Most peo­p­le will never have the chan­ce to visit the famous Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault bey­ond a glim­pse of the ent­rance from out­side. Col­lo­qui­al­ly also known as “doomsday vault”, it is used sin­ce 2008 to store seeds of food crops to make sure the spe­ci­es sur­vi­ve even when all other stocks are des­troy­ed by natu­ral or man-made eco­lo­gi­cal dis­as­ters or war.

The insi­de of the Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault is, howe­ver, clo­sed to the public. Only tho­se who are working the­re, some VIP visi­tors and media teams, on cer­tain dates and with pri­or regis­tra­ti­on, get insi­de. During a media visit in 2016, I had the rare chan­ce to pho­to­graph the Seed Vault inclu­ding 360 degree pan­ora­mas, which can now be seen on this page (click here). Parts of the Seed Vault are curr­ent­ly under reno­va­ti­on.

The Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault is now acces­si­ble as a pan­ora­ma tour on this web­site.

Today (Mon­day, 10 Sep­tem­ber), a polar bear fami­ly was seen near Ves­t­pyn­ten, not far from the air­port and camp­si­te at Lon­gye­ar­by­en. It was a fema­le bear with two first-year cubs, pro­ba­b­ly the same polar bears that were seen on Satur­day at Rev­ne­set, on the north side of Advent­fjord oppo­si­te of Lon­gye­ar­by­en. On Satur­day, the bears were cha­sed away by heli­c­op­ter towards Sas­senfjord, away rom Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Polar bears inclu­ding fema­les with cubs regu­lar­ly cover lar­ge distances. A walk inclu­ding lon­ger swim­ming distances from Advent­fjord (Lon­gye­ar­by­en) to Sas­senfjord and back within 2 days is ful­ly rea­li­stic and nor­mal.

When the bears were seen near Ves­t­pyn­ten today around 16.00, both curious onloo­kers and the Sys­sel­man­nen (poli­ce) were soon on the sce­ne, as repor­ted by Sval­bard­pos­ten. The Sys­sel­man­nen fol­lo­wed the polar bear fami­ly by car slow­ly towards Bjørn­da­len fur­ther west.

The­re, hopes that the bears might con­ti­nue and dis­ap­pear from the Lon­gye­ar­by­en area soon vanis­hed in the haze, as the bears were seen fee­ding on a lar­ge wha­le car­cass, pos­si­bly from a sperm wha­le as appears on a pho­to taken by the Sys­sel­man­nen. This might pro­vi­de the bears in ques­ti­on with food for a lon­ger peri­od, if the wha­le does not start to float and drift away again. Chan­ces are also that the wha­le car­cass attracts fur­ther bears.

The Sys­sel­man­nen asks the public not to get clo­se to the bears and to be alert and to exer­cise usu­al safe­ty mea­su­res at any time in the field.

Polar bear fami­ly with a solid meal in Bjørn­da­len near Lon­gye­ar­by­en, Mon­day (10 Sep­tem­ber) after­noon. Pho­to © Sys­sel­man­nen.

Update: the polar bears were scared away from the wha­le car­cass by the Sys­sel­man­nen later on Mon­day, as Sval­bard­pos­ten wro­te. The dead wha­le was towed into the fjord by Polar­sys­sel, the Sysselmannen’s ship, and the bears were scared and moved up into Bjørn­da­len.

Our alre­a­dy almost tra­di­tio­nal Spits­ber­gen-calen­der ist now available for 2019. It is available as befo­re in the big­ger A3 for­mat (beau­tiful on the wall) and the smal­ler A5 (gre­at for exam­p­le on the table or on the wall whe­re not so much space is available).

With arc­tic impres­si­ons through the year: the new calen­dar Spits­ber­gen 2019 is now available.

As oppo­sed to other offers available on the mar­ket, we sel­ect a set of 12 enti­re­ly new pho­tos every year to crea­te a com­ple­te­ly new calen­dar with fresh impres­si­ons, show­ing some of Spitsbergen’s most beau­tiful sides inclu­ding sce­n­ery, wild­life and flowers.

