It is real­ly not a sur­pri­se, but now it is offi­ci­al: our Spits­ber­gen voya­ge with Anti­gua in July is can­cel­led for reasons that will hard­ly requi­re an expl­ana­ti­on. The par­ti­ci­pan­ts who are boo­ked on this voya­ge will be cont­ac­ted soo­nest by the Geo­gra­phi­schen Rei­se­ge­sell­schaft.

With Anti­gua in Spits­ber­gen: won’t hap­pen in July 2020.

I have to admit that this is a bit emo­tio­nal. The thought of all the arc­tic soul­food that is lost this year can bring more than just a bit of water to one’s eyes. Cer­tain­ly to mine, at least. This sum­mers’ first, ear­ly sea­son trip in Spits­ber­gen on Anti­gua would be hap­pe­ning right now. Still a lot of snow and ice up north. But in real life, Anti­gua is about as far away from Spits­ber­gen as most of you rea­ders will be. A few weeks ago, on the trip up from main­land Nor­way to Spits­ber­gen, we might have seen Bear Island as we haven’t seen it at all in recent years: with den­se ice packed all round the shores! We can only ima­gi­ne how good that might have been. Sad. I am sure that I can honest­ly think and wri­te that on behalf of all pas­sen­gers and crew.

Ice chart of south Spits­ber­gen, ear­ly May: ice around the south cape, Bear Island and on the east coast, Bell­sund fro­zen solid. How good would that have been …
Ice chart © Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te.

Bey­ond all the good expe­ri­ence that is now lost, you may ima­gi­ne that this is also a bit of a tough blow eco­no­mic­al­ly. In this con­text, I may men­ti­on that my Spits­ber­gen online shop has never been clo­sed and it will remain open and acces­si­ble at any time and you can find a lot of good stuff the­re to tra­vel the Arc­tic wit­hout lea­ving the sofa! Next to the famous Spits­ber­gen bible, the­re is the less famous, but may­be even more beau­tiful pho­to book with the aeri­al pho­tos or, with the drift­wood pic­tu­re frames and the kit­chen slats, a real pie­ce of Spits­ber­gen on the wall or the kit­chen table, respec­tively, to men­ti­on just a few.

Gene­ral­ly, tou­rism is start­ing up slow­ly again in Spits­ber­gen. Empha­si­ze “slow­ly”. But this, again, will hard­ly come as a sur­pri­se: so far, only tou­rists from main­land Nor­way can visit Spits­ber­gen. Danish tou­rists will be the next ones who will be allo­wed in from 15 June. The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has announ­ced to make a state­ment regar­ding visi­tors from “near-by Euro­pean count­ries” until 20 July. So, stay tun­ed.

Any­way, ship-based tra­vel­ling over seve­ral days is so far excluded and it is announ­ced that it will take “more time” (wit­hout fur­ther spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on) until this kind of tra­vel­ling can take place again.