Fri
22 May
2015

Yee­ha – today I am start­ing my nor­t­hern sai­ling sea­son! The 3 mast bar­ken­ti­ne Anti­gua is wai­ting in the har­bour of Bodø in north Nor­way. She has taken 2 weeks to sail up here from Ham­burg. I am cove­ring the same distance a bit hig­her and fas­ter.

A day later, the inter­na­tio­nal group comes on board. Some lan­guage mathe­ma­tics: Ger­man + Dutch = Eng­lish.

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

A gent­le sou­thwes­ter­ly bree­ze is blo­wing, while we are lea­ving the har­bour of Bodø, steam­ing into Ves­t­fjord. 50 nau­ti­cal miles of open water bet­ween here and Rei­ne on Mos­ken­esøya, one of the sou­thern Lofo­ten islands. Soon, the sails are up. The sea is mode­ra­te, but enough for some on the first evening. Others enjoy sai­ling into the evening sun, while the famous Lofo­ten wall („Lofot­veg­gen“) is slow­ly appearing out of a cloud.

Tue
28 Apr
2015

This year’s win­ter sea­son will not be long any­mo­re, Lan­gøy­sund is alre­a­dy sai­ling again, the good, old day trip boat that will take tou­rists to Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den from now on throug­hout the sum­mer. Well, Pyra­mi­den is not yet acces­si­ble by boat, the­re is is still ice in inner Bil­lefjord – and that’s how it should be. Hop­eful­ly it lasts for ano­ther while.

We have to make use of that. Once again enjoy­ing the view from upper Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen across inner Bil­lefjord to Pyra­mi­den … a long trip, if done in one day, but we can’t afford a night in Pyra­mi­den now, time-wise.

The ice in Tem­pel­fjord has bro­ken up at Fred­heim, the­re is only a nar­row rim of ice atta­ched to the shore whe­re it is actual­ly still pos­si­ble to pass, but we deci­de to opt for a steep slo­pe down from a moun­tain deeper in the fjord, whe­re the ice is safer. Noor­der­licht is still the­re in the ice and will pro­ba­b­ly stay the­re for ano­ther cou­ple of weekd, but for how long will it be pos­si­ble to visit her?

The trip through scenic Bün­sow Land is always a high­light, espe­ci­al­ly in wea­ther like today. And then we have got it, this view from Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen, whe­re you stand 500 m abo­ve the fjord, under Urm­ston­fjel­let, to enjoy the view descri­bed abo­ve.

If you have been to Pyra­mi­den last year, then you will know the local gui­de Sascha. He is back again this year, a plea­sant mee­ting. And same for an equal­ly plea­sant, but much more sur­pri­sing mee­ting with a fri­end from the sai­ling boat Anti­gua. Ismail is here now with ano­ther boat, the Bør, which is along­side at the ice edge, not too far from Pyra­mi­den so they could walk here. So snow mobi­le expe­di­tio­nists and sail­ors meet in one and the same place.

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

The­re are even more remar­kab­le mee­tings on this beau­tiful day. As we have a rest on the ice on our way back to Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen, a polar bear fami­ly is wal­king not too far from us. The arc­tic can­not be more beau­tiful than this. They walk past us, and as they have left, we start again and con­ti­nue our long trip back to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. This was the last win­ter trip for us for this year. It won’t be long any­mo­re and then we will con­ti­nue under sail.

Sun
26 Apr
2015

25th-26th April 2015 – I can repeat the text of the last blog ent­ry here with just some minor adap­ti­ons wit­hout fee­ling bad about it. Some­ti­mes it is so easy. Life does not have to be com­pli­ca­ted up here, it does not have to be dif­fe­rent every day. The arc­tic is beau­tiful. Enjoy­ing it is the main point. That’s it.