Unu­su­al per­spec­ti­ve of an impres­si­ve land­scape: the ice cap Aus­t­fon­na seen from the air.

Unu­su­al per­spec­ti­ves of remo­te places tog­e­ther with stun­ning wild­life pho­tos form a good part of the sel­ec­tion, which is com­ple­ted by flowers and stun­ning sce­n­ery of polar land­scapes and ice.

Of cour­se the­re are some polar bears in the calen­dar 🙂

Click here to see all images of the Spits­bergn calen­der 2019, more infor­ma­ti­on and orde­ring.

The gre­at fear of a col­lap­se of the job mar­ket in Lon­gye­ar­by­en after the signi­fi­cant reduc­tion of coal mining, espe­ci­al­ly in Sveagru­va, did not beco­me rea­li­ty so far. This is indi­ca­ted by the latest sta­tis­tics of the Sta­tis­tik Sen­tral­by­rå, the Nor­we­gi­an direc­to­ry of sta­tis­tics. In 2017, the­re were 4.2 % more jobs in Sval­bard com­pared to 2016. The num­ber of jobs in mining were actual­ly redu­ced by 34 % down to 100, but this loss was more than com­pen­sa­ted by growth in other bran­ches, most­ly in rela­ti­on to tou­rism. Hotels and restau­rants crea­ted 36.3 % more jobs in 2017 than in 2016, total­ling 315 jobs in 2015. ´

Lon­gye­ar­by­en is gro­wing, also on the job mar­ket: 4,2 % more jobs in 2017.

This growth is mea­su­red in “Års­verk”, which may be best trans­la­ted with “man hours per year”. 315 “års­verk” do not neces­s­a­ri­ly mean 315 full-time employees, but an amount of paid work that could be done by 315 peo­p­le within one year. This amount of work may, howe­ver, be spread over a lar­ger num­ber of part-time or sea­so­nal jobs, which is cer­tain­ly the case to some degree in tou­rism. “Tou­rism” as such is not a cate­go­ry in the sta­tis­tics. Jobs crea­ted within tou­rism are mea­su­red in cate­go­ries such as hotels & restau­rants, ser­vice indus­try and trans­port and logi­stics.

It comes hard­ly as a sur­pri­se: once again, the­re are nega­ti­ve records of the cur­rent sea ice situa­tions. As the Nor­we­gi­an Ice Ser­vice released on Twit­ter, the­re has never been as litt­le ice around Sval­bard as curr­ent­ly sin­ce begin­ning of the recor­dings in 1967. As the latest ice chart shows, both Sval­bard and neigh­bou­ring Frans Josef Land are com­ple­te­ly free of sea ice:

Ice chart of 22 August 2018 (by MET Nor­way).

Accor­ding to the Nor­we­gi­an Ice Ser­vice, the sea ice cover in the Sval­bard area was 123,065 squa­re kilo­me­t­res, which is 105,139 squa­re kilo­me­t­res less com­pared to the long-term avera­ge (1981-2010), a loss of almost 50 %!

But sci­en­tists are even more worried about the loss of ice north of Green­land, which is also visi­ble in the ice chart abo­ve. Nor­t­hern­most Green­land is an area whe­re ice is pushed against the coast by curr­ents, so it is – was – buil­ding up a very solid ice cover aver­aging 4 m in thic­k­ness and rea­ching more than 20 m thic­k­ness in places! This ice cover was, howe­ver, wea­k­en­ed by warm air incur­si­ons such as the extre­me event in Febru­ary. The wea­k­en­ed ice could be moved around by wind much more easi­ly, and this is exact­ly what hap­pen­ed now in a lar­ge area north of Green­land. Even if the water sur­face free­zes again soon, the dama­ge is now done and it is hard­ly rever­si­ble: as the term mul­ti-year ice sug­gests, it takes many years to replace a lost area of such ice, but it is hard­ly expec­ted that this will hap­pen at all given cur­rent cli­ma­te deve­lo­p­ments.

Sval­bard fur­thest north: Ros­søya (left) and Ves­le Tav­leøya com­ple­te­ly ice-free, mid-July 2018.

