A polar bear was seen clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en near 5 a.m. on Mon­day (27 May) mor­ning. It was in Advent­da­len, not far from the road and the lower­most hou­ses. The Sys­sel­man­nen (poli­ce) was cal­led, seve­ral shots were fired with a fla­re gun and the heli­c­op­ter went out to sca­re the bear away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The bear then wal­ked away along the shore towards Hior­th­hamn, on the other side of Advent­fjord.

The public is remin­ded to take the risk of mee­ting a polar bear serious­ly also near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The Sysselmannen’s heli­c­op­ter and the polar bear (lower left) in Advent­da­len.

Housing mar­ket in Lon­gye­ar­by­en under pres­su­re

The dif­fi­cult housing mar­ket in Lon­gye­ar­by­en has been the sub­ject on the­se pages alre­a­dy seve­ral times befo­re. For years, it has been almost impos­si­ble to find an afforda­ble place to live.

139 flats to be demo­lished

The situa­ti­on got worse after the tra­gic 2015 ava­lan­che, which kil­led 2 peo­p­le in their homes and des­troy­ed seve­ral hou­ses. In the after­math, a new ava­lan­che risk eva­lua­ti­on was made for Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The sho­cking result is that hou­ses with a total of no less than 139 flats have to be demo­lished, and ava­lan­che bar­riers to secu­re remai­ning buil­dings are nee­ded. A num­ber of ava­lan­che pro­tec­tions have alre­a­dy been built on the slo­pes of Suk­ker­top­pen.

Fur­ther 41 fats at risk

Now doubts are coming up if it will actual­ly be pos­si­ble to secu­re some of the remai­ning buil­dings suff­ci­ent­ly. The requi­re­ment is to build ava­lan­che pro­tec­tion that is strong enough even for worst case sce­na­ri­os of cli­ma­te chan­ge – “busi­ness as usu­al” sce­na­ri­os regar­ding future glo­bal CO2 emis­si­ons. In this case, foun­da­ti­ons would have to go as deep down into the slo­pe as 14 met­res to make the bar­riers strong enough.

The ques­ti­on is if this is actual­ly pos­si­ble in the steep ter­rain. The ans­wer is curr­ent­ly unclear. In the worst case, fur­ther hou­ses with up to 41 homes will have to be remo­ved, as repor­ted by Sval­bard­pos­ten. This con­cerns hou­ses clo­se to Suk­ker­top­pen in Way 228.

Even though the result – demo­li­ti­on or not – is curr­ent­ly uncer­tain, one thing is for sure: the housing mar­ket in Lon­gye­ar­by­en will beco­me even more dif­fi­cult.

Resi­den­ti­al hou­ses, and ava­lan­che bar­riers on Suk­ker­top­pen.

Airbnb

Ano­ther fac­tor which has cau­sed public deba­te over years is the short-term ren­tal plat­form AirbnB. It is no secret that a num­ber of homes in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are ren­ted out by their respec­ti­ve owners on short-term basis via Airbnb to tou­rists and not on long-term con­tracts to peo­p­le who want to live in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The actu­al num­ber of homes that are lost this way for the housing mar­ket is not exact­ly known, but it is con­side­red signi­fi­cant. When Sval­bard­pos­ten recent­ly rese­ar­ched the issue, 36 homes in Lon­gye­ar­by­en were offe­red on Airbnb.

More exact num­bers are curr­ent­ly not available, so the com­mu­ni­ty (Lokals­ty­re) has orde­red a report from a spe­cia­li­sed com­pa­ny to get more infor­ma­ti­on about the influence of Airbnb on the local housing mar­ket. Depen­ding on the result, the com­mu­ni­ty could then con­sider limi­ta­ti­ons.

Airbnb is in the cent­re of public dis­cus­sions lin­ked to the housing mar­ket in many places in the world, but Lon­gye­ar­by­en may be more dif­fi­cult than other towns: it is a small place with a small num­ber of hou­ses, whe­re every loss makes a dif­fe­rence. The­re are many tou­rists with a lot of money, dis­tort­ing the small and tight local housing mar­ket. Third­ly, you can not just move, sett­le down in the next vil­la­ge and com­mu­te.

