A fishing ves­sel got into serious trou­ble in Hin­lo­pen Strait in nor­t­hern Sval­bard, as the SAR cen­tral in north Nor­way infor­med. The Nor­we­gi­an ship “North­gui­der” had rai­sed the alarm at 1322 hours (local time) today (Fri­day), whereu­pon the SAR machi­nery in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and north Nor­way was put into ope­ra­ti­on. Soon, both res­cue heli­c­op­ters went up in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, the first one arri­ved on sce­ne at about 1515 hours, less than 2 hours after the alarm bell had rung in the SAR cen­tral in north Nor­way. At the same time, an Ori­on air­craft took off from Andøya in Nor­way. Depen­ding on the exact type, the­se air­craft may be used in SAR mis­si­ons for exam­p­le to search for miss­ing ves­sels or per­sons or to sur­vey poten­ti­al oil spills.

SAR heli­c­op­ter of the Sys­sel­man­nen, here seen during an exer­cise.

But the good news is that all per­sons seem to be well. The crew of 14 have dres­sed up in sur­vi­val suits and gone to the bow area to be picked up by the res­cue heli­c­op­ters. Accor­ding to the ship owner, all per­sons are sup­po­sed to be well, at least con­side­ring the cir­cum­s­tances. Nobo­dy is inju­red or has been in cold water.

The North­gui­der appears to have hit the ground on the coast of Nord­aus­t­land south of Murch­ison­fjord. She is now sit­ting on the ground and lis­ting with 20 degrees but the posi­ti­on seems to be sta­ble so far. The wea­ther – about 18 degrees cen­ti­gra­de below free­zing, dark­ness and strong wind (Beau­fort 6) – makes the res­cue ope­ra­ti­ons chal­len­ging, but the­re is no reason to belie­ve that the Nor­we­gi­an SAR pro­fes­sio­nals are not able to get all crew mem­bers off soon.

Kalkst­ran­da in Hin­lo­pen Strait, south of Murch­ison­fjord: the North­gui­der is sup­po­sed to have run aground some­whe­re here. Con­di­ti­ons the­re are quite dif­fe­rent from the pho­to now, with dark­ness, cold and wind.

The coast guard ship KV Barents­hav has set cour­se for Hin­lo­pen Strait, but is not expec­ted to arri­ve the­re befo­re Satur­day. Polar­sys­sel, the Sysselmannen’s ser­vice ship, is not available in Spits­ber­gen in win­ter­ti­me.

Update: the SAR cen­tral North Nor­way informs that all 14 per­sons were taken into the heli­c­op­ters and are by now taken care of in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The North­gui­der is still sit­ting on the ground, taking in water.

In 2018, again I had ple­nty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to shoot arc­tic pan­ora­mas, making the­se inte­res­t­ing and beau­tiful (well in some cases, it is inte­res­t­ing or beau­tiful) easi­ly acces­si­ble for ever­y­bo­dy. Phy­si­cal­ly, most of them are pret­ty much inac­ces­si­ble for most peo­p­le. A pan­ora­ma pho­to does not phy­si­cal­ly take you to, say, a moun­tain top on Prins Karls For­land, but it is the next best thing – it gives you the fee­ling to be in the midd­le of the land­scape, you can just turn around and enjoy the full view of the arc­tic land­scape.

Over 5 years now, the by far lar­gest digi­tal muse­um of Spits­ber­gen (Sval­bard) has thus come into exis­tance. And it keeps gro­wing. It takes quite some time and effort to turn the 18 RAW files (35, in some cases) into one pan­ora­ma and to make that part of a dedi­ca­ted litt­le web­site or even to turn many pan­ora­mas into one vir­tu­al tour, such as the school / kin­der­gar­ten in Pyra­mi­den. In many cases it has taken years for mate­ri­al to pro­gress on the list to the point whe­re it actual­ly appears on the web­site.

New Spits­ber­gen pan­ora­mas: the round view from Per­sis­kam­men, in the sou­thern part of Prins Karls For­land, is just one out of many
(this here is just a screen­shot wit­hout pan­ora­ma func­tion).

