Today (Wed­nes­day, 08th August), a per­son was inju­red and a polar bear kil­led during an acci­dent at Sve­a­ne­set in Ekm­anfjord.

Not much is known so far in public, but a polar bear came into a camp with 25 French tou­rists. A woman recei­ved inju­ries to her arm, but her con­di­ti­ons appears not to be life threa­tening.

The polar bear was shot at during the event and it is now repor­ted dead.

Fur­ther details are not available at the moment.

In 2017, it was deci­ded that the for­mer coal mining sett­le­ment of Sveagru­va would be aban­do­ned and actual­ly most­ly phy­si­cal­ly clea­ned up and remo­ved. A mile­stone was rea­ched recent­ly, on 01st August, when the final flight took off from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to Sveagru­va and back. This 20 minu­te air con­nec­tion has been the life­line for Sveagru­va for deca­des, more than 40,000 flights are said to have been ope­ra­ted.

Air­plai­ne on the run­way of Sveagru­va.

Now, the litt­le air­port of Sveagru­va will be remo­ved. About 70 peo­p­le will work on this and other parts of the cle­a­nup pro­ject for the next cou­ple of months. During this time, they will live not live in the for­mer sett­le­ment any­mo­re, but on sup­p­ly ships.

Next year, a small work force of 8 is sche­du­led to do the last bits and pie­ces of the cle­a­nup, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

The for­mer coal mining sett­le­ment of Sveagru­va, inclu­ding the mines of Lun­ckef­jel­let and Sveagru­va, is well docu­men­ted on this web­site (click here).

It is nice to be some­whe­re remo­te, far away from civi­liza­ti­on and off­line, as we were on board SV Anti­gua until Wed­nes­day (27th July). Wit­hout any con­nec­tion to the out­side world other than satel­li­te-based com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, far from fit for real inter­net.

Back in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, this all chan­ges. The world news are most­ly depres­sing, but obvious­ly not what this page is about. Com­pared to much of what is going on in the world, Spits­ber­gen is and remains a peaceful place wit­hout major trou­bles. But still, things hap­pen here and many of them are not gre­at at all.

One can only won­der what was got into some peo­p­le who are working within tou­rism in Spits­ber­gen, stee­ring ships or boats or being in respon­si­ble posi­ti­ons on them. Two French expe­di­ti­on ships (or small crui­se ships, wha­te­ver you pre­fer) got their guns remo­ved recent­ly becau­se they did not have the requi­red papers. About 50 wea­pons in total! That can inde­ed rai­se an eye­brow or two. At least, mista­kes made in this case were made on paper and not during navi­ga­ti­on on the bridge or in the field, whe­re major mista­kes can have enti­re­ly dif­fe­rent con­se­quen­ces.

As will beco­me clear in this case, in case anyo­ne may won­der. After the groun­ding of the Vir­go in Fuglefjord a cou­ple of weeks ago, the Oce­an Atlan­tic, a major expe­di­ti­on ship (or: see abo­ve) ope­ra­ted by Alba­tross Expe­di­ti­ons, touch­ed the ground (or ice?) some­whe­re. The inci­dent was serious enough to have cau­sed dama­ge to the hull, invol­ving ingres­si­on of water. And as if that had not yet been enough, the crew did not deem it neces­sa­ry to inform the Nor­we­gi­an mari­ti­me aut­ho­ri­ty, who could have dis­patched res­cue forces to be on stand-by in the vici­ni­ty of the Oce­an Explo­rer in case of an escala­ti­on. It is pro­ba­b­ly need­less to say that such a report to the mari­ti­me aut­ho­ri­ty would have been requi­red by law, and talk of luck that the situa­ti­on did not dete­rio­ra­te. The crew on board was able to con­trol the situa­ti­on. Nevert­hel­ess, someone on board felt uncom­for­ta­ble enough to make a pho­ne call at some stage, and soon the Oce­an Atlan­tic was escor­ted to Lon­gye­ar­by­en by a Nor­we­gi­an coast­guard ves­sel. Now the ship is ancho­red in Advent­fjord, awai­ting inspec­tion. Ear­lier con­trols this year had alre­a­dy reve­a­led more than 20 serious secu­ri­ty flaws.

Com­ment: inc­re­du­lous shaking of the head.

Oce­an Atlan­tic in the port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Less dra­ma­tic, but nevert­hel­ess serious and making one won­der, is the inci­dent whe­re a Zodiac fleet belon­ging to Hon­di­us went to a small island in Kongsfjord to give their pas­sen­gers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a polar bear. Wit­nesses cla­im that the boats were clo­se enough to cau­se dis­tur­ban­ce of the ani­mal or even put peo­p­le or the bear at risk, but this may be a mat­ter of con­tro­ver­si­al deba­te; it is said that the boats were “at one time within 50 meters”, a distance that does not at all neces­s­a­ri­ly (but may) invol­ve dis­tur­ban­ce or even risk to life and limb of man or beast. It is not pos­si­ble to say more about this aspect of the inci­dent wit­hout fur­ther know­ledge of rele­vant details.

