The first “nor­mal” – wit­hout major dis­tur­ban­ce by Covid19 – sum­mer sea­son in Spits­ber­gen has begun. Actual­ly, the win­ter has just star­ted to loo­sen its icy grip, the islands are still lar­ge­ly snow-cover­ed, many fjords still fro­zen and the­re is curr­ent­ly quite a lot of drift ice on the north and east coasts of Sval­bard.

But crui­se ships have star­ted trips of seve­ral days alre­a­dy weeks ago, and the first ship-based day-trips out of Lon­gye­ar­by­en were offe­red as ear­ly as March. It is not that long ago that the win­ter sea­son (no ships) las­ted until around mid May, then the­re was a break of seve­ral weeks with litt­le acti­vi­ty during the snow­melt and then the sum­mer which invol­ved ship-based acti­vi­ty star­ted in June. But that is histo­ry, tour ope­ra­tors are start­ing ear­lier and ear­lier every year, some as ear­ly as March.

Now, around mid May, the­re are alre­a­dy seve­ral dozen tou­rist ves­sels crui­sing Spitsbergen’s coas­tal waters, and the­re is alre­a­dy trou­ble alt­hough most of them have just star­ted their sea­son. The­re are pho­tos cir­cu­la­ting on social media show­ing clo­se encoun­ters of polar bears on ice and tou­rists on ships, and the public dis­cus­sion is in full swing. The issue is alre­a­dy cover­ed by NRK, Norway’s most important news plat­form. The head­line of the lin­ked-up artic­le claims that Svalbard’s polar bears are dis­tur­bed by tou­rists “around the clock”.

Polar bear on ice clo­se to a ship: who moved to visit the other part? Who was cha­sed, dis­tur­bed or even put at risk? May­be: noo­ne. (Archi­ve image, 2015).

The cur­rent dis­cus­sion is fuel­led by pho­tos like this one, show­ing polar bears and ships with tou­rists in clo­se distance. The­re have been situa­tions like that also in recent weeks in Spits­ber­gen, pho­tos are cir­cu­la­ting and the dis­cus­sion is going high. A reac­tion may also come from offi­ci­al side: the Sys­sel­mes­ter (gover­nor) has announ­ced to inves­ti­ga­te rele­vant cases.

The­re is no doubt: vio­la­ti­on of valid law, writ­ten and unwrit­ten, and une­thi­cal beha­viour, are inac­cep­ta­ble and should be fol­lo­wed by strict­ly by the aut­ho­ri­ties, invol­ving fines whe­re­ver appro­pria­te.

Ille­gal beha­viour, une­thi­cal action or accep­ta­ble beha­viour?

But the ques­ti­on is if it is real­ly as easy as that. It seems so: many public com­men­ta­tors inclu­ding jour­na­lists (NRK) take it as given that the polar bears are dis­tur­bed by tou­rists, even “around the clock”. But what does a pic­tu­re like the one abo­ve actual­ly show? The actu­al pic­tu­re that has fuel­led the cur­rent deba­te has, by the way, been remo­ved from social media posts by the pho­to­grapher. But it shows – from the per­spec­ti­ve of ano­ther, not direct­ly invol­ved ship – a situa­ti­on very simi­lar to the one in the pic­tu­re abo­ve. So, is a situa­ti­on like this a pro­blem, may­be even legal­ly rele­vant, or not?

Over the years, I have been in situa­tions like this one a num­ber of times: a ship is park­ed at the ice edge or bet­ween ice floes. A polar bear gets a sen­se of the ship. Often being a curious and inqui­si­ti­ve ani­mals, chan­ces are that the bear comes clo­ser to inspect the object of his (or her) curio­si­ty. The bear may come clo­se enough to even touch the ship, snif­fing on the hull, while the peo­p­le on board are taking pic­tures, and then walks his (her) way again. (I high­light “her” becau­se both males and fema­les may show curious and inqui­si­ti­ve beha­viour).