One thing is for sure: it is curr­ent­ly almost impos­si­ble to find a home in Lon­gyear­ben for smal­ler inco­mes.

Two per­sons died during a moun­tain hike in Horn­sund. They were a woman and a man who belon­ged to the crew of the Polish rese­arch sta­ti­on in Horn­sund. They had set out for a pri­va­te tour on Fri­day but did not return until the agreed time on Sun­day mor­ning, so the remai­ning sta­ti­on crew star­ted a search.

Map of Horn­sund show­ing the rese­arch sta­ti­on and the moun­tain Kam­kro­na (acci­dent site). © topo­gra­phic base: Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te.

They had ascen­ded the moun­tain Kam­kro­na, which is part of Sofie­kam­men, a long, steep ridge on the west side of Bur­ger­buk­ta. Kam­kro­na is about 8 km east of the rese­arch sta­ti­on and 770 met­res high, the east side of the moun­tain is very steep.

The moun­tain ridge Sofie­kam­men on the west side of Bur­ger­buk­ta in Horn­sund. Kam­kro­na is a peak appro­xi­m­ate­ly in the midd­le.

Accor­ding to a press release by the Sys­sel­man­nen the two vic­tims died during a fall of seve­ral hundred met­res in an ava­lan­che. No fur­ther details are public so far. The vic­tims were reco­ver­ed by SAR forces of the Sys­sel­man­nen and brought to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Update: Accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten, Sys­sel­man­nen poli­ce offi­cer Anders Hau­ge­rud told the Nor­we­gi­an news agen­cy NTB that the two appear to have step­ped out on an over­han­ging snow bank on the moun­tain top. This was later con­firm­ed.

As the fami­lies are infor­med, the names of the two decea­sed have been offi­ci­al­ly released. They were Anna Gór­s­ka and Mich­al Sawi­cki. Both had been working at the sta­ti­on, Anna as meteo­ro­lo­gist and Mich­al as geo­phy­si­cist.

Spitsbergen’s first bank rob­be­ry took place in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on 21 Decem­ber 2018. The offen­der was a 29 years old Rus­si­an citi­zen who had come to Lon­gye­ar­by­en a few days befo­re. He threa­ten­ed the bank employees with a rif­le and forced them to hand out 70,000 Nor­we­gi­an kro­ner (ca. 7,000 Euro) with the words “This is not a joke. This is a rob­be­ry”.

The man was soon arres­ted by the poli­ce and taken into pre-tri­al cus­t­ody in Trom­sø. Now the court, Nord-Troms tin­g­rett, sen­ten­ced him to 14 months pri­son, as NRK repor­ted. In addi­ti­on, he has to pay NOK 20,000.00 to each of the 3 bank employees whom he had threa­ten­ed during the rob­be­ry.

Bank rob­be­ry in Lon­gye­ar­by­en: offen­der sen­ten­ced.

Serious psy­cho­lo­gi­cal pro­blems are said to have play­ed an important role. The man said that he had initi­al­ly plan­ned to com­mit sui­ci­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but then deci­ded to raid the bank in order to be arres­ted. It is also men­tio­ned that he wan­ted to avo­id having to return back to Rus­sia.

The rif­le that he had used during the bank rob­be­ry was loa­ded with sharp ammu­ni­ti­on and the offen­der poin­ted it towards the bank employees. It was a bolt-action Mau­ser rif­le, a very com­mon type of ren­tal wea­pon in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. After the rob­be­ry, the man went back to the ren­tal shop with the rif­le still loa­ded and retur­ned the wea­pon. Then he went back to the bank to return the money, but did not suc­ceed. Ins­tead, he was soon arres­ted by the poli­ce. He did not offer reis­tance.