But one thing is clear, unfort­u­na­te­ly: the island in ques­ti­on is part of a bird sanc­tua­ry. From 15th May to 15th August, a mini­mum distance of 300 met­res from the island’s (and neigh­bou­ring islands) shores are requi­red for all traf­fic, inclu­ding boats. This regu­la­ti­on has been in force for deca­des.

Com­ment: also here, one can only won­der how this could hap­pen. The only expl­ana­ti­on this aut­hor can think of is an asto­nis­hing lack of know­ledge regar­ding rele­vant regu­la­ti­ons. This should not have hap­pen­ed to the expe­di­ti­on staff of a ship ope­ra­ted by a coma­pa­ny with deca­des of regio­nal expe­ri­ence, an opi­ni­on shared by the chief ope­ra­ting offi­cer of the com­pa­ny in ques­ti­on as repor­ted by Sval­bard­pos­ten. The inci­dent is likely the deba­te about a cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on sche­me for gui­des, some­thing which in its­elf is not neces­sa­ry a bad thing at all, alt­hough this deba­te is not neces­s­a­ri­ly going a fruitful way eit­her, but that is ano­ther issue.

As if 2 years of Covid-19 were not enough for all who want to or who need to tra­vel: pilots of SAS are on strike sin­ce nego­tia­ti­ons sche­du­led until yes­ter­day (Mon­day) fai­led. Up to 250 SAS flights are expec­ted to be can­cel­led now every day as long as the strike lasts.

That includes flights to and from Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

SAS, plea­se find a solu­ti­on, asap!

It is an issue that has kept Nor­way and Rus­sia busy alre­a­dy for some weeks: a deli­very for Barents­burg, said to include main­ly food, is kept on hold at the bor­der bet­ween Rus­sia and north Nor­way. The deli­very was to be trans­por­ted over land to Trom­sø and from the­re by ship to Barents­burg.

Barents­burg during brigh­ter times (here in 2019).

But due to the sanc­tions intro­du­ced after the Rus­si­an war of aggres­si­on and des­truc­tion began in Febru­ary, Nor­way does not allow the goods into the coun­try. The Spits­ber­gen trea­ty gua­ran­tees all signa­to­ry par­ties – this includes Rus­sia – free access to Sval­bard, but accor­ding to Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties, this does not auto­ma­ti­cal­ly include the right to cho­se a rou­te through the Nor­we­gi­an main­land. Nor­we­gi­an offi­ci­als say that Rus­sia at any time has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ship goods from their own har­bours to Barents­burg. Sval­bard ports are not included in the ban on Rus­si­an ships in Nor­we­gi­an ports, and offi­ci­als indi­ca­te that Nor­way would con­sider an excemp­ti­on to the ban on Rus­si­an pla­nes on Nor­we­gi­an air­ports if the Rus­si­an side filed an appli­ca­ti­on for a flight to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The Rus­si­an reac­tion is main­ly irri­ta­ti­on, poli­ti­cal thre­ats – recent­ly, Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ves have repea­ted­ly poin­ted out that Nor­way breaks the Spits­ber­gen trea­ty – and alle­gedly cyber­at­tacks. The­re have been seve­ral cyber­at­tacks on public Nor­we­gi­an web­sites recent­ly, which Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties asso­cia­te with Rus­si­an hacker groups, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten and other Nor­we­gi­an media chan­nels.

At some stage, Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ves rai­sed con­cerns about a serious shorta­ge of sup­pli­es in Barents­burg, which was descri­bed as an over­re­ac­tion by Nor­way. Now it is said that the sup­p­ly in Barents­burg is sta­ble, due to deli­veries from other sources, accor­ding to NRK.

Bird flu, also known as avi­an flu or avi­an influ­en­za, has been detec­ted in Spits­ber­gen in June for the first time. It is the first evi­dence for this virus in the Arc­tic.

Sci­en­tists expec­ted the arri­val of the bird flu virus in Sval­bard now becau­se of a major recent out­break of the dise­a­se amonst Bar­na­cle geese in Eng­land and Scot­land. Birds from this popu­la­ti­on migra­te up to Sval­bard to breed the­re during the sum­mer. You can see Bar­na­cle geese and others, main­ly pink-foo­ted geese, in and near Lon­gye­ar­by­en in lar­ge num­bers in the ear­ly sum­mer befo­re they spread to the brea­ding are­as.

Bar­na­cle geese are poten­ti­al car­ri­ers of the bird flu virus (here in Ny-Åle­sund).

The bird flu virus was now found in a dead glau­cous gull that was found near the har­bour in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, as NRK reports.

Bird flu is high­ly infec­tious and very dan­ge­rous for birds, both wild and dome­stic ones. Experts fear poten­ti­al­ly dis­as­trous con­se­quen­ces for dome­stic bird stocks in main­land Nor­way and wild bird popu­la­ti­ons both the­re and in Sval­bard.

Report to the Sys­sel­mes­ter if you find a dead bird or an ali­ve one that shows stran­ge beha­viour, but do not touch or hand­le dead birds or bird drop­pings. The risk of an infec­tion for humans, howe­ver, is descri­bed as low.