It is, of cour­se, hard to say what actual­ly hap­pen­ed in any given case unless you have been the­re and seen it. Hard­ly anyo­ne who is con­tri­bu­ting to the cur­rent dis­cus­sion has been the­re. In this given case, I have coin­ci­den­tal­ly been clo­se enough to see a few bits and pie­ces (more on that below), but too far to see any details. Gene­ral­ly spea­king, a wide ran­ge of sce­na­ri­os is pos­si­ble: did the peo­p­le on board to some­thing to attract the bear actively? Did they even feed it? Both is pro­hi­bi­ted and com­ple­te­ly inac­cep­ta­ble, the­re is no room for dis­cus­sion about this. But unless the­re is any infor­ma­ti­on that points towards such beha­viour, the­re is no no need to assu­me that any­thing like that has actual­ly hap­pen­ed: the pre­sence of a ship, not moving, may well be enough to work up a polar bear’s curio­si­ty; after all, being curious is natu­ral beha­viour for a polar bear, and this is often reason enough for a polar bear to come clo­se and check out a ship (or hut or tent). This is not at all unu­su­al and it is not con­dem­nable. Neither is it une­thi­cal as long as the peo­p­le on board don’t take any inna­pro­pria­te action and as long as the­re is no dan­ger for man or beast (peo­p­le on board a ship a gene­ral­ly safe – which again means that also the bear is safe – unless the ship is so small that a bear can jump on board; some­thing that would, howe­ver, be a very unu­su­al beha­viour. I have never heard of a polar bear jum­ping on a boat with peo­p­le on deck). Also from a legal view­point, the­re shouldn’t be any­thing to com­plain about: §30 of the Sval­bard envi­ron­men­tal act pro­hi­bits any action to “attract polar bears, to feed them, to fol­low them or to seek out a polar bear actively in such a way that may invol­ve a dis­tur­ban­ce of the polar bear or that may put humans or the polar bear at risk” (my own trans­la­ti­on). It should not hard to under­stand that none of the­se actions – or equi­va­lent ones – need to be invol­ved when a ship stands still and a polar bear deci­des out of curio­si­ty to come clo­se.

So, is ever­y­thing fine then?

As men­tio­ned abo­ve, of cour­se it is pos­si­ble to think of sce­na­ri­os that invol­ve unac­cep­ta­ble and even ille­gal beha­viour. But this appears unli­kely in the given recent case, whe­re the ship was park­ed in the ice. As men­tio­ned abo­ve: I was too far to see any details of what peo­p­le on board were doing, but clo­se enough to noti­ce that the boat in ques­ti­on was not moving for hours. It was not actively moving any­whe­re.

It is, by the way, not a rea­li­stic sce­na­rio for a boat to fol­low a polar bear in den­se ice; even at a rela­xed pace, a polar bear will be more than fast enough to just walk away unless it is a strong ship that can push or even break ice at speed (brea­king ice is, by the way, also gene­ral­ly for­bidden).

Snow mobi­les on fjord ice may – given une­thi­cal beha­viour of the dri­ver – be a dif­fe­rent thing, but for that reason moto­ri­sed traf­fic on fjord ice has been lar­ge­ly ban­ned in rele­vant fjords alre­a­dy for years. Also fast motor boats in open water may easi­ly be used in ways that can cau­se gre­at dis­tur­ban­ce to polar bears. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, we have to assu­me that not ever­y­bo­dy has enough com­mon sen­se and rele­vant know­ledge to behave appro­pria­te­ly: stop­ping imme­dia­te­ly as soon as the bear shows the sligh­test sign of fee­ling unea­sy about the pre­sence of boats and moving away careful­ly wit­hout delay when neces­sa­ry. In such a situa­ti­on, any fur­ther approach that would invol­ve dis­tur­ban­ce is for­bidden by law as it as been in force sin­ce 2001 (Sval­bard­mil­jøl­oven).

Back to the given case: the­re is not­hing to see or to read in pho­tos and infor­ma­ti­on publi­cal­ly available that points towards such beha­viour. NRK jour­na­list Rune N. Andre­as­sen claims that polar bears in Sval­bard are dis­tur­bed by tou­rists “around the clock”. His artic­le (link abo­ve) does not pro­vi­de infor­ma­ti­on which would actual­ly indi­ca­te this. It appears that the head­line sup­ports the same public opi­ni­on that it may well be deri­ved from (rather than fac­tu­al infor­ma­ti­on): the com­bi­na­ti­on of tou­rists and polar bears is gene­ral­ly bad, and if both are clo­se tog­e­ther, it is just assu­med that this is not accep­ta­ble and pro­ba­b­ly ille­gal.