The sen­tence is below the cla­im of the public pro­se­cu­ter, but hig­her than the defence lawy­er had plea­ded for. Revi­si­on is still pos­si­ble.

Today (Satur­day, 27 April) at 9 a.m., the start­ing shot for the Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon 2019 was fired by Sys­sel­mann Kjers­tin Askholt.

Sys­sel­mann Kjers­tin Askholt is rea­dy to fire the start­ing shot for the Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon 2019.

The moment when the 2019 com­pe­ti­ti­on was a fact must have come as a bit of a reli­ef for the orga­nisers. The strong tha­wing during the week befo­re Eas­ter took a hea­vy toll on the snow con­di­ti­ons, and the rou­te had to be moved on a short war­ning. Today’s Ski­ma­ra­thon takes the par­ti­ci­pan­ts across Advent­da­len and a short turn into Mälard­a­len, then along the coast of Advent­fjord to Hior­th­hamn and Advent City and final­ly into Hanas­kog­da­len and then back again.

Start of the Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon 2019.

In addi­ti­on comes the strike of the SAS pilots. Many had hoped that Lon­gye­ar­by­en would be excluded from the strike as the­re are no alter­na­ti­ve means of get­ting here and away regu­lar­ly available other than fly­ing. Buses and trains are obvious­ly not an opti­on, in con­trast to many cities in main­land Scan­di­na­via. But the SAS flight Fri­day after­noon was can­cel­led and more can­cel­la­ti­ons are likely to fol­low.

How many regis­tered par­ti­ci­pan­ts were unable to fly to Lon­gye­ar­by­en is not known, but it is likely to be more than just a handfull. And a few days ago, the num­ber of par­ti­ci­pan­ts was alre­a­dy a bit lower than in 2018: about 800 in con­trast to about 700. The­se figu­res are not final, as par­ti­ci­pan­ts could regis­ter up to Fri­day evening, some­thing that some locals always do, depen­ding on their moti­va­ti­on sta­tus of the day and the wea­ther fore­cast.

Pre-race award cerem­o­ny 🙂

Today’s Sval­bard Ski­ma­ra­thon is the 27th one. It is one of the lar­gest regu­lar events in the calen­dar for Lon­gye­ar­by­en, attrac­ting inter­na­tio­nal par­ti­ci­pan­ts from many count­ries.

A gre­at day with much fun to all par­ti­ci­pan­ts and all others invol­ved!

Snow melt – 4 weeks too ear­ly

Yes, this is how the last ent­ry star­ted as well. It is not gre­at. Yes, the­re have always been mild air incur­si­ons with tha­wing tem­pe­ra­tures and rain in Spits­ber­gen, even in mid-win­ter. The cli­ma­te here is mari­ti­me.

But a who­le week? In April, a month that tends to be quite sta­ble other­wi­se? That is quite tough.

The wea­ther fore­cast for Lon­gye­ar­by­en from last Wed­nes­day
(© Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te).

This is what the wea­ther fore­cast loo­ked like on Wed­nes­day. Tem­pe­ra­tures in red, abo­ve zero, and rain. This is how it was pret­ty much all of the week, from Mon­day to Fri­day. Today (Satur­day), the­re is some mild frost again, at least.

The river­bed of Lon­gye­a­rel­va had to be ope­ned to pre­vent floo­ding of the road.

Whe­re­ver you look, it is sad. It is mel­ting and flowing ever­y­whe­re. The­re are ponds and lakes ins­tead of white snow sur­faces, smal­ler rivers have star­ted to flow again, tun­dra are­as are coming through the wet snow.

The Tun­dra is coming through the snow,
here in Bjørn­da­len in the begin­ning of this snow melt week.

They had to come with a dig­ging machi­ne to clear the river bed of Lon­gye­a­rel­va, the river in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, from snow to pre­vent the road from being floo­ded. That is a nor­mal pro­ce­du­re – but not in mid April (it was on Thurs­day).

The camp­si­te is a lake. The­re was actual­ly one lonely cam­per a week ago, but he left for some reason.