Here is a choice of new Spits­ber­gen pan­ora­mas that we have made during the last cou­ple of months and weeks – a litt­le Christ­mas-/New Years’s pre­sent for the Spits­ber­gen com­mu­ni­ty:

• Pyra­mi­den: School / Kin­der­gar­ten. In Octo­ber the who­le coll­ec­tion of Pyra­mi­den pan­ora­mas had moved to a dedi­ca­ted litt­le map so you can find your way around as you take a litt­le walk through the old ghost town, pos­si­bly visi­ting a buil­ding here and the­re. And we added some new pan­ora­mas, inclu­ding the school / kin­der­gar­ten, which is our lar­gest sin­gle vir­tu­al tour so far – the buil­ding has 3 flo­ors! Other new ones include the old mines.
• Barents­burg: also here we did not just add new mate­ri­al, but we sor­ted the panos on a dedi­ca­ted map, so you know whe­re you are. New pan­ora­mas include the bre­wery, Lenin, the cha­pel, …
• And while we were at it, of cour­se also Ny-Åle­sund had to get its own map to make the who­le thing pro­per. And also here we took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to add some new pan­ora­mas, inclu­ding Amund­sen, the Kongsfjord­bu­tik­ken, the muse­um, the Green House, the air­ship­mast, …
• Let’s get out of the sett­le­ments and into the wil­der­ness. Mur­ray­pyn­ten is a point on Prins Karls For­land with some fine views.
• Ano­ther one on Prins Karls For­land. Nesun­gen is on the outer side of the island, which is expo­sed and rare­ly visi­ted.
• Last but defi­ni­te­ly not least from Prins Karls For­land. The view on Per­sis­kam­men, this lone­so­me moun­tain in the south of the island, is just stun­ning!
• Elfen­bein­breen in Agardhda­len, not far from the east coast.
• Buch­holz­buk­ta is not far from Heley­sund, as far east on the main island of Spits­ber­gen as you will get.
• Pol­hem in Mos­sel­buk­ta was Nordenskiöld’s base during his 1872-73 win­tering.
• Fox­fon­na is a litt­le ice cap clo­se to mine 7. Ama­zing win­ter views in cen­tral Nor­dens­ki­öld Land.
• Rijps­burg on Bohem­an­flya is not just the site whe­re the first com­mer­cial coal mining took place in Spits­ber­gen. It is also a beau­tiful place.
• Final­ly back again to civi­li­sa­ti­on. The taub­a­ne­sen­tra­le (coal cable­way cent­re) is one of Longyearbyen’s eye cat­chers. Nor­mal­ly it is clo­sed, but here and now … – wel­co­me in!
• One of Spitsbergen’s most dif­fi­cult-to-get-to places is the famous Glo­bal Seed Vault). Once again: wel­co­me in!

Enjoy – and hap­py new year!

Christ­mas is a time of love, fami­ly and healt­hy food. Pres­ents, trees and… mys­tery. Or do you know how San­ta Claus mana­ges to visit far more than a bil­li­on child­ren around the glo­be? Even if you take tho­se out who have been naugh­ty or who may­be don’t want (or are not allo­wed to) have any­thing to do with Christ­mas – the­re is still a lot of work to do for the old man.

Sharon Geor­ge of the Kee­le Uni­ver­si­ty in Eng­land has done some sci­ence to find ans­wers to such ques­ti­ons. She pro­po­ses that San­ta Claus pulls some quan­tum phy­sics tricks out of his bag. Just Quan­tum tun­nell­ing alo­ne may redu­ce the distance he has to tra­vel by some­thing near 50 %.

Do I hear you shout “yes, of cour­se, I should have known”?

But still, Father Christ­mas has to make his way at a breakneck speed of 15,625 kilo­me­t­res per hour (9,708 mph), to get ever­y­thing done that is on his impres­si­ve to-do list. Accor­ding to Geor­ge, he makes good use of bund­ling the shock waves of the thun­der that comes from brea­king through the sonic wall. Some­thing hap­pens short­ly after some initi­al scrat­ching of the snow with the hoo­ves by the reinde­er, as they have to be 10 times fas­ter than sound to get things done.

It is safe to assu­me that the sledge is made of some nickel-tita­ni­um alloy to sur­vi­ve the mecha­ni­cal chal­lenges that come with such tra­vel­ling. Fric­tion bet­ween air and the nose of the very first reinde­er will heat the lat­ter up until it is glo­wing red-hot, a fact that rea­di­ly explains some ana­to­mic par­ti­cu­lars of Rudolf the red-nosed reinde­er.

Mer­ry Christ­mas! Dra­wing by Nor­bert Wach­ter from the book Ark­ti­sche Weih­nach­ten.

So far, so good. But then the sci­en­tist makes a mista­ke as she says that San­ta Claus’ reinde­er, inclu­ding the famous, abo­ve-men­tio­ned Rudolf, come from Spits­ber­gen. She argues that only the Spits­ber­gen reinde­er is small and leight­weight enough so it can wait on the roof of any house while the boss is kree­ping down the chim­ney to get his job done. Any other – hea­vier – reinde­er would just break through the roof, some­thing that might bring the sche­du­le of the who­le ope­ra­ti­on into some serious trou­ble.

As plau­si­ble as this may seem – it can’t be true. Why? This is some­thing that the pre­sent aut­hor has dis­cus­sed in his book “Ark­ti­sche Weih­nach­ten” (Ger­man only, sor­ry!). The rele­vant text sec­tion comes at the end of the book and it is agailable here (click to down­load).