It is clear that pho­tos like the ones in ques­ti­on that are (were) cir­cu­la­ting on social media easi­ly give rise to a hea­ted public dis­cus­sion, espe­ci­al­ly when the view­er has never made a simi­lar expe­ri­ence him- or hers­elf, obser­ving the actu­al event from the begin­ning to the end. May­be the aut­hors of artic­les such as the abo­ve-men­tio­ned one on the NRK web­site have infor­ma­ti­on that I don’t have, but I doubt it. It would be good to have solid infor­ma­ti­on to base one’s opi­ni­on on when voi­cing such a strong state­ment such as a cla­im of polar bears being dis­tur­bed by tou­rists “around the clock” (or at all). Espe­ci­al­ly in nati­on­wi­de media, but also else­whe­re.

And espe­ci­al­ly when it comes at a time of a hea­ted poli­ti­cal deba­te: Nor­we­gi­an legis­la­ti­ve aut­ho­ri­ties are curr­ent­ly con­side­ring – among­st many other things – a legal requi­re­ment to keep a gene­ral mini­mum distance of 500 (five hundred) met­res from polar bears under any cir­cum­s­tances.

Rather than let­ting a polar bear car­ry on with fol­lo­wing his (or her, for that sake) curio­si­ty even if it does not invol­ve any risk or dis­tur­ban­ce, this would mean that you would have to start moving your boat or even use deterr­ents such as a fla­re gun. Both opti­ons are much more likely to dis­turb the ani­mal than just stay­ing whe­re you are as long as ever­y­bo­dy and ever­y­thing is safe. Some­thing that will gene­ral­ly be the case as long as peo­p­le are on the ship and the polar bear is on the ice. And this is what we are tal­king about. Not­hing else.

By the way, NRK aut­hor Andre­as­sen uses in his artic­le (links abo­ve) a pho­to taken by a Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te field bio­lo­gist, taken “from a pro­per distance” accor­ding to the com­ment under the pho­to. I would esti­ma­te the distance bet­ween the pho­to­grapher and the two bears in this pho­to to be some­whe­re near 50 met­res. On tenth of what Nor­we­gi­an legis­la­ti­ve aut­ho­ri­ties curr­ent­ly are con­side­ring as a legal­ly bin­ding mini­mum distance for polar bear encoun­ters.

The 17th of May is the Nor­we­gi­an natio­nal day and it is cele­bra­ted ever­y­whe­re in the coun­try with gre­at enthu­si­asm and a lot of public atten­ti­on and acti­vi­ties.

In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, this usual­ly includes the tra­di­ti­on to invi­te repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from the Rus­si­an sett­le­ment of Barents­burg, only 40 kilo­me­t­res away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from the mining com­pa­ny Trust Arc­ti­cu­gol and the con­su­la­te came as well as child­ren who met the local child­ren in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from Barents­burg hol­ding spea­ches next to the Sys­sel­man­nen (now: Sys­sel­mes­ter) and the mayor of Lon­gye­ar­by­en on the 17th of May (here in 2019).

It had been made clear in advan­ce that offi­ci­al repre­sen­ta­ti­ves would not be wel­co­me this year, but the child­ren and “neces­sa­ry entou­ra­ge” were invi­ted. Their visit was, howe­ver, can­cel­led by Barents­burg after “inter­nal dis­cus­sions”, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten As a con­se­quence, the­re was no mee­ting bet­ween the neigh­bours Barents­burg and Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the con­text of the 17th of May 2022. The ori­gi­nal idea that the Rus­si­an and Ukrai­ni­an child­ren from Barents­burg and the Nor­we­gi­an and inter­na­tio­nal ones from Lon­gye­ar­by­en would sing tog­e­ther had to be can­cel­led.

Local offi­ci­als hope that cir­cum­s­tances allow a nor­mal rela­ti­on bet­ween the neigh­bou­ring towns again soon.

On Sun­day (10 April) after­noon, an acci­dent hap­pen­ed on Lon­gye­ar­breen, a gla­cier a few kilo­me­t­res south of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, during a snow mobi­le tour. One per­son was sever­ely inju­red and later offi­ci­al­ly con­firm­ed dead.

