Out­door folks who want to get out near Lon­gye­ar­by­en can not yet return back to nor­mal (wha­te­ver that means in Spits­ber­gen any­way). The polar bear that gave a group of tou­rists and gui­des with dog sled­ges a good adre­na­lin rush on Wed­nes­day was seen again yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) after­noon.

On Wed­nes­day, the bear was pushed up Bol­terd­a­len and into Tverrd­a­len by the Sysselmannen’s heli­c­op­ter. The hope was that it would, after a rest, con­ti­nue sou­thwards. But the bear obvious­ly had dif­fe­rent ide­as and retur­ned to Bol­terd­a­len, whe­re it was met Thurs­day after­noon on Scott Tur­ner­breen (-gla­cier) by Tom­my Jor­d­bru­dal and his col­le­ague. Tom­my has been run­ning a small com­pa­ny offe­ring dog sledge trips in that area for many years and was out to check the con­di­ti­ons on the gla­cier, which is a popu­lar desti­na­ti­on for dog sledge excur­si­ons. Scott Tur­ner­breen has an acces­si­ble ice cave and the area is lar­ge­ly snow-mobi­le free: only locals are allo­wed to dri­ve the­re with snow mobi­les and even for them Bol­terd­a­len and a wide area around it are off limits for moto­ri­sed traf­fic from 01 March every year, mea­ning that locals and tou­rists can enjoy a silent area for silent excur­si­ons by ski or dog sledge.

But polar bears are not ban­ned from the area, so Tom­my and his col­leage sud­den­ly had a polar bear just a few met­res away from them, inves­ti­ga­ting their snow mobi­le. Even a war­ning shot with a revol­ver did not make much of an impres­si­on on the bear.

Bol­terd­a­len (seen from Sol­ei­etop­pen): curr­ent­ly not a polar-bear-free area.
Scott Tur­ner­breen on the left hand side.

Tom­my has been run­ning trips in Bol­terd­a­len for 12 years now, so during the sea­son he and his gui­des are the­re on a very regu­lar­ly basis and he says that he has never seen a polar bear track or even a bear the­re befo­re. Now the Sys­sel­man­nen went out again by heli­c­op­ter, try­ing to sort the situa­ti­on out.

This aut­hor hopes that he does not have to wri­te again about inci­dents whe­re life, human or ani­mal, came to any harm.

The dis­cus­sion about for­mal requi­re­ments for gui­des is not new, but it has now got a signi­fi­cant boost as the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has declared a need for this dis­cus­sion.

“Gui­de” is, so far, not a for­mal­ly qua­li­fied pro­fes­si­on. The­re are efforts, pri­va­te and indus­try-based, to intro­du­ce cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on for gui­des, but until now, basi­cal­ly ever­y­bo­dy can come, cla­im to be a gui­de and try to find work. This has actual­ly work­ed well over many years as a limi­t­ed num­ber of tou­rists was met by an also limi­t­ed but suf­fi­ci­ent­ly lar­ge num­ber of gui­des who were enthu­si­asts of the out­doors and had, as such, built up suf­fi­ci­ent know­ledge, skills and expe­ri­ence to lead tou­rists in arc­tic natu­re, sum­mer or win­ter, by ski, dog sledge, snow mobi­le, boat, ship, hiking, wha­te­ver.

But times have chan­ged. Recent years have seen a num­ber of new com­pa­nies who want their share of the tou­rism mar­ket in the Arc­tic, often in the attrac­ti­ve day trip mar­ket in Longyearbyen’s sur­roun­dings. A “mar­ket”: that’s what it is now, a mar­ket with a huge tur­no­ver whe­re a lot of money is made by some. Not a niche any­mo­re whe­re a limi­t­ed num­ber of enthu­si­asts find their way of life with a lot of per­so­nal idea­lism and effort. Of cour­se they still exist, but the total pic­tu­re is by now far more com­plex.

The grown and still gro­wing mar­ket impli­es an increased need for gui­des, and it is not just a few obser­vers who are not always satis­fied with the level of know­ledge, expe­ri­ence and skill that they see.

Tou­rist group with gui­de in Coles­da­len: gui­de is, so far, an open pro­fes­si­on.

This is not just annoy­ing, but may also be dan­ge­rous. In Spits­ber­gen, gui­des hand­le wea­pons, boats, snow mobi­les and dog sled­ges on a regu­lar basis, they deal with arc­tic wea­ther, have to expect mee­ting a polar bear at any time in the field and take respon­si­bi­li­ty for the safe­ty of peo­p­le in the­se con­di­ti­ons. Addi­tio­nal­ly, gui­des are a key fac­tor when it comes to envi­ron­men­tal issues. It is ful­ly pos­si­ble to visit cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge sites, obser­ve wild­life and walk in the natu­re wit­hout des­troy­ing or dis­tur­bing any­thing, but the oppo­si­te may also hap­pen and com­pe­tent lea­der­ship out in the field is key in this con­text.

