Mon
30 Mar
2015

The stiff bree­ze from last night has evol­ved into a solid storm by now. The wea­ther has been rather insta­ble recent­ly, fluc­tua­ting from clear, cold, calm win­ter days through snow storms to warm air inva­si­ons with tem­pe­ra­tures even abo­ve zero and back, all within a week, more than once. Godt inne­vær, as the Nor­we­gi­ans say: good insi­de wea­ther, good to be at home. Which is also nice. And I have to get some work done, some books need to be writ­ten (yes, I am still doing that). And when you get a visi­tor as love­ly as this, it can’t be bor­ing any­way 🙂

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

Sun
29 Mar
2015

The trip to Barents­burg takes about 3 hours. We make use of the fine wea­ther by doing a bit of pho­to shoo­ting.

The times, they are a chan­gin’ … cle­ar­ly and visi­bly also here in Barents­burg, whe­re coal is still being mined, but the past has brought dif­fi­cul­ties and acci­dents in the mines and the future may be some­whe­re more sun­ny. Many of the hou­ses have got new fronts, ruins have been remo­ved. The­re is a new bre­wery with a restau­rant, and new, nice rooms in the hotel. A new hotel and a guest­house have been announ­ced. Barents­burg is attrac­ting curious visi­tors in num­bers alre­a­dy the­se days. Not only tou­rists who come with gui­ded tours, but also locals from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, who app­re­cia­te the oppor­tu­ni­ty of a short holi­day over the weekend. Food, rooms and ser­vice recei­ve regu­lar prai­se. The mining com­pa­ny Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol has alre­a­dy been cal­led Turist Ark­ti­ku­gol by the local Nor­we­gi­an news­pa­per Sval­bard­pos­ten …

We are also enjoy­ing lunch in Barents­burg. The­re is not too much time to look around today. We have a pho­to­gra­phic mis­si­on tog­e­ther with the group we are tra­ve­ling with, so we have to stick with their time sche­du­le. Some­thing that we usual­ly don’t have.

But then we are done with that mis­si­on and we can spend a long evening in Coles­buk­ta. Weird buil­dings of a Rus­si­an mining sett­le­ment aban­do­ned more than half a cen­tu­ry ago. To be pre­cise, this was the har­bour whe­re the coal was ship­ped that was mined in Gru­mant­by­en, ano­ther aban­do­ned place at the foot of a steep cliff fur­ther east, so they could not build a har­bour the­re. Inte­res­t­ing impres­si­ons in nice evening light. We stroll around, curious­ly inves­ti­ga­ting old buil­dings, mar­vel­ling at old, hea­vy machi­nery, geo­lo­gi­cal samples and silent wit­nesses of dai­ly life that was vibrant here until 1962. Pure pho­to­gra­phic plea­su­re! Glau­cous gulls are our com­pa­ny as we enjoy an end­less sun­set over Isfjord.

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

Mean­while, the wind has star­ted to pick up and it is time for the last leg of today’s trip, back to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Visi­bi­li­ty is quite poor on the pass abo­ve the gla­cier Lon­gye­ar­breen, a good 700 m high, and alt­hough we are only fol­lo­wing well-known and fre­quent­ly tra­vel­led rou­tes, we are quite hap­py to be back in town soon. On the same evening, as we hear later, a young local snow mobi­le dri­ver recei­ves serious inju­ries as he dri­ves into a deep wind hole in the snow. It is so bad that, once he is found, he is imme­dia­te­ly evacua­ted to the uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tal in Trom­sø with the ambu­lan­ce place, whe­re the doc­tors have to put him into arti­fi­ci­al coma …

Sat
28 Mar
2015

The­re are still sun­sets, still are a „nor­mal“ time, name­ly in the evening. The sun­sets are now incre­di­bly quick­ly moving towards mid­night, noti­ce­ab­ly later every day, until they join the sun­ri­se to crea­te the mid­night sun.

The­re are just 2 months bet­ween polar night and mid­night sun. The polar day will chan­ge life com­ple­te­ly here, ani­mals and peo­p­le will sleep less, be more acti­ve, chan­ge their rhythm.

And of cour­se the light will chan­ge. For a few weeks, April will still bring blue and red colours during the night, but the­se will give way to the sun in May, which will then be well abo­ve the hori­zon 24 hours a day.

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

And this is why we are here now, in late March, some hundred met­res abo­ve Hior­th­hamn, at one of the most beau­tiful view points, enjoy­ing the views over Advent­fjord and Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the light of an evening sun­set. The­re won’t be many more until Sep­tem­ber.

Sat
28 Mar
2015

Sas­send­a­len is one of Spitsbergen’s big­gest val­leys: 30 km long from Rabot­breen to Tem­pel­fjord and 5 km wide, it is making a strong impres­si­on of a very wide land­scape when you stand in the midd­le of it, whe­re a big melt­wa­ter river is run­ning in the sum­mer.

But it is espe­ci­al­ly some of the smal­ler tri­bu­t­a­ry val­leys that have scenic aspects which catch the eye of the obser­ver and the atten­ti­on of the pho­to­grapher. The fro­zen water­fall in Eskerd­a­len and the can­yon-like gor­ge in Bratt­li­da­len, whe­re you can touch the steep rock­walls on both sides at the same time in some places.

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

Fred­heim, the famous hut of the legen­da­ry hun­ter Hil­mar Nøis, is rea­dy to move. The three old buil­dings, inclu­ding the uni­que main buil­ding with two flo­ors, initi­al­ly built by Hil­mar Nøis in 1924 and regu­lar­ly used by him and his fami­ly until 1963, are threa­ten­ed by coas­tal ero­si­on and would not have sur­vi­ved the next cou­ple of years in their pre­sent posi­ti­on. Now they are stan­ding on hea­vy struc­tu­ral steel work, sta­bi­li­zed with woo­den beams and rea­dy to be pul­led up one ter­race on to safe ter­rain (this has been done suc­cessful­ly mean­while).

