The sud­den sur­fa­cing of the powerful Rus­si­an poli­ti­ci­an Dmit­ry Rogo­zin, vice pre­mier and lea­der of the Rus­si­an government’s new Arc­tic Com­mis­si­on, stir­red Nor­we­gi­an offi­ci­als up. Rogo­zin is on an EU sanc­tion list and not wel­co­me in Nor­way, as was sub­se­quent­ly made clear by the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment.

Rogo­zin pro­vo­ked the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment by men­tio­ning that the Nor­we­gi­an sove­reig­n­ty is limi­t­ed in Sval­bard (the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty makes undis­pu­ta­b­ly clear that Nor­way has full sove­reig­n­ty over the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go, but it does inde­ed put some limits to the exe­cu­ti­on of the sove­reig­n­ty). Accor­ding to Rogo­zin, nobo­dy could be kept from visi­ting Sval­bard.

It is not known how Rogo­zin, who made his arri­val known via twit­ter, arri­ved at the air­port at Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but it is safe to assu­me that he did not tra­vel trough main­land Nor­way. Rogo­zin soon con­tin­ued to the Rus­si­an drift ice sta­ti­on Bar­neo near the north pole, whe­re he made fur­ther pro­vo­ca­ti­ve comm­ents in an inter­view to Rus­si­an sta­te TV: “Last year, we had the his­to­ri­cal reuni­fi­ca­ti­on of Sevas­to­pol and the Cri­mea. This year, we pre­sent a new view and new powerful stress on the deve­lo­p­ment of the Arc­tic. Basi­cal­ly, its is all about the same …” and he con­tin­ued: Rus­sia is now “start­ing to get more con­scious about ter­ri­to­ry, its inte­rests and bor­ders”. Rus­sia is known as natio­na­list and expan­sio­nist.

Norway’s for­eign minis­ter Bør­ge Bren­de did not lea­ve any doubts that “peo­p­le on the sanc­tions list, peo­p­le that have been cen­tral in brea­ching inter­na­tio­nal law in Ukrai­ne, are not wel­co­me to the main­land or to Sval­bard”.

It is, howe­ver, unli­kely that this will make of an impres­si­on on the Rus­si­an vice pre­mier.

Source: Barents­ob­ser­ver

Two tickets have beco­me available again on the expe­di­ti­on to Jan May­en 2015 (15th-27th June) due to a can­cel­la­ti­on. Demand is high, the Jan May­en expe­di­ti­on in 2016 is alre­a­dy ful­ly boo­ked.

The­re is also still the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join us on the voya­ge in Spits­ber­gen (15th-25th Sep­tem­ber) 2015 with SV Anti­gua, with focus­ses on gla­cier hikes and pho­to­gra­phy, next to the “more usu­al” landings and walk, which we will cer­tain­ly also do. This voya­ge will be Ger­man spea­king.

The­re is a new pan­ora­ma tour (vir­tu­al tour) from Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, name­ly from Cape Ada­re in the Ross Sea. Cape Ada­re is one of the most famous, but rare­ly visi­ted places in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca: in 1895, it was the site of the first well-docu­men­ted landing on the con­ti­nent, and in 1899 it was the site of the very first win­tering on the con­ti­nent, by an expe­di­ti­on led by Kars­ten Borchgre­vink. The­se sto­ries are short­ly sum­ma­ri­zed in the new pan­ora­ma tour, and so is the visit of the nor­t­hern par­ty under Camp­bell during Robert F. Scott’s final expe­di­ti­on with Ter­ra Nova.

The pan­ora­ma tour docu­ments the his­to­ric huts at Cape Ada­re and gives impres­si­ons of the ama­zing sce­n­ery of the place at the nor­t­hern­most end of Vic­to­ria Land, being part of the famous Trans­ant­ar­c­tic Moun­ta­ins. Cape Ada­re is also home to the lar­gest colo­ny of Adé­lie pen­gu­ins in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, which means in the world.