Seen in this light, one may won­der why cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on requi­re­ments for gui­des have not alre­a­dy been intro­du­ced a long time ago, also as an alter­na­ti­ve to clo­sing sites and even lar­ge are­as, as was dis­cus­sed no less than a good 10 years ago. Even the local indus­try sec­tor orga­ni­sa­ti­on Visit Sval­bard has now expres­sed them­sel­ves posi­tively towards this issue – of cour­se expec­ting to be part of such a pro­cess. Ever­y­bo­dy in the busi­ness knows that for exam­p­le a serious acci­dents would do harm not only to tho­se direct­ly invol­ved but to the who­le indus­try if it turns out that lack of qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on on behalf of the gui­des was a fac­tor.

Safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal mat­ters are issues that local gui­des have also been awa­re of for quite a while, accor­ding to the Sval­bard Gui­de Asso­cia­ti­on. And of cour­se “old” gui­des with years of solid expe­ri­ence are not always hap­py when young col­le­ages wit­hout rele­vant expe­ri­ence and skills come and take their jobs, an issue that is rele­vant not only for envi­ron­men­tal and safe­ty con­cerns but also when it comes to working con­di­ti­ons in the indus­try.

Spitsbergen’s gla­cier will, howe­ver, pro­ba­b­ly still lose a good bit of ice until requi­re­ments for gui­de cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on has been for­ma­li­sed on a legal level: The Nor­we­gi­an government’s recent press release just indi­ca­ted a need to dis­cuss the issue. The­re are still a lot of prac­ti­cal ques­ti­ons to be ans­we­red regar­ding the qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on and cer­ti­fac­tion pro­cess.

Yet again, a polar bear has been in the area near Lon­gye­ar­by­en. This time, it was not just tracks in the snow, but a very clo­se encoun­ter of a group of 4 dog sled­ges with gui­des and tou­rists in Bol­terd­a­len. The group was retur­ning from Scott Tur­ner­breen, a gla­cier that is a popu­lar desti­na­ti­on for (half) day trips by dog sledge, to the dogyard of Green Dog in Bol­terd­a­len clo­se to Advent­da­len. Sud­den­ly the bear was stan­ding on a ter­race next to the rou­te, much to ever­y­bo­dies sur­pri­se, pro­ba­b­ly inclu­ding the bear. The bear came and snif­fed on the dogs of the first sledge, while the tou­rists on the sledge – a woman and her 11 year old daugh­ter – were wat­ching. The gui­de, Mar­cel Star­in­sky from Slo­va­kia, rea­li­sed that he did not even have time to get is rif­le rea­dy. Ins­tead, he grab­bed a pie­ce of rope and gave the bear a slab on the nose. Then, the bear went a bit away, pas­sed the other sled­ges and dis­ap­peared in the dark­ness. The who­le event took pro­ba­b­ly less than a minu­te, as the gui­des told Sval­bard­pos­ten later.

The group then retur­ned to the dogyard and gui­des and tou­rists took their time tog­e­ther to digest this very unu­su­al expe­ri­ence. As far as known, ever­y­bo­dy had his or her ner­ves under con­trol during the event and accor­ding to Mar­cel Star­in­sky and his col­le­ague, Dani­el Stil­ling Ger­mer from Den­mark, the bear did not show any signs of aggres­si­on. It would be inte­res­t­ing to hear the sto­ry from the woman and her daug­her on the first sledge. They have cer­tain­ly got a sto­ry to tell now.

Out on tour in dark­ness and snow.
It can be vir­tual­ly impos­si­ble to see what is going on near­by.

Later, the polar bear was again seen near the dogyard, but was then dri­ven away by the Sysselmannen’s heli­c­op­ter through Bol­terd­a­len and towards Reind­a­len.

It is hard to say if this bear had any­thing to do with the tracks that were recent­ly seen on Lon­gye­ar­breen. The­se tracks were fol­lo­wed by the Sys­sel­man­nen the west, up to Kapp Lai­la in Coles­buk­ta, whe­re­as the bear in the event nar­ra­ted here is assu­med to have come from Advent­da­len, from the east. This at least sug­gests that it is not one and the same ani­mal.