After a long and con­tro­ver­si­al poli­ti­cal pro­cess, the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment in Oslo has now made the decis­i­on that non-Nor­we­gi­an inha­bi­tants of Lon­gye­ar­by­en will lose the voting right (acti­ve and pas­si­ve) on a com­mu­ni­ty level. Only tho­se “for­eig­ners” (peo­p­le wit­hout Nor­we­gi­an pass­ports) who have lived at least 3 years in a main­land com­mu­ni­ty will be able to vote or to be elec­ted into the com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil (Lon­gye­ar­by­en Lokals­ty­re).

This appli­es to appro­xi­m­ate­ly 700 inha­bi­tants of Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­re is curr­ent­ly one mem­ber of Lokals­ty­re who has a pass­port other than Nor­we­gi­an (Oli­via Eric­son from Swe­den), accor­ding to NRK.

This had been a very con­tro­ver­si­al and, for some, emo­tio­nal deba­te which was alre­a­dy sub­ject of seve­ral ear­lier con­tri­bu­ti­ons on this page; read the pre­vious artic­le (click here) for more back­ground, e.g. on the histo­ry of local demo­cra­cy in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

It is safe to assu­me that most non-Nor­we­gi­an citi­zens have not spent 3 years as a regis­tered inha­bi­tant of a Nor­we­gi­an main­land com­mu­ni­ty. Many locals who have spent a major part of their lives in Lon­gye­ar­by­en will not be allo­wed to vote during the next local elec­tions (in 2023) and they may not be elec­ted into Lokals­ty­re.

The recent govern­men­tal decis­i­on frus­tra­tes many who are con­cer­ned; many feel like second-class citi­zens now, as Sval­bard­pos­ten reports.

Minis­ter of jus­ti­ce Emi­lie Enger Mehl gives the fol­lo­wing expl­ana­to­ry state­ment (quo­ted from the press release of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment, link abo­ve, my own trans­la­ti­on): “The con­nec­tion to the main­land makes sure that tho­se who mana­ge the com­mu­ni­ty at any time have good know­ledge and a good under­stan­ding of Sval­bard poli­tics and the (poli­ti­cal) frame­work that is appli­ed to Sval­bard … con­sidera­ble resour­ces are trans­fer­red every year from the main­land to sup­port public ser­vices and infra­struc­tu­re. Inha­bi­tants with main­land con­nec­tion will often have con­tri­bu­ted to the­se finan­ces. The requi­re­ment for a main­land con­nec­tion is also to be seen in this light.”

Lon­gye­ar­by­en is beco­ming more Nor­we­gi­an. Exclu­si­on of non-Nor­we­gi­an inha­bi­tants from local demo­cra­cy is a pri­ce that the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment is appear­ent­ly wil­ling to pay.

Com­ment

So far so clear: tho­se who (poten­ti­al­ly) have paid are to deci­de; tho­se who have paid poten­ti­al­ly less (local taxes are low) and to not have the right pass­port are excluded from poli­ti­cal par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on whe­re it real­ly mat­ters.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en Lokals­ty­re is a com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil and no more than that. Lokalstyre’s decis­i­ons con­cern local traf­fic, kin­der­gar­ten, school, other local infra­struc­tu­re – just what a com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil gene­ral­ly does, and no more than that. Lokals­ty­re does not have any influence in natio­nal legis­la­ti­on – bey­ond try­ing to be heard, which too often does not hap­pen, other­wi­se the decis­i­on in ques­ti­on would not have hap­pen­ed as it did. Lokals­ty­re does not make decis­i­ons con­cer­ning Sval­bard out­side the com­mu­ni­ty of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

So one may ask what kind of pro­blem the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment assu­mes to sol­ve. Or, same ques­ti­on in other words: what are they afraid of? So far, Lon­gye­ar­by­en Lokals­ty­re is firm­ly in Nor­we­gi­an hands. The­re is curr­ent­ly exact­ly one local coun­cil mem­ber who is not Nor­we­gi­an, and that is Oli­via Eric­son from Swe­den. Who is afraid of Oli­via? And even if, one future day, Danes and Swe­des, Ger­mans and Thai would make up a visi­ble pro­por­ti­on of Lon­gye­ar­by­en Lokals­ty­re and thus have a say in mat­ters con­cer­ning local road buil­ding of kin­der­gar­ten – so what?

Last year, a local coun­cil mem­ber of Høy­re (“Right”) said some­thing like “This is about secu­ri­ty. Thus, we can not make any com­pro­mi­se.”

It would be inte­res­t­ing to know more about whe­re poli­ti­ci­ans from the quo­ted local coun­cil mem­ber up to Minis­ter of jus­ti­ce Emi­lie Enger Mehl see Nor­we­gi­an secu­ri­ty threa­ten­ed.

Let’s just assu­me they would be able to give a con­vin­cing ans­wert to this ques­ti­on (not­ing that not­hing points to this actual­ly being the case): the cur­rent decis­i­on is, at best, pre­ven­ti­ve. As men­tio­ned, the­re is curr­ent­ly exact­ly one local coun­cil mem­ber who is not Nor­we­gi­an, and not­hing points towards an incre­asing trend of inter­na­tio­nal diver­si­ty in Lokals­ty­re.