The camp­si­te near Lon­gye­ar­by­en is a lake.

Eas­ter weekend with ques­ti­on marks

The Eas­ter weekend has begun, one of the main tou­rist sea­sons in Nor­way. Ever­y­bo­dy is out and about, on tour some­whe­re, on holi­day or visi­ting someone. Pre­fer­a­b­ly some­thing that has to do with a hut, snow and ski, alter­na­tively a boat will also do.

A boat might actual­ly be the bet­ter opti­on than the kind of tour that you would expect in Spits­ber­gen at this time of year. White, wide snow land­scapes, snow mobi­le trips to places far away or dog sledge tours and ski hikes some­whe­re around Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

But, alas, ever­y­thing is grey and wet and water is flowing ever­y­whe­re. The hotels are ful­ly boo­ked, pla­nes come every day with eas­ter tou­rists who have boo­ked rooms and trips for stun­ning pri­ces, loo­king for­ward to a tas­te of the real Arc­tic.

Right place, but wrong time.

Ins­tead, mine 3, which is a muse­um mine now, is get­ting a lot of visi­tors. This is one of few places whe­re you can book an inte­res­t­ing excur­si­on right now regard­less of the wea­ther con­di­ti­ons, as long as the road is open. Not the kind of expe­ri­ence most would have thought of when they plan­ned their trip, but cer­tain­ly a very inte­res­t­ing expe­ri­ence.

Just for the sake of com­ple­ten­ess: they are still run­ning some snow mobi­le tours, obvious­ly under rather mar­gi­nal con­di­ti­ons.

Visi­ting gruve 3, the visi­tor mine.

Today (Eas­ter Satur­day), the­re is some mild frost again, and tem­pe­ra­tures are sup­po­sed to fall tomor­row. We will see if we get a bit more win­ter here again, or if the win­ter sea­son is alre­a­dy over. That is a ques­ti­on many are con­side­ring in Lon­gye­ar­by­en now.

Mid­night sun: next sun­ri­se August

The­re is no “night” any­mo­re in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The last sun­set was on Thurs­day, the mid­night sun is shi­ning sin­ce yes­ter­day (Good Fri­day). The next sun­set will be on 26 August – at 00.05 a.m., which means it is actual­ly the 25 August, astro­no­mic­al­ly (becau­se of day­light saving time, astro­no­mic­al mid­night is near 01 a.m.)

Cli­ma­te in Lon­gye­ar­by­en war­mer than avera­ge sin­ce 100 months

Febru­ary and March 2019 have most­ly been cold months with tem­pe­ra­tures around -20 degrees cen­ti­gra­de and below over many peri­ods, but it has not been enough to reach the month­ly avera­ge. Also in March, the avera­ge tem­pe­ra­tu­re of the months was abo­ve the long-term avera­ge. This was the 100th month in a row that the tem­pe­ra­tu­re (avera­ge of the month) was abo­ve the long-term avera­ge – more than 8 years, in other words, as cli­ma­te sci­en­tist Kje­til Isak­sen reports to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

Refe­rence peri­od: 1960-1990

The refe­rence peri­od for the long-term avera­ge is 1960-1990. The nor­mal tem­pe­ra­tu­re from this peri­od is histo­ry: cli­ma­te chan­ge is three times fas­ter in Spits­ber­gen than in main­land Nor­way and six times fas­ter than glo­bal­ly. Accor­ding to Isak­sen, this is lar­ge­ly due to increased water tem­pe­ra­tures in the fjords and sur­roun­ding seas: the­re is more heat exch­an­ge bet­ween sea and atmo­sphe­re than befo­re and the decreased ice cover enables the water to absorb sun radia­ti­on and turn it into heat rather than reflec­ting a hig­her pro­por­ti­on back into space as pre­vious­ly.

Ava­lan­che bar­riers as an adapt­a­ti­on to cli­ma­te chan­ge in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Sci­en­tists do not expect this trend to stop at any time soon. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, the com­mu­ni­ty is adap­ting to a new cli­ma­te.