Offi­ci­al infor­ma­ti­on that is publi­cal­ly available so far is limi­t­ed to the fact that the casu­al­ty was a woman who was not a local resi­dent. The acci­dent hap­pen­ed during a pri­va­te snow mobi­le tour. So far, the­re is no infor­ma­ti­on available regar­ding the acci­dent cau­se.

Lon­gye­ar­breen is a com­mon snow mobi­le rou­te, and traf­fic the­re is fre­quent during the sea­son.

Lower Lon­gye­ar­breen. This is the area whe­re the fatal snow mobi­le acci­dent hap­pen­ed yes­ter­day after­noon (pho­to taken in late March 2022).

P.S. in an ear­lier ver­si­on of this artic­le it was writ­ten that the casu­al­ty was tra­vel­ling with a gui­ded group. This was not cor­rect. She was tra­vel­ling with a group with both local and non-local mem­bers.

Com­ple­ti­on: On Mon­day, the name of the casu­al­ty was released by the aut­ho­ri­ties after con­sul­ta­ti­on with her fami­ly. It was a Nor­we­gi­an woman from Trond­heim.

The inter­na­tio­nal sanc­tions intro­du­ced by many count­ries as a reac­tion to the Rus­si­an war of aggres­si­on and exter­mi­na­ti­on against the Ukrai­ne will also hit the Rus­si­an north inclu­ding Barents­burg.

Mur­mansk is Russia’s most important har­bour for coal export. Accor­ding to Barents Obser­ver, years of signi­fi­cant growth resul­ted in export of more than 16 mil­li­on tons in 2019. Most of the coal was expor­ted to the EU – main­ly Ger­ma­ny – the UK and Isra­el. The growth led to plans for a new coal har­bour in Lav­na on the Kola pen­in­su­la. The cur­rent deve­lo­p­ment invol­ves major ques­ti­on­marks for this pro­ject.

Com­pared to the Mur­mansk exports, coal pro­duc­tion in and ship­ping from Barents­burg is small, and irrele­vant to the world mar­ket. A bit more than 100,000 tons are pro­du­ced annu­al­ly in Barents­burg, of which some­thing near 30,000 tons are used in the local coal power plant and the rest is for export. The­se exports are glo­bal­ly insi­gni­fi­cant, but nevert­hel­ess important for Barents­burg in terms of eco­no­my and jobs. Of near 400 inha­bi­tants, around 150 are working in the coal mine, inclu­ding many Ukrai­ni­ans.

Coal sto­rage and indus­try rela­ted to coal mining in Barents­burg: inter­na­tio­nal sanc­tions will hit here as well.

Coal from Barents­burg was main­ly sold to the UK in recent years, but it appears very unli­kely that the United King­dom will con­ti­nue this trade. This would sever­ely dama­ge a major part of Barentsburg’s eco­no­mic­al foun­da­ti­on. Tou­rism has been deve­lo­ped in Barents­burg in recent years, but this indus­tri­al sec­tor has lar­ge­ly col­lap­sed during the last two years becau­se of the pan­de­mic and now becau­se of the war and asso­cia­ted sanc­tions, lea­ving coal mining as the only indus­try in Barents­burg.

Irri­ta­ting inter­view of the Rus­si­an con­sul in Barents­burg

Last week – befo­re the pic­tures of the cruel­ties in But­cha went around the world – the Rus­si­an con­sul in Barents­burg irri­ta­ted the public with an inter­view with Nor­we­gi­an media (nettavisen.no) say­ing the images of the exten­si­ve des­truc­tions in Mariu­pol were in some cases staged and in other cases fake. He cal­led wes­tern media “fake news”, espe­ci­al­ly refer­ring to Nor­we­gi­an media, while pre­ten­ding that Rus­si­an infor­ma­ti­on is true. The artic­le by net­ta­vi­sen is Nor­we­gi­an, but near the end it includes a video of the inter­view with the con­sul in Eng­lish.

The inha­bi­tants of Barents­burg seem to avo­id poli­ti­cal dis­cus­sions both among­st each other and with media, as NRK found out during a visit to the sett­le­ment.

