is not yet a signi­fi­cant fac­tor in decis­i­on making in poli­tics and eco­no­my.

Source: Huf­fing­ton Post