This is one of the most beau­tiful sea­sons up north. The wea­ther tends to sett­le a bit, and the other­wi­se quite inac­ces­si­ble inland is invi­ting to long trips. We did not need to be told twice and we spent a lot of time out the­re, inclu­ding seve­ral trips to our bel­oved east coast. It is dif­fi­cult to point out that one out­stan­ding sin­gle event, it is a mat­ter of all tho­se many ever­y­day impres­si­ons in the win­ter arc­tic, tho­se many hours under the open sky, in cold air, the ever-chan­ging light, encoun­ters with polar foxes and the Spits­ber­gen reinde­er. And of cour­se spen­ding time with good fri­ends and mee­ting other good and inte­res­t­ing peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. All this makes the time pass very quick­ly. Soon the mid­night sun is kil­ling the last dark nights.

And if you want that one out­stan­ding expe­ri­ence, then it is pro­ba­b­ly our mee­ting with a polar bear fami­ly in Bil­lefjord. This will defi­ni­te­ly remain among­st our dea­rest memo­ries. And it sol­ved the pro­blem of a title pho­to for our Spits­ber­gen calen­dar 2016.

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

Spits­ber­gen made it into inter­na­tio­nal news agin when Rus­si­an vice pre­mier Rogos­in made an unhe­ral­ded visit. He is per­so­na non gra­ta in Nor­way and the EU due to the Ukrai­ne con­flict. This brought the ques­ti­on up how Nor­way could pro­tect Svalbard’s boun­da­ries more effi­ci­ent­ly (sounds fami­li­ar the­se days, doesn’t it?). If Nor­way is actual­ly entit­led to deny ent­ry to Sval­bard to a citi­zen of a trea­ty coun­try, is ano­ther ques­ti­on.