Of cour­se it is nevert­hel­ess nice to dis­co­ver new places. Such as Mos­kus­da­len on the eas­tern side of Sas­send­a­len. Many dri­ve past Mos­kus­da­len on the way to the east coast, few bother to have a look. But it is a beau­tiful place. Not big and spec­ta­cu­lar. Small, silent, beau­tiful. It has even got an old hut, ano­ther secon­da­ry hut built by the famous Hil­mar Nøis, pro­ba­b­ly in the 1920s or 1930s.

And now, as pro­mi­sed, the slight­ly adapt­ed repe­ti­ti­on of the last blog’s text ☺

The scenic beau­ty of Sas­send­a­len and Mohn­buk­ta can­not be prai­sed too often. The bet­ter if you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy this arc­tic para­di­se not just for a few hours, but for some days. You don’t have to do a lot, the polar cine­ma is play­ing an end­less film of sheer beau­ty. Just watch natu­re through the win­dow of a cou­sy cabin for a while. You will con­stant­ly dis­co­ver new details and be ama­zed by the chan­ging light and atmo­sphe­re. Gre­at mid­night sun­sets.

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

Wed
22 Apr
2015

20th-22nd April 2015 – Vin­dod­den – The scenic beau­ty of Sas­senfjord and Tem­pel­fjord – both are one con­ti­nuous fjord sys­tem – can­not be prai­sed too often. The bet­ter if you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy this arc­tic para­di­se not just for a few hours, but for some days. You don’t have to do a lot, the polar cine­ma is play­ing an end­less film of sheer beau­ty. Just watch natu­re through the win­dow of a cou­sy cabin for a while. You will con­stant­ly dis­co­ver new details and be ama­zed by the chan­ging light and atmo­sphe­re. Some­ti­mes a fox will visit the hut. Gre­at mid­night sun­sets, the last ones of the spring. In a few days, the­re won’t be any sun­sets any­mo­re until late August.

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

Sun
12 Apr
2015

Lars­breen is clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, kind of a city park in a wider sen­se, a popu­lar area for ski­ing. As soon as you start to climb up, not far from Nyby­en, you have the arc­tic silence all around you, as Lars­breen is a snow mobi­le free area.

As most gla­ciers, Lars­breen is also chan­ging. The ascent is dif­fe­rent than it used to be. We clim­bed up through the cen­tral melt­wa­ter chan­nel, some­thing that pro­vi­ded a very inte­res­t­ing land­scape expe­ri­ence. A litt­le can­yon cut into the gla­cier, with various morai­ne depo­sits nice­ly visi­ble in the gla­cier ice. A cross sec­tion within an acti­ve gla­cier, how often do you get that?

Hig­her up, the gla­cier is get­ting wider, and next to it, the­re is Troll­stei­nen, offe­ring a love­ly view over cen­tral Nor­dens­ki­öld Land. With a nice­ly deve­lo­ped Halo as a crown, kind of a rain­bow, but based on ice crys­tals rather than water dro­p­lets.

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

Good downhill ski­ing, fol­lo­wed final­ly by a visit to Coal Miners’s Grill, the new fee­ding place in Nyby­en. What else could you ask for from a good day in the Arc­tic ☺

Sat
11 Apr
2015

It is such a thing with Tem­pel­fjord this year. Not too long ago, it was clear and easy: the tran­si­ti­on from solid ground in Sas­send­a­len to fjord ice in Tem­pel­fjord at Fred­heim was con­ve­ni­ent and as safe as fjord ice can ever be. This had been the case until 2013. In 2014, waves were lap­ping against the beach at Fred­heim for the who­le win­ter! This year, it was, well, not per­fect, but bet­ter. At least. It was pos­si­ble to get onto the ice at Fred­heim, alt­hough the ice edge was not far and the ice its­elf was not always as solid as one might have wis­hed. But it work­ed. Of cour­se, we did not miss the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pay the gla­ciers in inner Tem­pel­fjord a visit.

