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Home → February, 2022
Monthly Archives: February 2022 − News & Stories
Black February
Of course it had been my intention for a while already to write again here. But life in Farmhamna is mainly happening offline, and that is good.
And now the world isn’t anymore what it used to be. The whole population of Farmhamna (currently two people) is deeply shocked about the news that reach us here. It would just feel completely out of place to write about the beauty of the nature here in the far north and about the simple, but good life in a remote trapper station while the world is on fire.
It is about 40 kilometres from Farmhamna to Barentsburg as the fulmar flies. We can see the light of Barentsburg reflected by low clouds in certain weather conditions. It is not far at all. Barentsburg is a Russian settlement, but with many Ukrainians amongst its 300-400 inhabitants. So far, Russians and Ukrainians were living there together peacefully, also after the Russian occupation of the Krim peninsula and the conflict in the eastern Ukraine since then. How do people feel there now? How are they, with the knowledge about the situation in their respective home countries? Impossible to imagine for me. Sysselmester Lars Fause is in regular contact with Barentsburg, following normal routines, and says that it is a “good and normal dialogue”, without going into further detail.
So I finish my contributions here for February with the following picture, which is currently often shared in social media to express the horror about the situation, protest against the Russian invasion and war in the Ukraine and complete digust for those who are responsible for it.
The Ukraine
On skis to Eidembukta
Sat
19 Feb
2022
The days are quickly getting longer after the return of the sun. This is indeed an amazingly quick process. Just 2-3 days after the very first sunrise of the year, the sun is already for several hours above the horizon.
The fact that we have a clear sky again after more than a week of clouds does, without a doubt, also contribute to the subjective part of this impression.
Time to get out and see a bit more of the surroundings. Some of you may know Eidembukta from the sailing ship tours in the summer season. This large bay is just a few kilometres north of Farmhamna.
Skiing from Farmhamna to Eidembukta. Towards the sun 🙂 at least for a while.
Staying outside for some time is indeed a refreshing experience, with temperatures around -15 degrees (C) plus windchill. It is much, much less windy than in parts of NW Euope up here these days, but there is a pretty constant breeze blowing, which feels quite icy.
I schedule the day in such a way that I make use of the sunlight as much as possible, but the idea to see and photograph Farmhamna from a distance with the sunset in the background fails due to a bank of clouds. It doesn’t matter. There is beauty all around me wherever I turn my eyes. The wide, open, snow-covered land with soft colours ranging from red through pink to blue, the drift snow being blown over the low hills. The large and beautifully curved coastline of Eidembukta. I follow the beach for a bit without finding a single piece of driftwood, to my surprise. A little canyon sculptured by the meltwater river of Venernbreen, one of the nearby glaciers. I follow the canyon for a bit, keeping a good eye on the cornices, but wherever they look scary, there is enough space to stay away from them.
Canyon in Eidembukta.
I see some lonely reindeer on the way back. The only living creatures out here today, apart from a glaucous gull and a few northern fulmars.
I try to find a sheltered place for a lunch break, but my spot under a little rock cliff turns out to be the windiest and coldest place anywhere around. I don’t stay long and rather return to the hut with the cozy wood-burning stove.
- gallery anchor link: #gallery_2187
Click on thumbnail to open an enlarged version of the specific photo.
Sun festival in Farmhamna
Wed
16 Feb
2022
In Longyearbyen, 8 March is the day to celebrate the return of the sun, mainly because the place is surrounded by mountains, especially to the south.
Not so here in Farmhamna 🙂 so we had the pleasure to see and celebrate the sun already today, 16 February. It is the first sunrise after 112 days, the last one before had been on 25 October. As far as I am concerned, I have been here now for not even 3 weeks and still, it is quite special to see the sun again. Let alone for Rico, who hasn’t seen the sun for months!
Clear view to the south: no problem in Farmhamna.
So we made sure we were there well in time, up on the “telephone hill”, and we also made sure we were well equipped with cameras, some standing on legs, another one with wings – the whole lot.
“Sun festival” in Farmhamna. It wasn’t really a mass gathering.
And we were lucky, because during the morning the sky had been completely cloudy. But just in time we got a low stripe of sky clear enough between the clouds and the horizon in the south, where the orange glow became brighter and brighter, and finally, there she was, the sun – what a view, what a moment!
The first sunrise after 112 days.
Later in the afternoon, the clouds covered the whole sky again. Talk of luck!
If you want to read a bit more about midnight sun and polar night, click here.
And here, some more impressions about this beautiful day in Spitsbergen.
- gallery anchor link: #gallery_2184
Click on thumbnail to open an enlarged version of the specific photo.