Just in case you don’t read Ger­man: reflect for a moment about when male reinde­er shed their ant­lers. Yes, it’s after the mating sea­son, which is in late Sep­tem­ber and into Octo­ber. This means that male reinde­er from the nor­t­hern hemi­sphe­re don’t have big ant­lers at Christ­mas. Rudolf and his col­le­agues have to come from the sou­thern hemi­sphe­re!

Whe­re would that be? Well, the wha­lers intro­du­ced Nor­we­gi­an reinde­er to South Geor­gia. But the­re, they were kil­led off some years ago. A stock was, howe­ver, pre­ser­ved in the Falk­land Islands. So the simp­le truth is: San­ta Claus’ reinde­er come from the Falk­land Islands! And so does pro­ba­b­ly the man hims­elf, as he has to take care of his reinde­er also the rest of the year, doesn’t he?

Hap­py Christ­mas!

The man who tried to rob the bank in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Fri­day is a 29 years old Rus­si­an citi­zen who does not live in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, as the Sys­sel­man­nen sta­ted in a press release. The man is now in Trom­sø for an initi­al 4 weeks for inves­ti­ga­ti­ve cus­t­ody.

First details about Friday’s bank rob­be­ry: The offen­der is a 29 year old Rus­si­an and not a local.

The pri­ze is con­fis­ca­ted, it is said to be a sum of NOK 70,000. During the hold-up, the man had threa­ten­ed the 3 bank employees with a Mau­ser rif­le which he had legal­ly ren­ted in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Wea­pons of this type are com­mon­ly ren­ted by tou­rists from local wea­pon dea­lers for polar bear pro­tec­tion.

Next to bank rob­be­ry, the man is now also accu­sed for vio­la­ti­on of the wea­pon law and threa­tening with a fire­arm.

No fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on regar­ding the offen­der or the deed have been released as of now. Sys­sel­mann Kjers­tin Askholt reg­rets in a state­ment that types of crime are now obser­ved in Lon­gye­ar­by­en that have pre­vious­ly been unknown local­ly and that crime is deve­lo­ping tog­e­ther with the gene­ral chan­ges of the local socie­ty on Sval­bard.

No, this is not a joke, unfort­u­na­te­ly: the­re was a bank rob­be­ry in Lon­gye­ar­by­en today (Fri­day, 21 Decem­ber). The alarm went in the Sysselmannen’s office at 10.40 local time. One man ente­red the bank with a fire­arm and brought some cash in his con­trol.

The­re were only employees in the bank at that time. The­se took pro­per action and mana­ged to acti­va­te the alarm, as the Sys­sel­man­nen told Sval­bard­pos­ten.

It is actual­ly for­bidden to enter the buil­ding with the bank in Lon­gye­ar­by­en with a fire­arm. Today, the­re was a bank rob­be­ry. Nobo­dy was inju­red.

The bank rob­ber was soon arres­ted by the poli­ce, he still had the money with him. He is not of Nor­we­gi­an natio­na­li­ty and was taken to see the medi­cal doc­tor, but poli­ce ques­tio­ning is expec­ted to begin later today.

Update: it was not a local resi­dent. The man will be taken to Trom­sø today for inves­ti­ga­ti­ve cus­t­ody.

No fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on is available so far.

Good news about arc­tic wild­life popu­la­ti­ons – do they exist? The­re is, of cour­se and for good (or, rather, bad) reason, a lot of atten­ti­on on cli­ma­te chan­ge and how polar bears and other spe­ci­es will cope with life in a world with less and less ice.

But then the­re are also wal­rus­ses (click here for some gene­ral infor­ma­ti­on about the­se love­ly ani­mals). Seve­ral colo­nies in the Spits­ber­gen area (Sval­bard) are moni­to­red with auto­ma­tic kame­ras to fol­low the num­bers of ani­mals coming and going. Results so far indi­ca­te a gro­wing popu­la­ti­on and the plea­sant obser­va­ti­on that wal­rus­ses are not bothe­red by tou­rists. It is rather the occa­sio­nal polar bear who is serious­ly dis­tur­bing res­t­ing wal­rus­ses – the­se ruthl­ess polar bears just don’t keep the mini­mum distances.

Wal­rus with satel­li­te sen­der, Edgeøya.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, some wal­rus are equip­ped with satel­li­te sen­ders to fol­low migra­ti­on pat­terns. This is important to estab­lish which per­cen­ta­ge of the total popu­la­ti­on in an area is res­t­ing on shore while the others are in the water. Data show that about 25 % of the wal­rus­ses are res­t­ing on show while the majo­ri­ty of 75 % is swim­ming.