A polar bear track has been found on Lon­gye­ar­breen (-gla­cier) clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, accor­ding to the local news­pa­per Sval­bard­pos­ten. It is very unli­kely that the track is from the bear that has kept peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en exci­ted in late Decem­ber and was then shot on 01 Janu­ary: mean­while, the­re have been win­dy wea­ther and snow­fall, so the recent­ly dis­co­ver­ed tracks are very likely youn­ger. This means that the­re was again a polar bear clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en and it might still be around.

Com­mon sen­se and the Sys­sel­man­nen tell ever­y­bo­dy in and near Lon­gye­ar­by­en to be alert and take care.

Polar bear tracks (archi­ve image; it is dark now in Spits­ber­gen 🙂 ).

As expec­ted, the dis­cus­sion around the bear that was shot in the ear­ly mor­ning hours of New Year’s Day in Hanas­kog­da­len, about 10 kilo­me­t­res away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, is high­ly con­tro­ver­si­al. Nor­we­gi­an offi­ci­als con­firm that they had to shoot the bear in order to gua­ran­tee the safe­ty of the peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en espe­ci­al­ly during the dark sea­son as this ani­mal was not shy any­mo­re and did not hesi­ta­te to go near and even enter the sett­le­ment. Others, such as the Rus­si­an polar bear sci­en­tist Niki­ta Ovsyani­kov who has gathe­red a lot of expe­ri­ence with polar bears in the Rus­si­an Arc­tic, even speak of “mur­der” and accu­se the Syss­sel­man­nen of not having used all opti­ons to sca­re the bear away per­ma­nent­ly. Here, Ovsyani­kov men­ti­ons pep­per spray which is not a com­mon polar bear deter­rent in Nor­we­gi­an ter­ri­to­ries, it is actual­ly not even legal acces­si­ble for mere mor­tals under Nor­we­gi­an legis­la­ti­on. An inte­res­t­ing dis­cus­sion and it would cer­tain­ly be inte­res­t­ing to inves­ti­ga­te fur­ther non-lethal tech­ni­ques to sca­re polar bears away from sett­le­ments, a field whe­re a lot might be lear­nt from peo­p­le like Ovsyani­kov. Pep­per spray might cer­tain­ly expand the ran­ge of opti­ons of Nor­we­gi­an poli­ce when it comes to non-lethal polar bear deterr­ents and the­re are tho­se who say that it might also have a place in a wide con­text. Pri­va­te per­sons might use it, for exam­p­le, from the rela­ti­ve safe­ty of a hut or even a tent, some­thing that would, howe­ver, requi­re know­ledge and ner­ves that not ever­y­bo­dy has.

To make it clear again: pep­per spray is curr­ent­ly not legal in Nor­way inclu­ding Spits­ber­gen and this is unli­kely to chan­ge at any time soon.

Spitsbergen’s lar­gest mining dis­as­ter ever took place exact­ly 100 years ago, 03 Janu­ary 1920, in mine 1 in Lon­gyear City. The mine is today most­ly known as the “Ame­ri­can mine” and Lon­gyear City is cal­led Lon­gye­ar­by­en sin­ce 1926. Mine 1 was in ope­ra­ti­on from 1906, when Lon­gyear City was foun­ded by the Ame­ri­can Arc­tic Coal Com­pa­ny, foun­ded and owned by John Mun­ro Lon­gyear. In 1916, Lon­gyear sold his pro­per­ty to the Nor­we­gi­an com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kul­kom­pa­ni, known as Store Nor­ske, short SNSK. Store Nor­ske con­tin­ued to pro­du­ce coal in mine 1 (later cal­led mine 1a, as the­re was a mine 1b in ope­ra­ti­on from 1939 abo­ve Sver­drup­by­en, the sou­thern­most part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en).

Mine 1, known as “Ame­ri­can mine”, abo­ve the church in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.
26 miners died here during a coal dust explo­si­on in 1920.

Mine 1 explo­ded in the ear­ly mor­ning hours of 03 Janu­ary 1920. It was a coal dust explo­si­on that kil­led 26 miners. The­re were only eight sur­vi­vors, two of them inju­red. Blas­ting is sup­po­sed to have igni­ted the coal dust. The explo­si­on was so strong that a pit pony is said to have been blown out of the mine and across the val­ley!

This acci­dent was a cata­stro­phe for the small mining sett­le­ment Lon­gyear City/Longyearbyen, which was back then com­ple­te­ly iso­la­ted during the polar night. Dark­ness and bad wea­ther made res­cue ope­ra­ti­ons dif­fi­cult. Mine 1 was clo­sed after the acci­dent.