In ear­ly Febru­ary, I was lucky to spend a rare good wea­ther day at Cape Ada­re. On this occa­si­on, I shot the pan­ora­mas which are now assem­bled to this new pan­ora­ma / vir­tu­al tour (click here to get to the tour). Enjoy a vir­tu­al trip to Cape Ada­re!

The arc­tic blog is now con­tin­ued! Sin­ce mid March, I am back in Spits­ber­gen and fre­quent­ly out on tour. Came­ra, an open eye and eager­ness to see and expe­ri­ence arc­tic sce­n­ery, wild­life and histo­ry are always with me, and this results in pho­to gal­le­ries and litt­le sto­ries from tra­vels out in the arc­tic wil­der­ness, published in my arc­tic blog, which will be con­tin­ued for most of the year. A trip to Tem­pel­fjord makes the begin­ning, fol­lo­wed by the event of the year in Spits­ber­gen, the solar eclip­se. Enjoy some vir­tu­al high lati­tu­de tra­ve­ling!

Click here for the over­view of the blog.

Emer­gen­cy ser­vices and hos­pi­tal have got a record-high num­ber of mis­si­ons and pati­ents from snow mobi­le acci­dents this year. Until late March, the hos­pi­tal had 38 pati­ents in tre­at­ment with inju­ries rela­ted to acci­dents from snow mobi­le dri­ving. In 2014, the equi­va­lent num­ber was 21. Inju­ries often include frac­tures.

The data base is not suf­fi­ci­ent to ana­ly­ze reasons, but this season’s insta­ble wea­ther may have con­tri­bu­ted with bad visi­bi­li­ty at times and icy sur­faces.

The pro­por­ti­ons of locals and tou­rists is also not known. Seve­ral serious acci­dents included local dri­vers, such as the young man who died in an ava­lan­che in Janu­ary and the exten­si­ve search and res­cue mis­si­on on the east coast. In late March, a young man from Lon­gye­ar­by­en fell into a 6 m deep snow who­le with his snow mobi­le and recei­ved hea­vy head inju­ries. He is still in hos­pi­tal in Trom­sø, not in a life-threa­tening con­di­ti­on any­mo­re but he his being kept in an arti­fi­ci­al coma.

The num­bers of par­ti­ci­pan­ts on orga­ni­zed tours have not rea­ched the levels of the record years of 2007 and 2008 again, but the num­bers of indi­vi­du­al snow mobi­le ren­tals have increased, indi­ca­ting a lar­ger num­ber of tou­rists indi­vi­du­al­ly in the field. Tho­se who are out on indi­vi­du­al trips with limi­t­ed expe­ri­en­ced and wit­hout local know­ledge have to remem­ber that they are tra­ve­ling with a strong vehic­le that can quick­ly reach high speed in ter­rain that has all the poten­ti­al traps and dan­ge­rous that the win­ter arc­tic may have. Uneven ter­rain, wind­ho­les in the snow etc. can be dif­fi­cult to see in bad wea­ther or poor light con­di­ti­ons, which may quick­ly result in dan­ge­rous acci­dents.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten (14, 2015)

The Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com Eas­ter brain­teaser – what does the pho­to at the bot­tom show? – has got a lot of nice repli­es. A sel­ec­tion of ans­wers (my own trans­la­ti­on of tho­se that were sent in Ger­man):