Ava­lan­che bar­riers on Suk­ker­top­pen clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

After the cata­stro­phic ava­lan­che from 19 Decem­ber 2015 which has clai­med two lives, hundreds of inha­bi­tants are evacua­ted every year during the ava­lan­che sea­son, many of them for seve­ral months. Plans are curr­ent­ly made to tear down buil­dings with 142 flats in are­as which are at risk from ava­lan­ches. Housing shorta­ge and an over­hea­ted housing mar­ket are chal­lenges that many locals in Lon­gye­ar­by­en curr­ent­ly have to deal with.

Barents­burg

Also in Barents­burg peo­p­le are awa­re of the­se deve­lo­p­ments and an ava­lan­che risk map has recent­ly been published. Some buil­dings are in are­as at risk and would not be built now whe­re they are today. But it is assu­med that the situa­ti­on can be con­trol­led tech­ni­cal­ly, wit­hout moving or tearing down buil­dings.

Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kul­kom­pa­ni (SNSK), owner of the for­mer coal mining sett­le­ment of Sveagru­va, has got per­mis­si­on from the Sys­sel­man­nen to break the fjord ice in Van Mijenfjord to the har­bour of Svea.

Van Mijenfjord is shel­te­red from the open sea by the island of Akseløya, which is almost blo­cking the ent­rance. Hence, the fjord is is sett­ling ear­lier and get­ting more exten­si­ve the­re than in any other fjord on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen. The fjord ice in Van Mijenfjord is an important habi­tat which is not available any­mo­re else­whe­re as wide­ly as ear­lier, due to the warm­ing cli­ma­te. Rin­ged seals need fjord ice in spring to rest and to give birth and polar bears fre­quent the ice to hunt.

Ice chart: Van Mijenfjord is the only fjord in the regi­on with a lar­ge area of solid ice. The fjord ice will be bro­ken all the way to Sveagru­va (red dot).
Chart © Nor­we­gi­an meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te (dot added).

Usual­ly, the aut­ho­ri­ties con­sider the fjord ice envi­ron­men­tal­ly very important and will not give per­mis­si­on for ice brea­king. Even non-des­truc­ti­ve traf­fic with snow mobi­les is now rest­ric­ted: snow mobi­les are not allo­wed any­mo­re on lar­ge parts of the fjord ice in Tem­pel­fjord, to avo­id dis­tur­ban­ce of wild­life which only occur in cases of reck­less beha­viour. Such traf­fic bans were also con­side­red for Rin­ders­buk­ta which is part of Van Mijenfjord, but not (yet) imple­men­ted.

Other rules seem to app­ly for brea­king the ice, or at least the same rules are given a dif­fe­rent inter­pre­ta­ti­on. The Sys­sel­man­nen empha­si­zes in a press release that traf­fic in Spits­ber­gen is sup­po­sed to hap­pen in a way that does not harm the envi­ron­ment or dis­turbs ani­mals or peo­p­le unneces­s­a­ri­ly. But in this case, the eco­no­mic­al inte­rests of Store Nor­ske were given more weight than the pro­tec­tion of the wild­life that needs the ice in times when it has beco­me rare in Spits­ber­gen.

The back­ground: Sveagru­va is run­ning out of die­sel. Stocks were sup­po­sed to last until sum­mer 2019, but con­sump­ti­on during the win­ter was hig­her than expec­ted. Die­sel is not just used for vehic­les, but also to run the power plant in Svea, which is sup­p­ly­ing the sett­le­ment with elec­tri­ci­ty and warmth. The cur­rent stock would now last “pro­ba­b­ly until May, appro­xi­m­ate­ly”, accor­ding to the Sysselmannen’s press release. And not until the sum­mer, when the fjord ice would be gone any­way.