Cha­ri­ty: a heart for the Ukrai­ne – hand­ma­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

As a cha­ri­ty, you can buy a pin in the shape a heart in the colours of the Ukrai­ne in the spitsbergen-svalbard.com web­shop. The pins are hand­ma­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and the enti­re returns are cha­ri­ty for vic­tims of the Rus­si­an war against the Ukrai­ne. Click here for more infor­ma­ti­on.

So far, the­re have not been any cus­toms con­trols in Spits­ber­gen. The­re was just no need: due to the regu­la­ti­ons of the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty, taxes are redu­ced. The­re is no value-added tax and no import taxes. Hence, the­re were no cus­toms con­trols.

This is about to chan­ge.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port: no cus­toms con­trol, just a polar bear.
This will chan­ge soon (no, the polar bear is not about to dis­ap­pear).

The back­ground is the Rus­si­an war of aggres­si­on against the Ukrai­ne and the inter­na­tio­nal sanc­tions intro­du­ced in that con­text. Nor­way wants to make sure that Rus­sia does not use Spits­ber­gen as a logi­sti­cal loopho­le to import goods that are sanc­tion­ed. This could be pos­si­ble becau­se the­re is no con­trol of goods coming to Spits­ber­gen and the­re is ship traf­fic bet­ween the Rus­si­an sett­le­ment Barents­burg and Rus­sia.

This is about to chan­ge. The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment ins­truc­ted the tax aut­ho­ri­ties to estab­lish a local pre­sence and main­tain con­trols as neces­sa­ry, accor­ding to NRK. Cus­toms con­trols are announ­ced to be in place alre­a­dy in ear­ly May.

It is also announ­ced that this mea­su­re is not plan­ned to be per­ma­nent, but will be main­tai­ned as long as the­re is a need.

Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties have announ­ced a polar bear war­ning sys­tem in coope­ra­ti­on with the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te and Elon Musk’s satel­li­te-based com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on sys­tem Star­link.

As a first step, the who­le popu­la­ti­on of Spitsbergen’s polar bears will recei­ved micro­chips pro­vi­ded by Bill Gates. The­se chips include a micro-sen­der that sends signals that will be picked up by the Star­link satel­li­tes and for­ward­ed to through ground sta­ti­ons to the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te in real time. As a result, the posi­ti­on of each and every sin­gle polar bear in Spits­ber­gen will be known at any time.

Fema­le polar bear with tra­cker. The new gene­ra­ti­on of sen­ders will be much smal­ler, which is also expec­ted to signi­fi­cant­ly impro­ve the well-being of the ani­mals.

The public, howe­ver, will not have access to the data set as such, but users can down­load an app that works in a simi­lar way as the coro­na-warn-apps, informing the user when a polar bear is in the vici­ni­ty. Fee-pay­ing users of the pro ver­si­on can even use a func­tion to let the micro­chips instal­led in the ears of the bear blink bright­ly, to make it easier to see the approa­ching bear in the field – a fea­ture espe­ci­al­ly useful during the polar night. All ver­si­ons of the app will pro­du­ce a loud war­ning signal when a polar bear approa­ches within 5 met­res.

In the future it is plan­ned to deve­lop the sys­tem fur­ther so that the beha­viour of polar bears can be con­trol­led through the app, for exam­p­le to make aggres­si­ve polar bears turn around and walk away peaceful­ly.

The first ver­si­on of the app is curr­ent­ly under deve­lo­p­ment. The release of the final ver­si­on is sche­du­led for April 01, 2222. It will then not be available here in the Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com web­shop.

Against the back­ground of Putin’s aggres­si­ve war in the Ukrai­ne, the local tou­rism inter-trade orga­ni­sa­ti­on Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd encou­ra­ged the mem­ber com­pa­nies not to spend money in the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments in Spits­ber­gen, Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den.

Popu­lar in the past, now con­tro­ver­si­al: the bre­werey in Barents­burg.

It was just a few days ago that Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd initi­al­ly made a dif­fe­rent decis­i­on, arguing that boy­cotts and sanc­tions should be mea­su­res bet­ween govern­ments and sta­tes, but not on a local level. The recent tur­n­around came becau­se many poin­ted out that the inco­me gene­ra­ted in the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments bene­fits the owner of the sett­le­ments inclu­ding all tou­ristic offers and ser­vices: the Rus­si­an sta­te-owned Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol, or in other words: the Rus­si­an govern­ment, which now leads a bru­tal and ille­gal war in the Ukrai­ne.

Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd does not advi­se against tours to Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den, just from spen­ding money the­re. Tours espe­ci­al­ly to Barents­burg used to be very popu­lar befo­re the recent lar­ge-sca­le Rus­si­an inva­si­on star­ted. The­se excur­si­ons usual­ly included a local meal and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to buy sou­ve­nirs, inclu­ding local­ly made ones. Many tour ope­ra­tors will now stop this prac­ti­ce.

But not all: also the new decis­i­on is con­tro­ver­si­al. The­re are tho­se tour ope­ra­tors who argue that such boy­cotts will hit the wrong peo­p­le, name­ly the local popu­la­ti­on – which includes many Ukrai­ni­ans – rather than the regime in Moscow.

Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd makes only recom­men­da­ti­ons to the mem­ber com­pa­nies, but the­se recom­men­da­ti­ons are not bin­ding. Every tour ope­ra­tor will deci­de indi­vi­du­al­ly if they will con­ti­nue tours to the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments and if they con­ti­nue to buy and pay for local ser­vices.

While the Rus­si­an war is raging in the Ukrai­ne, many are asking in Lon­gye­ar­by­en how to deal with the Rus­si­an neigh­bours in Barents­burg, whe­re part of the popu­la­ti­on is Ukrai­ni­an, and the lar­ge­ly aban­do­ned sett­le­ment of Pyra­mi­den.

The important win­ter tou­rism sea­son has star­ted, and the many tou­rism com­pa­nies in Lon­gye­ar­by­en were loo­king for­ward to the sea­son after two very dif­fi­cult coro­na years. Day trips to Barents­burg have, so far, been among­st the most popu­lar offers; Pyra­mi­den is also an important desti­na­ti­on, alt­hough less fre­quent­ly visi­ted than Barents­burg becau­se if it fur­ther away.

Now many in the indus­try are won­de­ring how to deal with the­se offers con­side­ring the Rus­si­an aggres­si­on, war and cri­mes in the Ukrai­ne and the inter­na­tio­nal reac­tions. The local tou­rism inter-trade orga­ni­sa­ti­on Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd has taken the ques­ti­on upn and dis­cus­sed it bet­ween their mem­bers and with aut­ho­ri­ties.

Barents­burg: usual­ly a popu­lar desti­na­ti­on, now con­tro­ver­si­al.

As a result, Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd does not recom­mend to boy­kott the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments. The orga­ni­sa­ti­on argues that sanc­tions should be mea­su­res on a govern­men­tal level but not on a local, pri­va­te sec­tor level, whe­re a boy­kott is more likely to hit peo­p­le local­ly rather than the Rus­si­an govern­ment and others who are respon­si­ble for the cur­rent war and crime in the Ukrai­ne. Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd indi­ca­tes that they unders­tood from Oslo aut­ho­ri­ties that a nor­mal rela­ti­onship is desi­red on a local level, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

Some mem­bers had argued for a boy­kott of the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments, and cli­ents had can­cel­led their boo­kings. Accor­ding to Sval­bard Rei­se­livs­råd, it is up to every com­pa­ny not to offer trips to Barents­burg or Pyra­mi­den, and it is any­way up to every tou­rist to book a tour to the­se sett­le­ments or not.

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

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.

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.

The new is alre­a­dy near­ly 4 weeks old. Not too much has hap­pen­ed in Spits­ber­gen that has real­ly shaken the world, but nevert­hel­ess it is time to have a look at the sta­te of affairs.

C & O in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

C as in coro­na, O as in Omi­kron – I guess the­re is hard­ly anyo­ne who can still hear it wit­hout get­ting tur­ned off. And who will be sur­pri­sed that C & O are now well estab­lished also local­ly in Lon­gye­ar­by­en? Pro­ba­b­ly nobo­dy. The num­bers of posi­ti­ve tests is well up in two-digit num­bers – within a popu­la­ti­on some­whe­re near 2500. And it is defi­ni­te­ly not just about tra­vel­lers who just came up with „imports­mit­te“ (impor­ted infec­tion). The virus is cir­cu­la­ting local­ly, inclu­ding the school.