This know­ledge makes the num­ber of wal­rus seen at the colo­ny sites on shore a good indi­ca­ti­on for the total regio­nal popu­la­ti­on. Cen­su­s­es are made rough­ly every 5 years with small pla­nes equip­ped for the pur­po­se. They fol­low the coast­li­ne in an alti­tu­de of 1000 feet (a good 300 m) while taking pho­tos. Pre­vious counts were made in 2006 and 2012 and the most recent one fol­lo­wed in August 2018. All colo­nies are sur­vey­ed in a time frame as short as pos­si­ble to make sure indi­vi­du­als are not coun­ted twice ase they may make visits to fri­ends and col­le­agues at other res­t­ing places.

86 colo­nies were sur­vey­ed in Sval­bard in August 2018. The num­ber of wal­rus obser­ved varied from 0 in many cases to a maxi­mum of 269.

Wal­rus colo­ny on Mof­fen.

And what is the result? The num­ber of wal­rus­ses pre­sent in the who­le of Sval­bard in August 2018 was esti­ma­ted bet­ween 5031 and 6036 indi­vi­du­als. Nai­led down to one figu­re, the popu­la­ti­on size is 5503 ani­mals, as was repor­ted noy by Chris­ti­an Lyder­sen, Magnus Ander­sen, Jade Vac­quie Gar­cia, Samu­el Llo­bet and Kit Kovacs (Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te) in an artic­le in Sval­bard­pos­ten. This is 42 % more than coun­ted the last time in 2012. A very posi­ti­ve deve­lo­p­ment! But no sur­pri­se if you con­sider that wal­rus­ses were hun­ted almost to regio­nal extinc­tion until pro­tec­tion final­ly came in 1952. The cur­rent growth of the popu­la­ti­on is still a reac­tion to the end of hun­ting, just as with the polar bear popu­la­ti­on in the same area.

Wal­rus cow with calf: beau­tiful sym­bol for a gro­wing popu­la­ti­on.

It will, howe­ver, take many more deca­des befo­re the popu­la­ti­on will be even remo­te­ly near ori­gi­nal levels, if this ever hap­pens again.

The­re are still tho­se who think that Lon­gye­ar­by­en is a lonely, silent place whe­re a few coal miners and trap­pers live. Rea­li­ty is quite dif­fe­rent: the­re is a well-estab­lished and vibrant cul­tu­ral sce­ne. Next to some very acti­ve local clubs and artists, the­re is a num­ber of fes­ti­vals and events that have by now estab­lished inter­na­tio­nal repu­ta­ti­on. This includes the Jazz Fes­ti­val and the Dark Sea­son Blues Fes­ti­val (both in the begin­ning of the polar night) and events such the Ski Mara­thon and Spits­ber­gen Mara­thon, which all attract lar­ge and still gro­wing num­bers of visi­tors from many dif­fe­rent count­ries.

But rock legends who have fil­led the lar­gest venues of the glo­be for deca­des do usual­ly not have Lon­gye­ar­by­en on their tour plan. This will chan­ge in June 2019 when Robert Plant comes to Lon­gye­ar­by­en for two con­certs. Plant beca­me a rock legend with the band Led Zep­pe­lin in the 1970s. Fol­lo­wing “Zep’s” break­up in 1980, Plant has remain­ed an acti­ve musi­ci­an to this day.

On 27 and 29 June, Robert Plant and his band Sen­sa­tio­nal Space Shif­ters will be live on stage in the Kul­tur­hu­set in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. This is, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten, a result of the work of a year of Jim Johan­sen and his com­pa­ny Wal­rus AS. A key fac­tor for the suc­cess of the nego­tia­ti­ons is said to be Plant’s per­so­nal curiou­si­ty about one of the nor­t­hern­most con­cert loca­ti­ons in the world (pos­si­bly out­sta­ged by Pyra­mi­den – may­be they get the Rol­ling Stones on stage the­re in 2030 or so?).

From 2019, lar­ge crui­se ships will have to pay twice as high har­bour fees in the port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en than they did this year. A few days ago, Longyearbyen’s har­bour mas­ter Kje­til Brå­ten announ­ced that the pri­ce increase is a tool to regu­la­te mass tou­rism and at the same time to gene­ra­te hig­her inco­me. He would even like Lon­gye­ar­by­en to beco­me “the most expen­si­ve port in the world” due to its remo­te loca­ti­on and the extra­or­di­na­ry ope­ra­ting cos­ts. Ship tou­rism to Spits­ber­gen is on the rise: in 2016, 75,000 crui­se pas­sen­gers went ashore in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, com­pared to 15,000 in 2010.

The har­bour fee Lon­gye­ar­by­en will in the future be based on the size of the ship. Ships with more than 100,000 gross regis­tered tons will have to pay twice as much, name­ly 1.68 NOK (about 0.17 Euro) ins­tead of 0.84 NOK per ton. In addi­ti­on, the port will char­ge a fee of NOK 25 (approx. 2.60 Euro) per pas­sen­ger ins­tead of NOK 23.

