Nor­t­hern news

The polar night has sett­led down on Spits­ber­gen and the various lock­downs and tra­vel rest­ric­tions rela­ted to Coro­na any­way. The world’s atten­ti­on is focus­sed on events else­whe­re rather than the Arc­tic, whe­re life is going on with minor exci­te­ments from the depart­ments “busi­ness as usu­al + ever­y­day mad­ness”.

The Spits­ber­gen-news over­view as of late October/early Novem­ber:

The pre­vious week began with spec­ta­cu­lar fire­works of nor­t­hern lights over Spits­ber­gen as well as other places in the auro­ra oval as much as they had a free sky in the appro­pria­te moments. Many ama­zing pho­tos came from Lon­gye­ar­by­en in tho­se days.

Nor­t­hern light over Advent­da­len near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Mine 7, which was part­ly floo­ded with melt­wa­ter during the record-warm days in July, is still not in pro­duc­ti­ve ope­ra­ti­on again. We have been hea­ring for a while that rou­ti­ne work will start soon again, but this has not yet hap­pen­ed as of the time of wri­ting (Mon­day, 02 Novem­ber). Curr­ent­ly, the mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske expects pro­duc­tion to start up again this week. Coal from mine 7 is used in the local power plant and it is ship­ped to cus­to­mers main­ly in Ger­ma­ny, who have pla­ced orders again after a stop during the Coro­na lock­down in spring.

Gal­le­ri Sval­bard, so far loca­ted in Nyby­en, has announ­ced to move to cen­tral Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Nyby­en, an upper part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en which is suf­fe­ring from a risk of snow ava­lan­ches and rock­falls, will then lose a main tou­rist attrac­tion.

With Sval­Bad, the­re is a new sau­na in the port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en. It is hea­ted with wood and offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a very effi­ci­ent cool-down in the fjord 🙂

The Asso­cia­ti­on of Arc­tic Expe­di­ti­on Crui­se Ope­ra­tors (AECO) has announ­ced indus­try-wide stan­dards for gui­des, thus taking up a deve­lo­p­ment that has been ongo­ing for years.

For many years, we have been taking care of good teams our­sel­ves.
Due to the growth of tou­rism also in the polar are­as, howe­ver, it is wit­hout any doubt a good thing to estab­lish indus­try-wide stan­dards.
This is a pho­to from times long gone by – a gre­at team, wit­hout any ques­ti­on! From left to right: Cap­tain Alex­an­der Pruss, a young Rolf Stan­ge (that’s me), Peter Bal­win and Mat­thi­as Kopp, during a Spits­ber­gen-voya­ge on board Pro­fes­sor Mul­ta­novs­kiy in 2009.
Tho­se were the days 🙂
My apo­lo­gies for get­ting lost in nost­al­gia for a brief moment.
Pho­to © Bär­bel Erwert, who was our ship doc­tor.

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