🙁

Near­ly ever­y­bo­dy tra­vel­ling up to Sval­bard is obli­ged to take a nega­ti­ve test done in Nor­way within 24 hours befo­re depar­tu­re (and ano­ther one after arri­val), some­thing that locals – popu­la­ti­on, eco­no­my, poli­ti­ci­ans – are not amu­sed about at all, also con­side­ring that this is not the case else­whe­re in Nor­way. And the­re are tho­se who ask why Sval­bard gets a dif­fe­rent tre­at­ment than the rest of the coun­try. The tou­rism indus­try is get­ting more and more ner­vous about the important win­ter sea­son, which has alre­a­dy been lar­ge­ly lost in to con­se­cu­ti­ve years.

No sabo­ta­ge on the cables

No, this is not about the deep sea cable that con­nects Sval­bard to the rest of the world which was dama­ged a few weeks ago. It is still uncer­tain what has actual­ly hap­pen­ed to it and it will take some time until the dama­ge is loca­ted, let alo­ne repai­red. But the func­tion­a­li­ty has at least been res­to­red, so the­re is red­un­dan­cy in the com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on again and the who­le pres­su­re isn’t just res­t­ing on the second cable alo­ne any­mo­re.

In this con­text, the initi­al­ly mys­te­rious case of a dama­ged cable on the sea flo­or off north Nor­way was also dis­cus­sed. Sabo­ta­ge was at least not excluded in eit­her of the­se cases, and one had to exer­cise a bit of self disci­pli­ne in order not to think of Norway’s big and curr­ent­ly rather ill-tem­pe­red neigh­bour in the east (no, not Swe­den). But at least for the case near the islands of Ves­terå­len in north Nor­way, sabo­ta­ge seems rather unli­kely now, as NRK reports: the still „miss­ing“ bit of the cable was „found“ – inde­ed it tur­ned out that the part of the cable that was torn off and later found in a distance of 11 kilo­me­t­res from the ori­gi­nal loca­ti­on, was actual­ly com­ple­te, so not­hing was miss­ing any­mo­re. This was estab­lished after the length of the cable could be mea­su­red more pre­cis­e­ly.

An inves­ti­ga­ti­on of the ship traf­fic in the area at the time in ques­ti­on has resul­ted in infor­ma­ti­on that points to a fishing ves­sel as the cau­se for the cable clut­ter. This had initi­al­ly been con­side­red unli­kely as it was belie­ved that such an inci­dence could not have hap­pen­ed unno­ti­ced and that the crew would have repor­ted it, but this has appar­ent­ly not been the case. As unp­lea­sant as the who­le affair still is for ever­y­bo­dy invol­ved inclu­ding tho­se who don’t get the data they need for their sci­en­ti­fic work, at least this is one poten­ti­al strain off from inter­na­tio­nal rela­ti­ons which are dif­fi­cult enough as they are.

And as men­tio­ned abo­ve, it remains to be seen if the­re is an equal­ly harm­less (at least from a point of inter­na­tio­nal poli­tics) expl­ana­ti­on for the case of the Sval­bard cable.

Polar Per­ma­cul­tu­re: neither per­ma nor cul­tu­re

The busi­ness was neither perma(nent) nor was the­re suf­fi­ci­ent cul­tu­re in it, at least loo­king at the for­mal side of affairs: Polar per­ma­cul­tu­re was an eco-fri­end­ly hor­ti­cul­tu­re busi­ness gro­wing for exam­p­le kit­chen herbs in a dome in Nyby­en. Local and envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly food pro­duc­tion was and still is an idea that many will sym­pa­thise with (inclu­ding this aut­hor). But in this case, the attempt, which see­med to work suc­cessful­ly for a cou­ple of years, came to a rather sad end as the com­pa­ny went bank­rupt during the coro­na cri­sis in spi­te of public aid. So far so under­stan­da­ble. But the pro­blem is that the whe­re­a­bouts of sub­stan­ti­al amounts of money, from public and pri­va­te sources, could not be tra­ced – and 2 mil­li­on Nor­we­gi­an kro­ner (about 200,000 Euro) are not small chan­ge, obvious­ly. It tur­ned out that „chao­tic“ seems to be a rather mild descrip­ti­on of the accoun­ting within Polar Per­ma­cul­tu­re. The Sys­sel­mes­ter is inves­ti­ga­ting the case accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten, con­side­ring to open a legal case against the for­mer com­pa­ny.