Big ships, small ships: SV Anti­gua ver­sus a crui­se ship

This will affect, for exam­p­le, the crui­se liner MSC Pre­zio­sa, which, accor­ding to its own home­page, delights its 3,500 pas­sen­gers with stair­ca­ses deco­ra­ted with “Swa­rov­ski dia­monds”. MSC Pre­zio­sa has announ­ced its arri­val in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in 2019 and will then have to pay a total of 940.000 NOK (around 96,000 euros) more than in 2018.

Smal­ler boats will also be affec­ted by the hig­her fees. But sin­ce the fee depends on the size of the boats the pri­ce increase is hig­hest for the lar­ge crui­se ships. In addi­ti­on, pre­fe­rence will be given to ships who­se pas­sen­gers sup­port the local eco­no­my on their shore lea­ves.

Howe­ver, har­bour mas­ter Kje­til Brå­ten belie­ves that the lar­ge luxu­ry ships will not neces­s­a­ri­ly be deter­red by the hig­her fees. This is not the pri­ma­ry goal. Accor­ding to Brå­ten, it is rather a ques­ti­on of fin­ding a balan­ce bet­ween regu­la­ting mass tou­rism and gene­ra­ting the inco­me nee­ded to deve­lop the port infra­struc­tu­re and pro­mo­te the local eco­no­my.

Who knows, per­haps MSC Pre­zio­sa will have to scratch a few dia­monds from the rai­ling to pay the port dues in Lon­gye­ar­by­en?

Inte­res­t­ing side note: Accor­ding to a sur­vey among­st 739 rea­ders con­duc­ted by the local news­pa­per Sval­bard­pos­ten, 60 per­cent agree with the state­ment that Lon­gye­ar­by­en should no lon­ger accept crui­se ships at all.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

It has almost beco­me a pain­ful tra­di­ti­on: the evacua­ti­on of dwel­ling hou­ses in Lon­gye­ar­by­en at times of ava­lan­che risk. The white dan­ger was brought back into public atten­ti­on very abrupt­bly in Decem­ber 2015 when a snow ava­lan­che from the moun­tain Suk­ker­top­pen des­troy­ed a num­ber of hou­ses and kil­led two peo­p­le. Fur­ther hou­ses were des­troy­ed during ano­ther ava­lan­che in Febru­ary 2017; this time, it was only a mat­ter of luck that nobo­dy was hurt.

Sin­ce then, mea­su­res are taken to pre­vent fur­ther acci­dents, inclu­ding rather dra­stic ones. Ava­lan­che pro­tec­tion con­s­truc­tions have been estab­lished on the slo­pes of Suk­ker­top­pen. The des­troy­ed hou­ses were not repai­red. On the con­tra­ry, near­by hou­ses are now regu­lar­ly evacua­ted at times of ava­lan­che risk. Depen­ding on the risk at each indi­vi­du­al address, some hou­ses are only evacua­ted when the­re is an acu­te risk, while others are clo­sed during the who­le ava­lan­che sea­son.

On Thurs­day (29 Novem­ber), an ava­lan­che war­ning was issued on var­som based on wea­ther fore­casts that pre­dic­ted a lot of snow. Con­se­quent­ly, the Sys­sel­man­nen reac­ted by issuing evacua­tions for a num­ber of hou­ses.

Evacua­ti­on map of Decem­ber 2017. The hou­ses clo­sed last Thurs­day were within the same area.

Some evacua­tions have alre­a­dy been lifted based on a new ava­lan­che risk eva­lua­ti­on by NVE, the Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ty respon­si­ble for mana­ging ava­lan­che risks (who release war­nings on varsom.no). Others will be kept up during the who­le ava­lan­che sea­son. Visit the Sysselmannen’s web­site for infor­ma­ti­on on which addres­ses are con­cer­ned.

Nach einer neu­en Gefah­ren­ein­schät­zung durch NVE sind die Eva­ku­ie­run­gen teil­wei­se bereits wie­der auf­ge­ho­ben wor­den. Beson­ders gefähr­de­te Häu­ser in den Wegen 222 und 226 wer­den aber von nun an über den gesam­ten Win­ter gesperrt blei­ben. Genaue Infor­ma­tio­nen zu den betrof­fe­nen Adres­sen gibt es bei Sys­sel­man­nen.

It is up to tho­se con­cer­ned to find new accom­mo­da­ti­on – not an easy task con­side­ring the dif­fi­cult housing mar­ket in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Mine 7, the last Nor­we­gi­an coal mine in Spits­ber­gen still acti­ve, has a histo­ry of 52 years – quite impres­si­ve for a coal mine and cer­tain­ly more than most others in Sval­bard. And it looks like 2018 will be the best of the­se 52 years. The amount of coal pro­du­ced is abo­ve expec­ta­ti­on and so are the coal pri­ces on the world mar­ket.