Farmhamna
Fri
11 Feb
2022
Now I have already been here in Farmhamna on Spitsbergen’s west coast for a while and some are wondering how things are up here, so far north in the polar night. Well, indeed, when I am travelling the same area under sail during the summer, my travel blog updates are a bit more regular. But the days are not only beautiful but also usually well filled with work and other activities and the meaning of life in such a place is probably not to spend every minute possible on the computer, is it? 🙂
Farmhamna: Trapper station on Spitsbergen’s west coast.
I will write more here later, but to start with, I thought that I should introduce this beautiful and unusual place, so I have created a dedicated Farmhamna page (click here to open). It has the 360 degree panoramas that you may know from similar pages in that section of this website, but also two photo galleries with images from both summer and winter, the latter ones also giving some idea of what Rico, I and the 7 doggies are doing here these days.
Data cable between Spitsbergen and mainland Norway damaged by human action
The damage that occurred to one of the two communication cables that connect Spitsbergen to north Norway a few weeks ago attracted a lot of public attention (click here for more information). The case is by no means settled, but the owner of the cable, Space Norway, and the responsible police agency of Troms in north Norway have been in the area and were able to gather first data with an underwater robot.
According to NRK, the police told Norwegian media that human action appears to be likely as the cause for the damage. Natural influences seem less likely now.
Making a phone call in the settlements of Spitsbergen is done in a more modern fashion than pictured here. And it’s not just about phone calls.
But almost everything depends on the deep sea data cables to the mainland.
Nothing was revealed about the nature of the damage or even possible responsible people or groups; it was only said that there are so far no suspects. It is also not yet publically know in which depth the damage occurred. The cable section in question is about 100 km long and leads from the relatively shallow shelf on the west coast of Spitsbergen to deep sea areas.
It is actually not the 2 cm strong cable itself that is damaged but its power supply.
Repair works are scheduled later this year, in spring and/or summer.
Farmhamna
Wed
2 Feb
2022
Arrived!
Farmhamna is a little hunting station on the west coast of Spitsbergen in Forlandsund, north of Isfjord. A wide-open, weather-beaten lowland; often, it is windy on this rather exposed coastline.
You can find a lot of small bay and beaches, some well known and others well hidden, behind small islets, rocks and peninsulas. We have explored and enjoyed many of them during our summer sailing ship trips. Also now, in the polar night, they can be useful; getting here and away is anything but straightforward, and the little bit of traffic there is is usually by boat. Over land, the area is pretty inaccessible.
Farmhamna.
This photo gives an impression of Farmhamna at this time, end of January/early February. Around noon, the brightest time of the day.
The light of the north!
Farmhamna: mid-day twilight.
And here an impression of the outer coast of Farmhamna, looking to the south, around mid-day. There is currently no more than twilight, we won’t see the sun before 16 February at the earliest. Depending on the weather, it may well be later. Or, actually, even a little bit earlier … we’ll see.
In any case, it is still two weeks away. But we have already got several hours of twilight, when the sun travels between 5 and 7 degrees below the horizon, producing the most beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red on the southern sky and all sorts of blue elsewhere.
And there is, as you may expect, sometimes a totally different kind of light shining in the evening. Much weaker than the sun, but infinitely beautiful.
The light of the north!
Northern light above Farmhamna.
A bit weak, but a beautiful start on my very first evening here!
Yes, there may be the odd northern light photo coming up here the next weeks … 🙂
Norway opens up
Norway discontinues most corona restrictions as of today (1st of February) 2300 hrs local time, according to a governmental press release.
This includes significant easements within education, culture and gastronomy, but also for travellers: international travellers do not need to get tested at the border directly after arrival anymore. Fully vaccinated travellers with an accepted vaccination certificate and recovered people with appropriate documentation may enter without test; those who do not have this status need a test taken before departure. Everybody including Norwegian citizens still need to register online before arrival.
corona testing station at Oslo airport Gardermoen: here seen calm, but often very busy.
Soon it will mostly be reliably calm here.
(additional decoration digitally added by the author).
For people travelling to Svalbard, the requirement to get tested in Norway within 24 hours before departure is discontinued for registered lcoal inhabitants as well as fully vaccinated travellers and those who have recovered from a recent Covid-19 infection (accepted documentation needed in any case). The requirement to carry out a self test within 24 hours after arrival is still in force.
Everybody is still asked to keep a distance of one meter or to wear a mask wherever it is not possible to keep this distance.
The Norwegian government plans to discontinue all corona restrictions until 17 February unless new and currently unforeseen developments require a new change of plans.
News-Listing live generated at 2024/December/12 at 11:00:56 Uhr (GMT+1)
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