With 26 vic­tims, this acci­dent remains the lar­gest cata­stro­phe rela­ted to mining ever in Spits­ber­gen (the explo­si­on in the Esther mine in Ny-Åle­sund on 05 Novem­ber 1962 kil­led 21 miners).

Memo­ri­al for tho­se miners who died during their work for Store Nor­ske from 1916.
Mine 1 is visi­ble in the upper right cor­ner.

A memo­ri­al was erec­ted in 2016 near the road below mine 1. It is dedi­ca­ted to tho­se miners who died during their work for Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kul­kom­pa­ni sin­ce the com­pa­ny bought Lon­gyear City in 1916. Today, 100 years after the acci­dent of 03 Janu­ary 1916, a cerem­o­ny will be held here to com­me­mo­ra­te tho­se who died in Spitsbergen’s lar­gest mining acci­dent.

The polar bear that was shot on New Year’s Day at 4 a.m. tur­ned out to be an old acquain­tance. It was a seven year old male.

The polar bear that was shot on New Year’s Day 2020. Pho­to © Sys­sel­man­nen på Sval­bard.

As it tur­ned out, it was the same bear that was around Lon­gye­ar­by­en for seve­ral days in April 2016. Per­so­nal­ly, I had a litt­le mee­ting with this very bear in mid April back then as I step­ped out of a hut in Sas­senfjord and noti­ced this bear not far away at all. It had also noti­ced me and was alre­a­dy on the run. Most likely, it was the same bear that was shot yes­ter­day. Back then, it was seen seve­ral times near various huts.

Bet­ter days: the bear is run­ning away after a brief, harm­less encoun­ter in Sas­senfjord.
It was very likely the ani­mal that was shot on New Year’s Day 2020.

A few days later, mid-day on 22 April 2016, this bear was sud­den­ly seen near the shore in Advent­da­len, an area that is fre­quen­ted by lar­ge num­bers of snow-mobi­le tou­rists, ski­ers and dog sled­ges. Back then, the bear was aan­aes­the­ti­sed and flown out to Kinn­vi­ka on Nord­aus­t­land, a good 200 km away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The polar bear on 22 April 2016, slee­ping peaceful­ly in Advent­da­len near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.
It is the same bear that was shot on New Year’s Day 2020.

So this bear show­ed up again just after Christ­mas 2019, after three and a half years, near and even within Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Seve­ral attempts to sca­re it away with heli­c­op­ters and other means fai­led in the end, and the Sys­sel­man­nen deci­ded to kill this bear. This hap­pen­ed in Hanas­kog­da­len, about seven kilo­me­ters north of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Aggres­si­ve beha­viour of this bear towards humans is, as of now, not publi­cal­ly known.

In April 2016, the bear was anaes­the­ti­sed and flown out.

Also this time it was con­side­red to anaes­the­ti­se the bear and fly it out then. Accor­ding to offi­ci­al state­ments, the lack of experts in Lon­gye­ar­by­en due to the Christ­mas holi­days was the main reason why this did not hap­pen.

It is not sur­pri­sing that the kil­ling of the bear is now met with a lot of cri­ti­cism and a con­tro­ver­si­al, part­ly hea­ted, deba­te in social media.

The new year starts with sad news: the polar bear that had been seen seve­ral times clo­se to and within Lon­gye­ar­by­en was shot on New Year’s Day at 04 a.m. by poli­ce forces (Sys­sel­man­nen).

Just after mid­night, the bear had been seen in Advent­da­len clo­se to the sett­le­ment after it had dis­ap­peared in Bjørn­da­len in bad wea­ther on Satur­day. It seems as if the Sys­sel­man­nen initi­al­ly mana­ged to sca­re it away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en last night.

Polar bear in cen­tral Lon­gye­ar­by­en (Thurs­day mor­ning).
Pho­to © Sys­sel­man­nen på Sval­bard.

The bear was shot in Hanas­kog­da­len, on the north side of Advent­da­len, at 04 a.m. Accor­ding to a press release by the Sys­sel­man­nen, the bear was not shot in a acu­te situa­ti­on. The beha­viour of the bear, which had been seen four times clo­se to or even within the sett­le­ment area, had been con­side­red and the offi­ci­al con­clu­si­on was that aut­ho­ri­ties were not able to gua­ran­tee public safe­ty with the available forces any­mo­re.

The opti­on to tran­qui­li­ze the bear and to aenes­the­ti­se the bear to fly it out to some­whe­re more remo­te had also been con­side­red, but dis­card­ed due to the lack of absen­se of spe­cia­lists who were not in Lon­gye­ar­by­en at that time due to the Christ­mas holi­days.