For this pre­ven­ti­ve mea­su­re, the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment is wil­ling to pay a high pri­ce – or rather, to let others pay the pri­ce: the exclu­si­on of a lar­ge group from local demo­cra­cy. Many of tho­se feel like second class citi­zens now.

Nor­we­gi­an poli­ti­ci­ans usual­ly not let an oppor­tu­ni­ty pass unu­sed to point out that Sval­bard and Lon­gye­ar­by­en are Nor­we­gi­an (and I haven’t heard anyo­ne ques­tio­ning this, with some excep­ti­ons of bizar­re claims made by Sovjet/Russian poli­ti­ci­ans, but that’s a total­ly dif­fe­rent issue and by no means rele­vent in a local demo­cra­cy con­text). But sud­den­ly, Lon­gye­ar­by­en is not Nor­we­gi­an enough to give tho­se who have been living the­re for years good know­ledge of the Nor­we­gi­an poli­ti­cal frame­work for Sval­bard poli­cy? That is, in my opi­ni­on, bizar­re.

Jus­tiz­mi­nis­te­rin Mehl said (author’s trans­la­ti­on): “Nobo­dy is excluded from the demo­cra­tic pro­cess, but you must have lived on the main­land for 3 years to be elec­ted into Lokals­ty­re.” (Sval­bard­pos­ten).

It is hard to say what is more worry­ing. That the govern­ment plain­ly igno­res most of the opi­ni­ons being rai­sed during the public hea­ring – the voices from Lon­gye­ar­by­en whe­re by far sin­ging the same song of demo­cra­cy and poli­ti­cal par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on.

Or that Mehl pre­tends that nobo­dy is excluded from the demo­cra­tic pro­cess while this is exact­ly what hap­pens, which is eit­her a con­cer­ning lack of know­ledge or plain­ly fal­se. The­re are very few non-Nor­we­gi­an inha­bi­tants of Lon­gye­ar­by­en who have spent at least 3 years as regis­tered inha­bi­tants of a main­land com­mu­ni­ty. And the desi­re to do this has pro­ba­b­ly not grown for many whom the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has now given the fin­ger. This may be per­cei­ved as a strong descrip­ti­on of the recent decis­i­on, but this is exact­ly how tho­se who are direct­ly con­cer­ned may well feel about it (so does this aut­hor, in any case).

Which other modern, demo­cra­tic, Euro­pean coun­try has retrei­ved lco­al voting rights from for­eign inha­bi­tants who used to have the­se rights befo­re, some for many years? This decis­i­on apper­as poli­ti­cal­ly dis­gus­ting, right-wing natio­na­list and xeno­pho­bic. With this decis­i­on, the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has joi­n­ed a cir­cle of Euro­pean gover­nemnts whe­re, I am sure, they do not wish to see them­sel­ves.

MS Vir­go, which hit a rock in Fuglefjord, is back in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. She is said to have done the pas­sa­ge under her own power, but accom­pa­nied by the coast­guard to assist if nee­ded.

Coast­guard divers made an attempt to repair the hull dama­ge tem­po­r­a­ri­ly, but it is said that this did not work. Polar­sys­sel, the governor’s ves­sel, pum­ped fuel from Vir­go‘s dama­ged tank.

MS Vir­go in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, today (Thurs­day) mor­ning.

The­re is no fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on available at the moment, not­hing about the ext­ent of dama­ge, the volu­me of die­sel that may have been lost in Fuglefjord and escaped into the envi­ron­ment or why and how exact­ly the groun­ding hap­pen­ed.

it, in prin­ci­ple, is a night­ma­re sce­na­rio: a crui­se ship hits a rock and the hull and a fuel tank are dama­ged.

We don’t know yet what exact­ly hap­pen­ed yes­ter­day mor­ning in Fuglefjord in nor­thwes­tern Spits­ber­gen and what the con­se­quen­ces will be. What we know is that the litt­le Swe­dish expe­di­ti­on crui­se ship MS Vir­go touch­ed the bot­tom yes­ter­day (Tues­day, 14 June) near 10 a.m. The acci­dent hap­pen­ed pro­ba­b­ly on the pas­sa­ge into Fuglefjord from the north, bet­ween a group of small islets, sker­ries and rocks known as Fug­le­hol­ma­ne.

The pas­sa­ge is rou­ti­ne­ly taken by small ships at least during clear con­di­ti­ons (wea­ther, ice) and the rou­te requi­res careful navi­ga­ti­on, but is usual­ly no pro­blem. The waters are well char­ted and the­re are seve­ral pos­si­ble rou­tes, depen­ding on ship size. Fuglefjord its­elf is lar­ge and deep (except a 7.5 meter shal­low in the ent­rance, but even this is more than deep enough for a rela­tively small ves­sel shuch as the Vir­go). Only the inner­most part of the fjord, near the gla­cier, is unchar­ted.

Pas­sa­ge bet­ween the rocks and islets of Fug­le­hol­ma­ne while ente­ring Fuglefjord from the north.

No fur­ther details about yesterday’s acci­dent have been released by the Sys­sel­mes­ter at the time of wri­ting.