Day plant of mine 7 in Advent­da­len, 12 km sou­the­ast of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The 2018 pro­duc­tion in mine 7 was sche­du­led to amount to 130,000 tons, a quan­ti­ty that was alre­a­dy rea­ched in Octo­ber, as Sval­bard­pos­ten repor­ted.

But even more important than the good pro­duc­tion is the deve­lo­p­ment of world mar­ket pri­ces. In spring 2018, less than 40 US-$ were paid for a ton of coal. Sin­ce then, the pri­ce has more than dou­bled and has now sta­bi­li­sed bet­ween 95 and a good 100 US-$. This deve­lo­p­ment has hel­ped mine 7 to the best year in its histo­ry, eco­no­mic­al­ly. Good reason for the 40 miners to be hap­py – and to wel­co­me 4 more col­le­agues in their team soon.

The main cus­to­mers for mine 7 coal are the local power plant in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and a Ger­man com­pa­ny cal­led Cla­ri­ant which is buy­ing 60,000 tons per year. For both, the pri­ce is based on the avera­ge pri­ce of the last 3 years, giving both the pro­du­cer, Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kull­kom­pa­ni, and the cus­to­mers plan­ning relia­bi­li­ty.

The coal mines Svea Nord and Lun­ckef­jel­let at Sveagru­va were final­ly clo­sed in 2016. Curr­ent­ly, Store Nor­ske could pro­ba­b­ly make good pro­fit in Svea.

This good eco­no­mic­al deve­lo­p­ment gives the decis­i­on of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment to dis­con­ti­nue mining in Sveagru­va, whe­re a new mine was ful­ly pre­pared in Lun­ckef­jel­let but never put into pro­duc­ti­ve ope­ra­ti­on, an extra bit­ter tas­te, seen from the per­spec­ti­ve of the Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kull­kom­pa­ni and their employees. Many miners lost their jobs after this decis­i­on – which was based on eco­no­mic­al reaso­ning. Ins­tead, lar­ge amounts of money will now be spent on a lar­ge clean-up in Sveagru­va. The recent deve­lo­p­ment is likely to fuel the deba­te about the future of mining in Svea, a dis­cus­sion that the govern­ment in Oslo offi­ci­al­ly has declared as clo­sed.

The dark sea­son in the Arc­tic is a good peri­od to get desk­top table pro­jects done which have been wai­ting alre­a­dy for too long. Such as get­ting the coll­ec­tion of 360 degree pan­ora­mas from Barents­burg sor­ted, which until now had been cram­ped tog­e­ther on just one page, making it dif­fi­cult espe­ci­al­ly for tho­se who had not been to Barents­burg in real life to under­stand the­re whe­re­a­bouts. Now, nagi­va­ti­on is much easier, as all places have got their own indi­vi­du­al page and now the bre­wery “Red bear”, the hotel, Lenin, the old muse­um in the Cul­tu­re House, the cha­pel and other sites are acces­si­ble through a map which pro­vi­des easy ori­en­ta­ti­on.

Barents­burg Pan­ora­ma: Lenin in focus.

Click here to access the map with the Barents­burg pan­ora­mas and enjoy your vir­tu­al tour!

Ener­gy con­sump­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en is high abo­ve the avera­ge in main­land Nor­way.

Hea­ting is pro­vi­ded in Lon­gye­ar­by­en by long-distance hea­ting from the coal power plant, and the locals are gene­rous when using this pre­cious resour­ce. The reason is not only the cold cli­ma­te, which in fact is not even that much col­der in the mari­ti­me cli­ma­te of Spits­ber­gen com­pared to con­ti­nen­tal parts of Scan­di­na­via. Bad insu­la­ti­on of buil­dings is among­st the main reasons. Lon­gye­ar­by­en was a mining sett­le­ment for much of its histo­ry and the buil­dings were ori­gi­nal­ly inten­ded for use during shorter peri­ods only rather than by a more or less per­ma­nent local popu­la­ti­on. This is reflec­ted by cheap and simp­le con­s­truc­tion methods whe­re insu­la­ti­on was obvious­ly not a prio­ri­ty. Many buil­dings in Lon­gye­ar­by­en date back to years befo­re 1970, and Nor­we­gi­an buil­ding regu­la­ti­ons did not come into force in Spits­ber­gen befo­re 2012. Buil­ding qua­li­ty may be chan­ging quite quick­ly now, as many older hou­ses have to be aban­do­ned due to ava­lan­che risks and a lot of hou­ses will be built in the years to come.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, the ener­gy con­sump­ti­on and hea­ting habits of many locals are not exact­ly cha­rac­te­ri­zed by ambi­tious ener­gy-saving. Some are said to open the win­dow rather than turn the hea­ting down. Ther­mo­stats are the excep­ti­on rather than the rule. Hea­ting cos­ts are based on living space rather than actu­al con­sump­ti­on. And many live in flats pro­vi­ded by their employ­ers, who also covers the run­ning cos­ts.