• Clo­se-up of Hump­back wha­le skin
• Clo­se-up of Wal­rus skin in black & white
• Ice sur­face. It looks like some­thing has ground it (like the sur­face at a cur­ling court (Swe­den beco­me world champs yes­ter­day!)). So that has to be my guess. Not a cur­ling court, but a ice cover­ed sur­face that been groun­ded in some way. May­be from dog sledge skids?
• Ice struc­tures
• Is it fro­zen water from below with trap­ped air bubbles?
• A warm item (e.g. a warm kett­le) put on fro­zen water.
• An aeri­al pho­to of fro­zen mud flats at low tide.
• I thought fro­zen water at first, but I don’t think that’s right.
• Not polished con­cre­te?
• Iced-over stroma­to­li­thes that got a gla­cio­lo­gi­cal hair­cut
• Nega­ti­ve imprint of a fos­sil fern
• think it is water over some fro­zen soil or some­thing….
  actual­ly i have no clue even after sta­ring for 30 minu­tes at the pic­tu­re!
  in any case: it is beau­tiful! 🙂
• A true con­ch in shal­low water?
• May­be a shoe sole
• A rather rare iron struc­tu­re on a geo­de (or part of it)
• Pro­fi­le of a snow mobi­le belt
• Clo­se-up of ice struc­tu­re
• A dog in a river bed / ice sur­face

A num­ber of inte­res­t­ing and sur­pri­sin­gly varied ans­wers! It seems to have been more dif­fi­cult than I had thought, and this shows how much came­ra and lens may help to see things that other­wi­se are hid­den or that we see, if at all, in a dif­fe­rent way. All tho­se who have seen gla­cier ice have had this phe­no­me­non near them (but not neces­s­a­ri­ly seen it and paid atten­ti­on to it).

This is how the pic­tu­re was taken:

A macro pho­to of gla­cier ice in an ice cave in a gla­cier, with tri­pod and macro lens, to make smal­lest details visi­ble. The brain­teaser pho­to shows very small air bubbles in gla­cier ice. The indi­vi­du­al bubbles and chan­nels are smal­ler than 1 mm. The area shown on the pho­to is, in rea­li­ty, an esti­ma­ted 4×6 mm lar­ge, or rather: small. This net­work of air bubbles was ori­en­ted in a plain par­al­lel to the very clear ice sur­face, about 2-3 cm deep in the ice, which altog­e­ther made it pos­si­ble to pho­to­graph it. Plea­se don’t ask me how exact­ly this pat­tern of air chan­nels comes into exis­tence, I don’t know. Plea­se tell me if you know.

The first pri­ce for “Clo­se-up of ice struc­tu­re” goes to Ste­pha­nie in Scot­land! Ste­pha­nie, the choice is yours!

The second pri­ce goes to Leip­zig and the third one to Swe­den. Con­gra­tu­la­ti­ons to all win­ners and a big thanks to all who sent their ans­wers! It was fun, and that was the who­le pur­po­se of it.

Update: I haven’t got an ans­wer so far that real­ly hits the nail on the head. The ques­ti­on will remain open and ent­ries can be filed until the ans­wer appears as a new spitsbergen-svalbard.com news ent­ry.

An Eas­ter brain­teaser on spitsbergen-svalbard.com? Yes, why not. I took the pho­to recent­ly here in Spits­ber­gen. And the first one who can tell me what it shows will recei­ve any item (your choice) of the books, post­cards or calen­dar on this web­site (see right side or click here). The second and third inco­ming ans­wers – being cor­rect – have the choice within post­cards or calen­dar. Ent­ries by email (cont­act).

Not dif­fi­cult, is it?

The ans­wer has to be cor­rect and con­cre­te. Ever­y­thing that is not wrong is cor­rect, unless it is wrong. I (Rolf Stan­ge) deci­de if it is con­cre­te (someone has to do it). It is not enough to wri­te that it is a bit of Spits­ber­gen. This would be cor­rect, but not con­cre­te.

To make it easier, you can down­load a lar­ger file of the same pho­to by cli­cking here.

Good luck – and hap­py Eas­ter!

Modern life in the arc­tic is deman­ding con­sidera­ble resour­ces. Food stuffs are impor­ted over long distances, which is cos­t­ly and burns a lot of fuel. Many visi­tors get a bit ner­vous when they see the pri­ces for food in the high north, and so-cal­led fresh vege­ta­bles are not always as fresh as you might want.