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

Thu
9 Apr
2015

As men­tio­ned, we just had to return to Bjørn­da­len. The pho­tos show why ☺

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

Wed
8 Apr
2015

The spell that the east coast has on some is strong. Magne­tic. For many, coast is coast. East, west, who cares. Buth for others, the east coast is some­thing spe­cial. A mani­fes­ta­ti­on of remo­ten­ess. It may help when the first visit the­re took place on a trek­king tour and not by snow mobi­le. Then, the distance has a total­ly dif­fe­rent mea­ning. Shorter legs of the who­le trip requi­re days and not hours or just minu­tes. Whe­re the land­scape appears as a con­ve­ni­ent high­way in the win­ter, you have got end­less tun­dra in the sum­mer, swam­py wet­lands, tor­ren­ti­al melt­wa­ter rivers, morains, gla­ciers, … the who­le lot. Just read Mar­tin Conway’s „First crossing of Spits­ber­gen“. Recom­men­ded!

And when the east coast is quite easi­ly acces­si­ble, it does not neces­s­a­ri­ly loo­se that charme. Quite the oppo­si­te. It is a gre­at plea­su­re not to resist the tempt­a­ti­on as often as pos­si­ble. Ice, wide­ness, silence …

Enough writ­ten for today. The pho­tos will do the rest.

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

Tue
7 Apr
2015

Advent­top­pen had been on the wish­list for quite some time alre­a­dy. The pro­blem: it is on the nor­t­hern side of Advent­fjord. A few kilo­me­t­res only from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, just on the other side of the fjord – on the other side of the fjord. That is exact­ly the pro­blem.

But as so often in the Arc­tic, the win­ter is making life easier. Lower Advent­da­len, near the fjord, is pret­ty much impos­si­ble to cross in the sum­mer. The river the­re is huge. But in win­ter? A high­way. Flat and dry.

A bit of app­ren­ti­ce­ship due had to be paid on the first attempt. The upper slo­pe of Advent­top­pen is quite steep and the snow sur­face was hard as con­cre­te. So the boots, nice­ly warm but too soft, tur­ned out to be not good enough for this pur­po­se. The risk of slip­ping and sli­ding down a steep 200 m slo­pe was just too big, so it was not to hap­pen that day.

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

Ano­ther attempt. Equip­ped with har­der boots and light wal­king cram­pons, it sud­den­ly was an easy thing. So Advent­top­pen was defi­ni­te­ly due that Tues­day. With 786 m, it is obvious­ly not the hig­hest moun­tain in Longyearbyen’s neigh­bour­hood, but that is not the point. The point is that the top is a point. Not a pla­teaux, as is so often the case in this area. No, on Advent­top­pen, the­re is one point that has got a sple­ndid 360 degree view ☺ guess what hap­pen­ed the­re. Of cour­se I had to cap­tu­re it with 360 degree pan­ora­ma tech­ni­que. And as I am a bit behind with this blog, the result is alre­a­dy online: Click here for Pano­Tour.

Sun
5 Apr
2015

(4th/5th April 2015) After some calm ear­ly April days, it is time to get out again when the Eas­ter weekend is approa­ching. Ever­y­bo­dy here who has some means of trans­por­ta­ti­on and pos­si­bly even access to one of the nowa­days much sought-after huts is abs­con­ding from zivi­li­sa­ti­on, and I am hap­py to be part of that. It does not have to be far and adven­tur­ous. That is one of Longyearbyen’s nice aspects: the arc­tic wil­der­ness starts as soon as you have pas­sed the last house.

For many here, Bjørn­da­len is some­thing like a city park in a wider sen­se. It is easy to get the­re by car or snow mobi­le, and the­re is a num­ber of huts in local owner­ship near the Isfjord coast. This is whe­re I spend this love­ly weekend. All inclu­si­ve! Scenic views of the wide Isfjord, good food in good com­pa­ny, and small things are sear­ched for by tho­se who still belie­ve in the Eas­ter bun­ny, hid­den by tho­se who know bet­ter. At least in this case.

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

The­re is no Eas­ter bun­ny in Bjørn­da­len, but Arc­tic fox and ptar­mi­gan are at home the­re. I will have to spend some more time here, soon.

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 … ☺)