But it is known that the hull was dama­ged and the same goes for a fuel tank, invol­ving the risk of a fuel leaka­ge. MS Polar­sys­sel, the ser­vice ship of the Sys­sel­mes­ter (gover­nor), was on site within a few hours. Polar­sys­sel is equi­ped with fuel lea­king fight­ing equip­ment and works to pre­vent spills were star­ted up imme­dia­te­ly.

Nobo­dy was hurt. The­re were 13 pas­sen­gers and a crew of seven on board.

As all ships in most parts of Svalbard’s waters, MS Vir­go has mari­ne die­sel on board. Hea­vy and cru­de oil are not per­mit­ted on board any ship in the natio­nal parks and natu­re reser­ves, which altog­e­ther com­pri­se the lar­gest part of the archi­pe­la­go. Hea­vy, long-las­ting oil pol­lu­ti­on is gene­ral­ly cau­sed by cru­de or hea­vy oil, while mari­ne die­sel dis­sol­ves rela­tively quick­ly even in cold waters. The risk of a major, long-las­ting pol­lu­ti­on event is this low. A less hea­vy pol­lu­ti­on, las­ting for days or even weeks, can, howe­ver, not excluded with the infor­ma­ti­on available and might be eco­lo­gi­cal­ly dis­as­trous, con­side­ring the­re are seve­ral lar­ge bird colo­nies main­ly with litt­le auks on some of the neigh­bou­ring islands such as Fug­le­son­gen and Ind­re and Ytre Nor­skøya.

A lot of the snow around Lon­gye­ar­by­en has alre­a­dy dis­ap­peared recent­ly. The warm days in late May, when the war­mest tem­pe­ra­tures of the months were mea­su­red that Lon­gye­ar­by­en had seen in 46 years with 12.9 degrees cen­ti­gra­de on 30 May, made the tur­no­ver from win­ter to sum­mer a very rapid affair this year, at least local­ly: it is actual­ly very nor­mal that the snow-melt in and near Lon­gye­ar­by­en starts ear­lier and hap­pens fas­ter than else­whe­re. You may get an impres­si­on of full ear­ly sum­mer in Lon­gye­ar­by­en while the­re is still full arc­tic win­ter some­thing like 50 kilo­me­t­res away to the north, east and south (and may­be even to the west, alt­hough this is less relia­ble). In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, it may be dif­fi­cult to access the fuel sta­ti­on by snow mobi­le while you can enjoy the win­ter sea­son at its best north of Isfjord or around upper Advent­da­len – if you can still get the­re, that is.

Tho­se who know Lon­gye­ar­by­en well also know the snow­fields “Nofre­te­te” and “Cham­pa­gne glass”. When the snow goes, some snow­fields stay behind for quite some times, and some of them have pro­mi­nent shapes in a very simi­lar way year after year. The fol­lo­wing two are the most famous ones. Let’s start with Nofre­te­te:

Snow­field “Nofre­te­te” on the north side of Advent­fjord. You can’t see it from cen­tral Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The simi­la­ri­ty to the famous bust of the old Egypt beau­ty is striking, even though she gives me the impres­si­on of being in a bad mood here. But who isn’t, every once in a while.

The “Cham­pa­gne glass” is even more famous than Nofre­te­te, pro­ba­b­ly also becau­se you can see it easi­ly direct­ly from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. It is a snow­field of the shape of – guess what! – yes, a cham­pa­gne glass on Ope­raf­jel­let, east of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The snow­field “Cham­pa­gne glass”, not yet enti­re­ly free from the sur­roun­ding snow,
on Ope­raf­jel­let east of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, late May 2022.

The “Cham­pa­gne glass” comes with a litt­le sto­ry that attracts public atten­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en year after year. The pro­gessing snow melt relia­bly leads to the brea­king of the stem after the glass has got its per­fect shape – the cup its­elf being a bit less high and slim than with most real cham­pa­gne glas­ses. “Stet­ten går”, as the Nor­we­gi­an-spea­king locals say, “the stem goes”. The exact day then the stem “breaks” is the final one in a series of events in natu­re that mark the annu­al tran­si­ti­on from win­ter to sum­mer (the first one being the arri­val of the snow bun­ting in April).

The stem usual­ly breaks in late July or ear­ly August. You can try your luck and place a bet with Sval­bard­pos­ten, the local news­pa­per, about your best gues­sing of the date. Honour and reco­gni­ti­on in case of suc­cess.

This year, it was Sarah Gerats who pro­ved her instincts and know­ledge about the local natu­re, deve­lo­ped through years of life in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and on boats in local waters. Sarah was not the only one who pre­dic­ted that the stem would go on 06th June, but she was the first one.

The cham­pa­gne glass with bro­ken stem on 6th June, 2022.

Hence, this year’s day of the bro­ken stem is among­st the ear­liest of its kind in recor­ded histo­ry, due to the abo­ve-men­tio­ned unu­sual­ly warm days in late May.

Sarah Gerats, win­ner of the 2022 cham­pa­gne glass con­test.
Here tog­e­ther with Mario Czok, then Cap­tain on Anti­gua, at Bear Island (2018).

Con­gra­tu­la­ti­ons, Sarah!

Bewa­re, this arc­tic­le con­ta­ins a bad play of words.