Hea­ting in Spits­ber­gen: lar­ge oven, poor insu­la­ti­on.

Many inha­bi­tants con­sider Lon­gye­ar­by­en and their own life and habits as envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly, but rea­li­ty may be dif­fe­rent, loo­king at elec­tri­ci­ty use, hea­ting and traf­fic habits. If peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en were hea­ting as peo­p­le in main­land Nor­way do, ener­gy con­sump­ti­on rela­ted to hea­ting would drop by about 40 %. In win­ter, the poten­ti­al to save ener­gy is even hig­her, as repor­ted in an artic­le in Teknisk Uke­blad.

Also regar­ding elec­tri­ci­ty, matching local habits to main­land man­ners would redu­ce the con­sump­ti­on quick­ly by 15 %. Pas­si­ve hou­ses would increase the reduc­tion to an impres­si­ve 25 %.

The next years may bring impro­ve­ment due to the high cur­rent con­s­truc­tion acti­vi­ties. Tech­ni­cal pos­si­bi­li­ties to impro­ve insu­la­ti­on of exis­ting hou­ses are also work in pro­gress.

So is the pri­ma­ry ener­gy pro­duc­tion in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The only thing that is clear is that the cur­rent coal power plant will not be the long-term solu­ti­on, but nobo­dy knows what is to come then. Many opti­ons have been dis­cus­sed over many years, inclu­ding a new coal power plant, gas, pos­si­bly com­bi­ned with rene­wa­ble ener­gy (wind? Solar power? ..?) and even a cable to the main­land. A decis­i­on has not yet been made.

A Nor­we­gi­an court has deli­ver­ed a jud­ge­ment in the case of a man who dis­tur­bed polar bears in Bil­lefjor­den ear­lier this year by dri­ving on the fjord ice by car.

The 58 year old Ukrai­ni­an citi­zen was living and working in Pyra­mi­den. He went out on the fjord ice by car to pick up two col­le­agues who had been on tour. Ins­tead of going direct­ly back to Pyra­mi­den, they deci­ded to take a turn into neigh­bou­ring Petu­ni­abuk­ta to check the con­di­ti­on of a hut. Accor­ding to the dri­ver, he was not awa­re of the pre­sence of two polar bears who were mating at the time in ques­ti­on. He saw the bears at a distance of 50 met­res and stop­ped imme­dia­te­ly. The polar bears aban­do­ned their mating.

Polar bear fami­ly on fjord ice in Isfjord.

The Ukrai­ni­an dri­ver did not have a driver’s licen­se, this had been with­drawn by Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties ear­lier this year becau­se of other traf­fic offen­ces. Accor­ding to the Sys­sel­man­nen, this con­tri­bu­ted to the cur­rent court jud­ge­ment, tog­e­ther with the fact that it is gene­ral­ly not allo­wed to dri­ve a car on fjord ice (or any­whe­re else other than on roads) in Spits­ber­gen. Dis­tur­bing of the polar bears alo­ne would not have been suf­fi­ci­ent for a pri­son sen­tence.

The man was sen­ten­ced to 30 days of pri­son wit­hout pro­ba­ti­on.

The times are curr­ent­ly most­ly calm in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Spits­ber­gen other­wi­se. The­re, is, of cour­se, always some­thing that cat­ches public atten­ti­on. The pha­seout of coal mining in Sveagru­va and the cle­ar­up of a who­le litt­le sett­le­ment is a dis­cus­sion and will remain so for quite some time. Some buil­dings may be pro­tec­ted as part of Spitsbergen’s cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge, others will pro­ba­b­ly be remo­ved. The ques­ti­on of poten­ti­al fur­ther use of the infra­s­trac­tu­re in Sveagru­a­ve, within sci­ence, tou­rism or wha­te­ver, is still lar­ge­ly open. The only thing that is clear is that the who­le pro­ject will cost a lot of money, just as ope­ning the mine at Lun­ckef­jel­let, which has never seen any­thing but years of cos­t­ly stand­by ope­ra­ti­ons bet­ween ope­ning and shut­ting down the mine.

Sveagru­va: a mining sett­le­ment in pha­seout.

A woman in Lon­gye­ar­by­en is accu­sed for having thrown a stone at a guest of Huset (a popu­lar pub/disco/night club) during a late hour visit in March. The man recei­ved minor inju­ries.