Fri
27 Mar
2015

Ano­ther day in Nor­dens­ki­öld Land, a bit fur­ther east this time, again tra­ve­led few kilo­me­t­res only, again spent a lot of time try­ing to dis­co­ver some­thing new in the land­scape and pho­to­graph it. One of the­se pho­tos led to the spon­ta­neous idea of the eas­ter brain­teaser, and I thought that this show­ed very nice­ly how a mate­ri­al belie­ved to be rather fami­li­ar – gla­cier ice – sud­den­ly reve­als some­thing com­ple­te­ly new as soon as you take a new, careful approach to look at it, even for someone who has spent a good part of his life near gla­ciers.

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

Pho­to­gra­phi­cal­ly, a bit of a chall­enge. Mil­li­met­re work in free­zing degrees. I don’t know if the result jus­ti­fies the effort, but who cares? One thing is sure: the plea­su­re of doing it was reason good enough for doing it. See­ing some­thing new and try­ing to figu­re out how to pho­to­graph it. (or not … ☺)

Wed
25 Mar
2015

Land­scape in blue and grey in cen­tral Nor­dens­ki­öld Land, some­whe­re bet­ween Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Barents­burg. Small and lar­ge val­leys, wide views, new tracks. Few kilo­me­t­res, many impres­si­ons and pho­tos. In our focus – in the truest sen­se! – the win­ter light of a clou­dy late March day and the snow mobi­les in dif­fe­rent ever­y­day dri­ving situa­tions. I spent more time in front of the came­ra rather than behind it, so my own pho­to coll­ec­tion from this day is not immense.

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

Tue
24 Mar
2015

You don’t have to go far away. Light and sce­n­ery, gre­at views and some wild­life – it is all here, clo­se to or even within Lon­gye­ar­by­en. No polar bears or wal­rus­ses, but tho­se endu­ring win­ter dwel­lers who can’t escape: reinde­er and ptar­mi­gan. The lat­ter are well camou­fla­ged also in win­ter, with their white plu­mage, so you almost can’t see them in the snow when they put the head down to pick some seeds from the fro­zen tun­dra, which is expo­sed whe­re the snow has been remo­ved by reinde­er on their eter­nal search for food. So gre­at to watch this ever-las­ting fight for sur­vi­val in the arc­tic wit­hout being part of it.

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

Hior­th­hamn, just oppo­si­te Lon­gye­ar­by­en, has one of Spitsbergen’s most impres­si­ve bits of his­to­ri­cal heri­ta­ge: the old coal ship­ping cra­ne from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry years of mining. Young ice floes are gent­ly scrat­ching the icy shore while the set­ting sun casts a blood-red light over the moun­ta­ins on the north side of Isfjord. It is late after­noon, not even evening, but it is just over 2 weeks ago that the first sun­rays in Lon­gye­ar­by­en were recei­ved with cele­bra­ti­on after the polar night. Now the light is coming back quick­ly.

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

Fri
20 Mar
2015

The solar eclip­se, schdu­led by astro­no­my some thousand years ago, if not more, for the late mor­ning of today, Fri­day 20th of March, 2015, beca­me a huge event for the inte­res­ted public years ago alre­a­dy. Thou­sands of eclip­se pil­grims from all over the world had brought the litt­le air­port near Lon­gye­ar­by­en to the limits of its capa­ci­ties with num­e­rous sche­du­led and char­te­red flights, and the situa­tions in the local hotels was quite simi­lar. The all-important ques­ti­on was obvous­ly the wea­ther. As soon as the first long-term fore­casts had emer­ged from the crys­tal balls 10 days befo­re, they were careful­ly scru­ti­ni­zed, and thou­sands of thumbs were sure­ly kept well crossed over the glo­be.

As it tur­ned out, the wea­ther Gods were on our side: some thin clouds cle­ared up during the mor­ning to give way to an undis­tur­bed view of a bril­li­ant­ly clear sky. Thou­sands of visi­tors and locals went to Advent­da­len near Lon­gye­ar­by­en to obser­ve the spec­ta­cle, and the ten­si­on was rising when the tota­li­ty approa­ched at 11.12 a.m. local time. We went a bit fur­ther into Advent­da­len, to enjoy the event in silence.

Solar eclip­ses have been descri­bed many times but remain, howe­ver, inde­scri­ba­ble, so I won’t try. I thought that tho­se who said a total solar eclip­se was still some­thing com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent than a par­ti­al one were exag­ge­ra­ting, but it is com­ple­te­ly true, and we are very glad to have seen it. Total dark­ness and total cold in the fin­ger­tips, but it was abso­lut­e­ly worth it. The moment the coro­na was blos­so­ming … but I didn’t want to descri­be it. So: pho­tos! Of cour­se I took some pho­tos, some­thing that wasn’t that easy … can we plea­se do it again?

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

It could be felt all over Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the after­noon how the stress and ten­si­on of the last days gave way to joy and reli­e­ve.

Thu
19 Mar
2015

In mid March, the arc­tic part of this year is begin­ning for me, and so does the arc­tic blog. A few weeks have gone sin­ce my return from the Ant­ar­c­tic, and some days befo­re the eclip­se it is time to move up to Lon­gye­ar­by­en again, to get rea­dy in time, get snow mobi­les and ski out again for some warm-up tours. The first ones went to Sas­send­a­len and Tem­pel­fjor­den.

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