It fits into this pic­tu­re that Lon­gye­ar­by­en has now got an unbro­ken series of 90 (!) months with tem­pe­ra­tures abo­ve the long-term avera­ge. A dra­ma­tic deve­lo­p­ment, but hard­ly a sur­pri­se.

The polar bear attack on Phippsøya (Sjuøya­ne, Sval­bard) from Satur­day is dis­cus­sed in media and social media world­wi­de. The Sys­sel­man­nen (gover­nor, poli­ce) has released some details, but a lot of ques­ti­ons remain so far.

At 08.30 a.m. (local time), a group of 12 staff mem­bers of the crui­se ves­sel MS Bre­men went ashore on Phippsøya to prepa­re a landing for pas­sen­gers. The group was atta­cked on land by a polar bear, which did not react to shou­ting and shoo­ting with signal pis­tols. The bear atta­cked a 42 year old Ger­man staff mem­ber who suf­fe­r­ed head inju­ries. The man was taken to the hos­pi­tal and later Trom­sø, his con­di­ti­on is sta­ble.

The bear was shot by 2 other mem­bers of the group and later flown to Lon­gye­ar­by­en by heli­c­op­ter for inves­ti­ga­ti­ons.

This is the infor­ma­ti­on which has been released offi­ci­al­ly. All infor­ma­ti­on which cir­cu­la­tes in cur­rent public dis­cus­sions bey­ond this is spe­cu­la­ti­ve.

Polar bear on Phippsøya, a fre­quent­ly used landing site on Sjuøya­ne nor­t­hern­most in Spits­ber­gen (archi­ve image).

A man was inju­red by a polar bear today (Satur­day, 28 July) on Sjuøya­ne. The man sur­vi­ved with inju­ries, the bear was shot, as the Sys­sel­man­nen infor­med today.

The polar bear atta­cked per­sons who went ashore from the crui­se ship MS Bre­men. He is said to be a crew mem­ber ser­ving as polar bear guard, pre­pa­ring a tou­rist landing. He suf­fe­r­ed head inju­ries; no infor­ma­ti­on has yet been released about serious his inju­ries are. The man was brought to the hos­pi­tal in Lon­gye­ar­by­en by heli­c­op­ter.

The inci­dent will be inves­ti­ga­ted by the Sys­sel­man­nen, but first prio­ri­ty is given to pro­vi­si­on of medi­cal care to the inju­red man.

Polar bear on Phippsøya, a fre­quent­ly used landing site on Sjuøya­ne nor­t­hern­most in Spits­ber­gen (archi­ve image).

Way 300 in Lon­gye­ar­by­en was clo­sed for all traf­fic after a lands­li­de clo­se to the ceme­ta­ry. This road con­nects Skjæringa (the part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en whe­re church, Sys­sel­man­nen etc. are loca­ted) and Huset.

The Sys­sel­man­nen has now ope­ned Way 300 again for pede­stri­ans and bicy­clists. Moto­ri­sed traf­fic is not per­mit­ted. This is valid until fur­ther noti­ce from the Sys­sel­man­nen.

Lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en near the ceme­tery: now way 300 is open again for non-moto­ri­sed traf­fic. Image © Alex­an­der Lembke.

On July 2, the tra­di­tio­nal ship­ping com­pa­ny Hur­tig­ru­ten cele­bra­tes its 125th bir­th­day and at the same time gives a pre­sent to the envi­ron­ment: From today on Hur­tig­ru­ten wants to banish all dis­posable pla­s­tic from its ships. No pla­s­tic straws, no stir­rers in pla­s­tic cof­fee cups, no pla­s­tic lids and not a sin­gle pla­s­tic bag should then be found on the ships.

This is only logi­cal: ship tra­vel­lers wit­ness the pol­lu­ti­on of the oce­ans with pla­s­tic was­te every day. Most of the pla­s­tic in the oce­ans comes from fishing, but pla­s­tic bot­t­les, pla­s­tic bags or other ever­y­day pla­s­tic artic­les also end up on Norway’s bea­ches by the ton and too often end up in the sto­machs of sea­birds, fish and wha­les.

