Octo­ber began with this year’s last days in Spits­ber­gen spent on SV Anti­gua. This is of cour­se not­hing dra­ma­tic, quite the oppo­si­te, it feels good when a good time is coming to an end and you can rea­li­ze that is has actual­ly real­ly been a good time, wit­hout any acci­dents or other major unp­lea­sant events. Ins­tead, we got our final polar bear sightin­gs and the beau­tiful light of the arc­tic fall in a land­scape that is more and more get­ting into win­ter mode.

Jan May­en memo­ries came back as I show­ed the pic­tures during a pre­sen­ta­ti­on at Sval­bard­mu­se­um in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, while nor­t­hern lights were dancing on the night sky.

It was not just in natu­re that were lights were tur­ned off, but also in the Nor­we­gi­an mines in Spits­ber­gen. Not com­ple­te­ly and final­ly, but it does look dark and the working force has been redu­ced dra­sti­cal­ly in 2015. Lon­gye­ar­by­en is shrin­king, some­thing the place is not used to at all. And Sveagru­va is shrin­king even more. The­re, they are get­ting rea­dy for years of being a slee­ping beau­ty. But nobo­dy knows if this sleep will ever real­ly end to give way to rene­wed acti­vi­ty.

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

My Spits­ber­gen calen­dar 2016 saw the light of day at this time, the fourth of its kind in a row.

Soon after the evacua­ti­on was lifted on Tues­day evening it tur­ned out that more hou­ses are dama­ged so stron­gly that they have to be aban­do­ned. The inha­bi­tants had to lea­ve them again soon. The hou­ses are loca­ted in Vei 228 (yel­low cir­cle in pic­tu­re below) and owned by the sta­te-owned Stats­bygg, who was at least able to quick­ly pro­vi­de repla­ce­ment accom­mo­da­ti­on. It is at least pos­si­ble to return to the buil­dings to get per­so­nal belon­gings.

This is more luck than tho­se have who lived in the now stron­gly dama­ged hou­ses (red cir­cle) hit by the ava­lan­che with full force. This area remains clo­sed to all non-aut­ho­ri­zed traf­fic accor­ding to Lokals­ty­re (the local admi­nis­tra­ti­on), who will make a plan how the for­mer inha­bi­tants can get their per­so­nal belon­gings.

Queen Son­ja of Nor­way and minis­ter of jus­ti­ce Anund­sen visi­ted the ava­lan­che site on Thurs­day after­noon.

A fami­ly who have lost their home in Vei 236 and almost their lives have now published their dra­ma­tic expe­ri­ence of the ava­lan­che in Sval­bard­pos­ten. They were in their kit­chen, having break­fast with their two litt­le child­ren and a fri­end when the ava­lan­che hit. They were com­ple­te­ly buried in snow befo­re anyo­ne could react and they just mana­ged with a lot of luck and the power that comes from despe­ra­ti­on to get them­sel­ves at least part­ly out of the snow until help came. Altog­e­ther it took about three quar­ters of an hour to get ever­y­bo­dy out. They were buried under up to two meters of hard snow, mixed with sharp frag­ments of wood and other debris. They were taken to hos­pi­tal and part­ly trea­ted for hypo­ther­mia in advan­ced stages. Due to an ama­zing amount of luck and a lot of help during and after the dra­ma­tic event, they are all well now.