Looking back at 2015 – May

The snow melt is starting in May. Time to put ski and snow mobile away and to set sail! Traditionally, my arctic summer starts with SV Antigua, sailing from Bodø in Norway to Bear Island and up to Spitsbergen. Lofoten are a great place to start the season. No polar bears, no Zodiacs, a relaxed warm-up, but without any lack of scenic beauty. And then off to Bear Island. Always something special!

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But there was something lacking elsewhere. Money. The Norwegian mining company Store Norske does not get the price she needs for the coal on the world markets, and this has brought her into great troubles. Mining in the high arctic is expensive, and being a coal miner in Spitsbergen is difficult these days. It involves a great risk to find a letter of cancellation in your post box, and that’s what happened to many of them. Difficult for the people, for the company, for all of Longyearbyen. The place is small enough to suffer from a loss of major parts of the industry.