Wit­hout die­sel for the power sta­ti­on, Svea would have to be evacua­ted. The con­se­quence would not only be a tem­po­ra­ry stop of the clean-up that has recent­ly begun, but pos­si­bly also dama­ge to the infra­struc­tu­re. This would invol­ve serious eco­no­mic­al con­se­quen­ces for Store Nor­ske. This is the reason why the com­pa­ny has got per­mis­si­on to break the ice and take a ship to Kapp Ams­ter­dam, the har­bour of Sveagru­va. Tech­ni­cal­ly, an over­land trans­port from Lon­gye­ar­by­en would be pos­si­ble, but this would invol­ve appro­xi­m­ate­ly 60 tours. The total strain on the envi­ron­ment and the risk of pol­lu­ti­on is con­side­red hig­her and hence trans­port by ship was given prio­ri­ty.

The har­bour of Sveagru­va at Kapp Ams­ter­dam.

In ear­lier times, when Sveagru­va was still an acti­ve mining sett­le­ment, it was not unu­su­al to break the ice in spring to ship coal. But times are dif­fe­rent now. No coal is mined any­mo­re in Sveagru­va, and the­re is much less ice in the other fjords in Spits­ber­gen and this ice may not even be used for snow mobi­le traf­fic in cer­tain fjords, oppo­sed to the wis­hes and eco­no­mic­al inte­rests of many. It is not sur­pri­sing that the per­mis­si­on to break more than 30 kilo­me­t­res of solid fjord is is met with public cri­ti­cism.

The wea­ther in the days after brea­king the ice will be important: if it remains cold and calm for a while, the fjord will quick­ly free­ze again. But a storm might break up lar­ge are­as of wea­k­en­ed ice.

The shrimp traw­ler North­gui­der ran aground in Hin­lo­pens­trait clo­se to Spar­ren­e­set on Nord­aus­t­land, just south of Murch­ison­fjord. The who­le crew could be saved by heli­c­op­ter, as repor­ted ear­lier. The crew has later descri­bed the who­le expe­ri­ence, in total dark­ness, strong cold and stor­my wind, as very dra­ma­tic.

Fishing traw­ler North­gui­der groun­ded in Hin­lo­pens­tre­tet, clo­se to the coast of Nord­aus­t­land. Pho­to: Kyst­ver­ket.

300 tons of die­sel and other envi­ron­men­tal­ly dan­ge­rous sub­s­tances and goods could be sal­va­ged in Janu­ary, but the North­gui­der is still sit­ting on rocks. Experts from Sjøf­arts­di­rek­to­ra­tet, the Nor­we­gi­an ship­ping aut­ho­ri­ty, judge her posi­ti­on as sta­ble. The advan­ta­ge of that is that forces of natu­re such as wind, curr­ents and ice are unli­kely to push the ship into deeper waters. The dis­ad­van­ta­ge is that also human efforts to sal­va­ge the groun­ded ship will requi­re con­sidera­ble efforts and a major ope­ra­ti­on. It is esti­ma­ted that the sal­va­ging ope­ra­ti­on will take seve­ral weeks of work on the sce­ne.

The Sys­sel­man­nen, as the aut­ho­ri­ty who is gene­ral­ly respon­si­ble for the manage­ment of the area in ques­ti­on, and the Sjøf­arts­di­rek­to­rat and the Kyst­vakt (coast guard) have now deci­ded that the sal­va­ti­on work will be car­ri­ed out in August. At that time, the gene­ral con­di­ti­ons regar­ding wea­ther, ice and light should be most favoura­ble.

The coast guard ves­sel KV Sval­bard is curr­ent­ly on her way to the acci­dent site to assess the situa­ti­on the­re again, dou­ble-che­cking that the­re are no envi­ron­men­tal­ly harmful sub­s­tances and items are on board any­mo­re and that the posi­ti­on of the North­gui­der is sta­ble. Fur­ther moni­to­ring is plan­ned by moti­on detec­tors and bea­cons sen­dung the posi­ti­on of the ship in case of any unex­pec­ted move­ments.