A heli­c­op­ter had to res­cue to stu­dents from Sar­ko­fa­gen, a moun­tain clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The two hikers had ven­tu­red into a steep slo­pe and were unable to move any fur­ther or back.

The moun­tain Sar­ko­fa­gen clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Things that hap­pen in a litt­le arc­tic vil­la­ge after the end of the busy sum­mer sea­son, at the onset of the polar night. Most make them­sel­ves com­for­ta­ble at home, taking care of nor­mal ever­y­day busi­ness and enjoy­ing calm days as it is get­ting dar­ker out­side.

But not ever­y­bo­dy can enjoy cosy evenings at home. The housing mar­ket in Lon­gye­ar­by­en has been dif­fi­cult for years. The­re are seve­ral reasons for this, inclu­ding ava­lan­ches which have ren­de­red who­le streets unsui­ta­ble for living in recent years. Airbnb is ano­ther issue, that makes some homes unavailable to long-term resi­dents in need of housing. This has hap­pen­ed in many places in the world, but in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, you can’t just move to the next vil­la­ge some­whe­re near town and com­mu­te to work. At least, an important houseow­ner has recent­ly announ­ced that he does not want to rent flats out through Airbnb. Inves­tor Fre­d­rik Eken told Sval­bard­pos­ten that his 84 flats in Lon­gye­ar­by­en will not be available on the men­tio­ned plat­form for reasons eco­no­mic­al rather than poli­ti­cal or ethi­cal.

Many flats and hou­ses in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are owned by major insti­tu­ti­ons and employ­ers such as the Sys­sel­man­nen, muni­ci­pal admi­nis­tra­ti­on, UNIS and others who need to offer housing to their employees, which is under­stan­da­ble but at the same time making a signi­fi­cant pro­por­ti­on of the local housing mar­ket unavailable to the public.

The local admi­nis­tra­ti­on has done hers to make the situa­ti­on more dif­fi­cult, at least for some, than might be neces­sa­ry. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, the­re is a num­ber of hou­ses, most of them in “Sjøom­rå­det” clo­se to the fjord, which have flats. The­se flats are, howe­ver, not appro­ved for per­ma­nent use, but rather for lei­su­re use only. Some of the­se “lei­su­re time flats” (frit­ids­bo­lig, as they are cal­led in Nor­we­gi­an) have, howe­ver, been used more or less per­ma­nent­ly for years. In recent years, the local admi­nis­tra­ti­on inclu­ding the fire depart­ment have pushed to take more dra­stic mea­su­res to kick peo­p­le out of the­se flats. Last week, repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the local admi­nis­tra­ti­on and the fire depart­ment went on an unhe­ral­ded con­trol mis­si­on to some hou­ses in ques­ti­on, as Sval­bard­pos­ten repor­ted. This led to 6 per­sons losing their accom­mo­da­ti­on on a short war­ning: they were given 24 hours to move out.

The area cal­led “Sjøom­rå­det” in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Six peo­p­le were recent­ly remo­ved from flats that are not appro­ved for per­ma­nent use.

Reasons given for such rather dra­stic mea­su­res are main­ly fire safe­ty, fol­lo­wed by the miss­ing appr­oval for using the hou­ses for per­ma­nent living in the use zoning plan.

It will not sur­pri­se that this approach is met by cri­ti­cism and des­pa­ra­ti­on among­st tho­se con­cer­ned. Tho­se who lived in the­se hou­ses for years knew that their pro­lon­ged stay was not legal, but it was not a mat­ter of choice for some at least. The pri­va­te housing mar­ket does sim­ply not pro­vi­de afforda­ble accom­mo­da­ti­on. Some of the 6 curr­ent­ly con­cer­ned will have to stay at fri­ends’ places, beco­ming what is local­ly refer­red to as “sofa peo­p­le”. Pos­si­bi­li­ties to find an afforda­ble place to live in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on a long-term basis? Do hard­ly exist.

Con­side­ring this, the cur­rent approach of the muni­ci­pal admi­nis­tra­ti­on to remo­ve peo­p­le from flats that are at least appro­ved for short-time use appears con­tro­ver­si­al. The admi­nis­tra­ti­on has announ­ced fur­ther con­trols as nee­ded.

Fire safe­ty can be taken care of by tech­ni­cal mea­su­res, and a use zoning plan is a mat­ter of poli­ti­cal decis­i­on making. The admi­nis­tra­ti­on has at least announ­ced to start a pro­cess that may include pos­si­bi­li­ties to lega­li­ze the prac­ti­ce.

Sounds extre­me­ly pro­mi­sing, doesn’t it? But it won’t help tho­se who need a place to stay the­re and now. The polar night is coming, and Lon­gye­ar­by­en is a very dark and cold place during the win­ter.