Food was­te is shred­ded and washed straight into the fjord tog­e­ther with was­te water, altog­e­ther a gre­at was­te. Ano­ther solu­ti­on would be high­ly desi­ra­ble, both from an envi­ron­men­tal and an eco­no­mic per­spec­ti­ve.

Thin­king local food in the arc­tic, most peo­p­le would pro­ba­b­ly have reinde­er steaks on their mind, which is obvious­ly not the solu­ti­on. Local vege­ta­bles? Nega­ti­ve. Even the Rus­si­an (Sov­jet, back then) sett­le­ments Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den were, in a way, more advan­ced, with con­sidera­ble local pro­duc­tion in green­hou­ses and sta­bles for cows, pigs etc., most of which have been aban­do­ned years ago.

But crea­ti­ve peo­p­le are working on solu­ti­ons to grow vege­ta­bles local­ly, fresh and envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly. A start up pro­ject cal­led Polar Per­ma­cul­tu­re Solu­ti­ons is deve­lo­ping tech­ni­ques in Lon­gye­ar­by­en for advan­ced green­hou­ses to grow vege­ta­bles in per­ma­frost are­as wit­hout high ener­gy and water con­sump­ti­on. First tests are pro­mi­sing: accor­ding to Polar Per­ma­frost Solu­ti­ons, pars­ley, cori­an­der, basil, papri­ka, sum­mer squash, mini corn, oni­ons, let­tuce, toma­toes, egg­plant, red chi­li pep­pers and more have alre­a­dy been grown suc­cessful­ly. Food was­te is used to pro­du­ce soil and fer­ti­li­zer with bio­lo­gi­cal tech­ni­ques (sounds bet­ter than worms, but that’s what it is)

Fresh, tasty, local pro­duc­tion and envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly – we are loo­king for­ward to see the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment!

Source: Polar Per­ma­cul­tu­re

During this win­ter sea­son 2014/2015 the sea ice in the Arc­tic has exten­ded much less than it usual­ly did.

As the U.S. Natio­nal Snow and Ice Data Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Colo­ra­do reports, this win­ter the ice likely rea­ched its maxi­mum extend as soon as Febru­ary 25th. This is 15 days ear­lier than the avera­ge of the years 1981 to 2010 which ser­ves as the refe­rence peri­od.

More alar­ming is the fact that the ext­ent of sea ice on this date had not pro­cee­ded very far yet. Inde­ed, sin­ce the begin­ning of the satel­li­te record the maxi­mum ext­ent of Arc­tic sea ice has never been as low as in this win­ter. On Febru­ary 25th the ice cover­ed an area of 14.54 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­ters. This is 1.1 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­ters less than the long term avera­ge and 130.000 squa­re kilo­me­ters less than the for­mer nega­ti­ve record of 2011. All are­as were affec­ted except for the Labra­dor Sea and the Davis Strait bet­ween Green­land and Cana­da. The­re was a remar­kab­ly low ext­ent of ice on the Paci­fic side of the Arc­tic and in the Barents Sea west of Nova­ya Sem­lya and sou­thwest of Spits­ber­gen.

After rea­ching its low maxi­mum on Febru­ary 25th the sea ice ext­ent initi­al­ly decreased signi­fi­cant­ly (with regio­nal varia­ti­ons) and then increased again in the second half of March. Howe­ver, a new maxi­mum could not be rea­ched. Curr­ent­ly the ice is retrea­ting again, accor­ding to the time of the year.

It can be expec­ted that the low ext­ent of sea ice in win­ter will also lead to less ice in the sum­mer sea­son. This sce­na­rio is sup­port­ed by the effect that open water sur­faces are absor­bing more solar ener­gy and are warm­ing up fas­ter than ice sur­faces which reflect most of the sun­light (see also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news: Retre­at of Arc­tic sea ice acce­le­ra­tes glo­bal warm­ing from Febru­ary 2014).

Source: Natio­nal Snow and Ice Data Cen­ter