The who­le thing star­ted in mid May. Ever­y­bo­dy who has been in Lon­gye­ar­by­en knows the famous polar bear war­ning signs that you can find in seve­ral places whe­re you can lea­ve Lon­gye­ar­by­en and enter are­as whe­re the risk of polar bear encoun­ters increa­ses signi­fi­cant­ly.

Polar bear war­ning sign in Advent­da­len near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The spe­ci­men in Advent­da­len dis­ap­peared at night time in mid May. Such a theft cer­tain­ly requi­res a bit of bra­va­do in the mid­night sun peri­od next to a road that seems to lead out into the nowhe­re, but has a sur­pri­sing amount of traf­fic at almost any time of day and night the­se days.

Rumours and spe­cu­la­ti­ons were going wild soon: who could have been the thief? Who in Lon­gye­ar­by­en would be so stu­pid to hang this on the wall in the living room, in a town whe­re real­ly ever­y­bo­dy knows the­se signs?

So, no doubt, the be the bad guy couldn’t be a local. Sval­bard­pos­ten repor­ted about this cri­mi­nal case. They found a bus dri­ver who had not seen any­thing rele­vant to the case, but the man dri­ves tou­rists to their desti­na­ti­ons pret­ty much every day, so he must know exact­ly, of cour­se: “Det er jo turis­tene som stje­ler sånt, sier han.” “It’s the tou­rist who ste­al such things, he says.” (quo­ta­ti­on Sval­bard­pos­ten). It is striking: not only did the thought appar­ent­ly not cross the mind of the jour­na­list that this is a state­ment that, based on not­hing but assump­ti­on, deser­ves some cri­ti­cal ques­ti­ons. No, in the print edi­ti­on, this actual­ly beca­me the head­line of the artic­le, not even mark­ed as a quo­ta­ti­on. Yes, of cour­se, the­se evil and stu­pid tou­rists! Who else?

Artic­le in the print edi­ti­on of Sval­bard­pos­ten on 19th May:
Head­line “It’s the tou­rist who ste­al such things”.

The abo­ve-lin­ked online ver­si­on of this artic­le has, by the way, got a new head­line in the mean­ti­me: “Hvem har stjå­let isbjørns­kil­tet?” (“Who has sto­len the polar bear sign?”).

At least, the who­le mat­ter came to a rather humou­ristic end some days later when the sign in ques­ti­on was found again – in the car of Lars Fau­se, which was park­ed at the air­port.

Lars Fau­se is the Sys­sel­mes­ter. The gover­nor.

But Fau­se had been on the main­land during tho­se days, so he can not be the thief. And it appeared any­way unli­kely that anyo­ne, let alo­ne someone so expe­ri­en­ced with cri­mi­nal cases (from a poli­ce and juri­di­cal per­spec­ti­ve, that is), would lea­ve the sign, a pret­ty lar­ge item, for days in a car park­ed publi­cal­ly.

So, who was it then? The solu­ti­on (and now comes the game of words): the Rus­si­ans. But not the Rus­si­ans who are mining coal in Barents­burg (it is actual­ly main­ly Ukrai­ni­ans who are working in the coal mine), let alo­ne tho­se who set the world on fire else­whe­re the­se days: the Nor­we­gi­an word “russ” means “high school gra­dua­te”. Add the defi­ni­te arc­tic­le, which in Nor­we­gi­an comes at the end of the sub­stan­ti­ve, and you get “rus­sen”, which in Nor­we­gi­an is “the Rus­si­an”. Or “the high school gra­dua­te”. The con­text tells you what it is about in any given case. It is obvious­ly the lat­ter. High school gra­dua­te in Nor­way par­ty as much as any­whe­re else (or may­be even more and har­der), and tricks and pranks are part of the game. The theft of the polar bear war­ning sign was exact­ly that and not­hing else. A suc­cessful coup, as most will agree. This includes Sys­sel­mes­ter Fau­se, by the way.

And we could just smi­le sad­ly about the resent­ment­al reflex action to attri­bu­te (almost) all the bad and evil things in the world to tou­rists. It is one thing to utter this over a beer or five or eight in a bar late at night, and it is ano­ther thing to say this to a news­pa­per. And it is yet ano­ther thing when a jour­na­lists non­cri­ti­cal­ly adopts such a com­ment and even turns it into a head­line. Still, one could just smi­le mild­ly if the same mecha­nism of sen­ti­ment wasn’t wide­ly appli­ed the­se days in much lar­ger and much more rele­vant dis­cus­sions, such as the one that may lead to the clo­sure of lar­ge parts of the Sval­bard archi­pe­la­go.

May­be think twice befo­re say­ing that the thief must have been a tou­rist.

Com­ment writ­ten by Mor­ten Jør­gen­sen, regar­ding the dis­cus­sion about polar bears being dis­tur­bed by tou­rists (or not), see this artic­le of the web­site owner. Comm­ents of other per­sons do not neces­s­a­ri­ly need to reflect my (Rolf Stan­ge, the website’s owner) opio­ni­on. But on a per­so­nal note: I have very high respect for Mor­ten regar­ding his know­ledge of polar bears and con­ser­va­ti­on and I stron­gly recom­mend Morten’s fol­lo­wing com­ment to all reader’s atten­ti­on.

Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties, insti­tu­ti­ons and sci­en­tists harass and end­an­ger polar bears, while the bla­me is shifted onto tou­rism and par­ti­cu­lar­ly inter­na­tio­nal ope­ra­tors

May 21, 2022 – Mor­ten Jør­gen­sen, con­ser­va­tio­nist

In Skin­bo­den, in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, you can buy the remains of a shot polar bear. In Ber­gen, the­re is a store-room with 100 slaugh­te­red polar bears. Nor­way is sin­gu­lar­ly the world’s grea­test per capi­ta importer of legal dead polar bear pro­ducts, and is pro­ba­b­ly a hub for the laun­de­ring of ille­gal trade as well.

In the one month of April 2022 alo­ne, Nor­we­gi­an polar bear rese­ar­chers distres­sed at least 50 live polar bears in Sval­bard (per­haps as many as 20% of the enti­re local popu­la­ti­on of bears). The­se bears were cha­sed by heli­c­op­ter, shot from the distance with a dart with seda­tiv­es, then man-hand­led in various ways which include blood sam­pling, bio­psy sam­pling and tooth extra­c­tion, then left lying hel­p­less­ly expo­sed in the envi­ron­ment until able to reco­ver enough to go about their busi­ness again.

I have 25 sum­mer sea­sons of expe­ri­ence from Sval­bard. After 2+ years of not working as a gui­de due to the pan­de­mic, I was lucky enough to spot my first polar bear of 2022 back in April, when from the ship I was on and through my high-power bino­cu­lars I noti­ced way in the distance a fema­le bear with a cub-of-the-year eating off a reinde­er car­cass just in from the shore­li­ne abo­ve a low cliff. An hour later, she was still rela­xed and fee­ding, while her cub was play­ing around her, dart­ing in and out of holes in the snow drifts. The ship was per­haps half a mile or more from the sce­ne, while tho­se with very long len­ses in the two Zodiacs that were clo­ser but at a respec­ta­ble distance were able to get some­what decent shots of the sce­ne. This peaceful and delightful sce­ne was then des­troy­ed by a coast-guard heli­c­op­ter ‘inspec­tion’. The polar bear mother stif­fe­ned alre­a­dy when the heli­c­op­ter was still far away (she was col­lared, so had obvious­ly been trau­ma­ti­zed befo­re), and as the heli­c­op­ter flew low over the area, she had alre­a­dy stop­ped eating. Minu­tes later, she was scrambling up the hills­i­de, aban­do­ning her meal to go into hiding. In an attempt to pro­ve tou­rists wrong, aut­ho­ri­ties (again) bro­ke their own laws.

The abo­ve three para­graphs descri­be the rea­li­ty of how the offi­ci­al Nor­way tre­ats polar bears. They are com­mo­di­ties, com­mer­cial trade items. They are stu­dy sub­jects that may ran­dom­ly and exces­si­ve­ly be trea­ted as non-sen­ti­ent objects. And they are a tool see­mingly to be exploi­ted for the poli­ti­cal agen­da of New Nor­we­gi­an Natio­na­lism, whe­re making Sval­bard more Nor­we­gi­an that the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty actual­ly allows seems to be the dri­ving moti­va­ti­on behind not least the per­se­cu­ti­on of the tou­rism indus­try and espe­ci­al­ly its inter­na­tio­nal ope­ra­tors.

In an age of fake news and wild con­spi­ra­cy theo­ries, I shall be careful not to say out­right that the­re is a coor­di­na­ted attack going on, and that the well-being of polar bears has been taken hos­ta­ge as a con­ve­ni­ent excu­se for poli­ti­ci­zed mani­pu­la­ti­ons. But it sure looks that way.

It looks that way when a jour­na­list from NRK, ins­tead of being fired for lack of sobrie­ty and inte­gri­ty, gets away with a head­line like “Polar bears are dis­tur­bed around the clock by tou­rists” – in a sen­sa­tio­na­list artic­le full of spe­cu­la­ti­on, fal­se­hoods and fin­ger-poin­ting. (edi­to­ri­al note: click here for the NRK artic­le).

It looks that way when the Assistant Gover­nor of Sval­bard (‘Sys­sel­mes­te­ren’ in its­elf being an unde­mo­cra­tic insti­tu­ti­on whe­re legis­la­ti­ve, exe­cu­ti­ve and judi­cial powers are not sepa­ra­ted), can be quo­ted for say­ing both that poten­ti­al law-breaks are still being inves­ti­ga­ted, but also that it is clear that laws have been bro­ken! Sounds a lot like ‘assu­med guil­ty until pro­ven guil­ty’.

In looks that way when the orga­ni­zed part of the ship-based tou­rism indus­try feels so under attack that its knee-jerk reac­tion is a cowe­ring defen­se mode, inclu­ding the intro­duc­tion of a poli­cy of self-cen­sor­ship, becau­se appearan­ces are more important than actions. And when a spo­kesper­son for that same part of the tou­rism indus­try, rather than coun­tering the many outra­ge­ous claims with a digni­fied refe­rence to the over­all posi­ti­ve track-record of Sval­bard tou­rism, ins­tead sto­ops to par­ti­ci­pa­ting in the scape­goa­ting and sowing fur­ther divi­si­on by clai­ming that some parts of the tou­rism sec­tor are inde­ed bad actors, and that it hap­pens to be just tho­se who are not mem­bers of the incre­asing­ly exces­si­ve­ly poli­ti­cal­ly cor­rect, pri­va­te, lob­by orga­niza­ti­on, from which she draws her sala­ry.