Pla­s­tic was­te in Mushamna/ Spits­ber­gen

The ban on dis­posable pla­s­tic artic­les will be effec­ti­ve across the enti­re Hur­tig­ru­ten fleet, i.e. both on the legen­da­ry pos­tal ship rou­te from Ber­gen to Kir­kenes, as well as on crui­se ships in polar waters and in all land-based faci­li­ties and also on Spits­ber­gen.

Hurtigruten’s ambi­tious long-term goal is even to beco­me the first pla­s­tic-free ship­ping com­pa­ny in the world. Even if the­re is cer­tain­ly still much room for impro­ve­ment in the crui­se ship indus­try in terms of pol­lu­ti­on and CO2 emis­si­ons, the ban on dis­posable pla­s­tic is a wel­co­me step in the right direc­tion.

Soon free from diposable pla­s­tic: Hur­tig­ru­ten muse­ums­ship in Stok­marks­nes

Source: Hur­tig­ru­ten

A lands­li­de from Pla­tå­ber­get crossed the road near the ceme­tery in Lon­gye­ar­by­en a few days ago. Nobo­dy was inju­red and the event was not seen by anyo­ne, as far as known, but the road from the old muse­um to Huset has been clo­sed by the Sys­sel­man­nen for safe­ty reasons until fur­ther noti­ce.

It is not the first lands­li­de in this area. Pre­vious events had trig­ge­red a deba­te to move the ceme­tery to a safer loca­ti­on near the church to pre­vent it from pos­si­ble dama­ge, but no decis­i­ons have been made so far.

Smal­ler lands­li­des as the recent one are gene­ral­ly a com­mon and well-known phe­no­me­non on slo­pes like the one near the ceme­tery. They may occur any­whe­re on simi­lar slo­pes in the field, espe­ci­al­ly in the ear­ly sum­mer, after the snow mel­ting peri­od. Lands­li­des of this type are nor­mal­ly not too fast, so hikers should be able to move away and into safe ter­ri­to­ry wit­hout dif­fi­cul­ties. But the dan­ger poten­ti­al has to be con­side­red for exam­p­le when put­ting up a tent, and the­re are other types of lands­li­des and mud­flows that invol­ve more water and hig­her velo­ci­ties. In June 1992, a sci­en­tist was kil­led by a tor­ren­ti­al slush ava­lan­che in Lief­defjord.

Lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en near the ceme­tery. Image © Alex­an­der Lembke.

Less than a week after the polar bear visit to Kapp Lin­né, which made it big in inter­na­tio­nal media, ano­ther polar bear was seen near a sett­le­ment in Spits­ber­gen. This time, it was Lon­gye­ar­by­en, the main sett­le­ment.

The bear was seen for the first time Fri­day evening in Advent­da­len clo­se to the old airst­rip, some kilo­me­t­res sou­the­ast of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, wal­king to the sett­le­ment.

Soon, the Sys­sel­man­nen was on site with the heli­c­op­ter, the polar bear had alre­a­dy come quite clo­se to town. Scared away by the heli­c­op­ter, the bear moved to Hior­th­hamn, oppo­si­te of Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Later, when the bear was seen swim­ming in Advent­fjor­den, a group having a par­ty with a fire on the beach in Lon­gye­ar­by­en was evacua­ted – a safe­ty mea­su­re wit­hout any dra­ma, the bear was not seen any­whe­re near the site.

Polar bear in Advent­fjord, not far from Lon­gye­ar­by­en (archi­ve image, 2014).

The polar bear was seen for the last time Satur­day around noon on the way into Sas­senfjord. Sin­ce then, its whe­re­a­bouts are not know, and the aut­ho­ri­ties have clo­sed the “case” until fur­ther obser­va­tions may be made and repor­ted by anyo­ne in the field.

It is said that the bear was a lar­ge male. The­re were no situa­tions dan­ge­rous for humans or the bear.

The case shows how important it is to be alert and pre­pared also in the area clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.