Polar bears are being exploi­ted in so many ways. Let me high­light five of them.

1. Three nati­on sta­te govern­ments allow com­mer­cia­li­zed polar bear hun­ting, cal­ling it cul­tu­ral reco­gni­ti­on, when it de fac­to is part of the dis­gu­i­sing of a con­tin­ued neo-colo­ni­al sup­pres­si­on of local (remo­te, Arc­tic) mino­ri­ties.
2. Nor­way cas­hes in on inter­na­tio­nal com­mer­cial tra­ding in polar bear body parts.
3. World-wide fake wild­life con­ser­va­ti­on NGOs use polar bears as icons to coll­ect money, by bemoa­ning how end­an­ge­red they are, while simul­ta­neous­ly sup­port­ing the con­tin­ued exces­si­ve com­mer­cia­li­zed hun­ting of them.
4. Num­e­rous sci­en­tists trau­ma­ti­ze polar bears repea­ted­ly and exces­si­ve­ly to main­tain most­ly irrele­vant stu­dies, care­ers, and fun­ding.
5. Sval­bard tou­rists take pho­to­graphs from the decks of small ships or from Zodiacs of polar bears in their envi­ron­ment, in 99% of the cases wit­hout cha­sing them, dis­tur­bing them, fee­ding them, luring them, or put­ting them in dan­ger.

Which explo­ita­ti­ons are benign, and which are offen­si­ve? You be the judge.
Who is actual­ly dis­tur­bing and end­an­ge­ring polar bears? You be the judge. What is the real moti­va­ti­on for this ‘cam­paign’ against tou­rism? You be the judge.

While we slow­ly sink our ship, the fidd­lers keep play­ing.

Safe­ty-rele­vant infor­ma­ti­on fur­ther down in this pos­ting!

The ope­ra­ti­on of the SAR (search-and-res­cue) heli­c­op­ters in Sval­bard is regu­lar­ly adver­ti­sed to poten­ti­al com­mer­cial con­trac­tors. After Air­lift and Luft­trans­port, CHC Heli­ko­pter Ser­vice is now fol­lo­wing as the ope­ra­tor of the local heli­c­op­ter base. CHC Heli­ko­pter Ser­vice is the Nor­we­gi­an daugh­ter of the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny CHC Heli­c­op­ter.

The local per­so­nel remains unch­an­ged to ensu­re a fric­tion­less tran­si­ti­on. Even during the han­do­ver, SAR ope­ra­ti­ons were actual­ly car­ri­ed out wit­hout pro­blems.

SAR heli­c­op­ter (Super Puma) of the Sys­sel­man­nen (now: Sys­sel­mes­ter):
now upgraded with sta­te of the art tech­no­lo­gy. (archi­ve image, 2015).

Also the two SAR heli­c­op­ters remain the same machi­nes that have been used by Luft­trans­port, but they will recei­ve an important tech­ni­cal upgrade, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten. They will get new, front-facing infrared came­ras to “see” miss­ing per­sons in cold envi­ron­ments, and they will be equip­ped with tech­no­lo­gy that can loca­te mobi­le tele­pho­nes – inde­ed inde­pendent­ly of the pre­sence or absence mobi­le net­work covera­ge. This will be a gre­at advan­ta­ge in Sval­bard, which in most of its land and sea are­as does not have mobi­le net­work.

This, howe­ver, requi­res – and this is the safe­ty-rele­vant infor­ma­ti­on announ­ced in the begin­ning of this pos­ting – that the mobi­le pho­ne in ques­ti­on is tur­ned on and not in flight mode. Then, the pho­ne will send a signal that can be picked up by the heli­c­op­ter, enab­ling the crew to loca­te the device. This is said to work on a distance of up to 35 kilo­me­t­res, given the­re are no ter­rain obs­ta­cles blo­cking the direct line bet­ween the pho­ne and the heli­c­op­ter.

It seems to be neces­sa­ry the the SAR sys­tem knows the mobi­le pho­ne num­ber, but this is often the case when a per­son is repor­ted miss­ing by fri­ends or fami­ly, who usual­ly have the pho­ne num­ber of their miss­ing fri­end or rela­ti­ve.

Con­clu­si­on: if you are out in the field on your own in Sval­bard in a situa­ti­on whe­re dis­as­ter may poten­ti­al­ly strike, then lea­ve your mobi­le pho­ne on and acti­ve even when you lea­ve the area cover­ed by mobi­le net­work, against up-to-now’s prac­ti­ce which has been to turn the pho­ne off or at least into flight mode to save bat­tery power. And it goes wit­hout say­ing that when­ever you are out the­re, someone in civi­li­sa­ti­on should know about your whe­re­a­bouts, your pho­ne num­ber and when to rai­se the alarm in case you do not return in time.