And other than that?

That’s it for the moment.

Many, many years ago, ships were nee­ded to send mes­sa­ges from Spits­ber­gen to the world and vice ver­sa. The wire­less tele­graph sta­ti­on built in 1911 at Fin­nes­et made com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on con­sider­a­b­ly more effi­ci­ent. Fur­ther techi­cal upgrades fol­lo­wed throug­hout the 20th cen­tu­ry.

But this kind of con­nec­tion, alt­hough per­fect­ly fine for the ever­y­day needs of mining com­pa­nies, expe­di­ti­ons and fishing and other ships, was far from good enough for the traf­fic that aro­se when SvalSat was estab­lished in 1997: a sta­ti­on with a coll­ec­tion of satel­li­te anten­nas to send data to satel­li­tes and recei­ve data tra­ve­ling the oppo­si­te way. The num­ber of anten­nas at SvalSat has increased ever sin­ce and is now amoun­ting to some­thing near 100.

Satel­li­te anten­nas of SvalSat on Pla­tå­berg near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

As cus­to­mers like NASA and ESA don’t like to wait until a data DVD or USB stick is ship­ped out to them, a fib­re cable was laid to the main­land in 2004 to trans­port lar­ge volu­mes of data in real time. It is actual­ly a set of two indi­pen­dent cables to crea­te red­un­dan­cy and thus a robust struc­tu­re. Sin­ce the­se cables exist, Lon­gye­ar­by­en has super-fast inter­net (alt­hough the user expe­ri­ence of more mer­tals may occa­sio­nal­ly be dif­fe­rent).

The two cables on the sea flo­or are a very important and sen­si­ti­ve bit of infra­struc­tu­re. Almost all com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on of all of Spitsbergen’s sett­le­ments depends on them, as well as the data traf­fic that is going through SvalSat: con­trol­ling satel­li­tes in polar orbits and recei­ving their data when they are nee­ded. Navi­ga­ti­on, com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, sci­ence, wea­ther – the who­le lot, ever­y­thing that satel­li­tes do the­se days. Obvious­ly an important bit of glo­bal infra­struc­tu­re.

Last Fri­day, one of the cables was dama­ged in the ear­ly mor­ning, as the ope­ra­ting com­pa­ny Space Nor­way noti­fied in a press release. A sea-going cable lay­ing ves­sel is nee­ded to repair the dama­ge, and it will take time until this is done.

The second cable is enough to cater for all data traf­fic and the­re are no rest­ric­tions as long as it is ope­ra­ti­ve. But the­re is no fur­ther red­un­dance, and a loss of the second cable would have huge con­se­quen­ces. A cri­sis manage­ment group had a first mee­ting in Lon­gye­ar­by­en to dis­cuss sce­na­ri­os “in case”. Offi­ci­als empha­sise, howe­ver, that the­re is no reason to belie­ve that a loss of the second cable is likely to hap­pen.

The dama­ge seems to have occu­red at a distance bet­ween 120-130 km from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, in an area whe­re depth is fal­ling from the shal­lower shelf to the deep sea. The con­ti­nen­tal shelf is an area whe­re huge mass move­ments natu­ral­ly occur from time to time, so the dama­ge may have been cau­sed by a natu­ral event. But no fur­ther details are known so far, and aut­ho­ri­ties do not exclude cri­mi­nal­ly rele­vant action of third par­ties, accor­ding to NRK.

The case reminds of the mys­te­rious loss of a cable con­nec­tion of rese­arch instal­la­ti­ons on the sea flo­or off north Nor­way. Last year, the “Lofo­ten-Ves­terå­len Mee­res­ob­ser­va­to­ri­um”, or short: “LoVe” sud­den­ly tur­ned black. LoVe is a civi­li­an rese­arch faci­li­ty desi­gned to coll­ect a rather com­pre­hen­si­ve set of high-reso­lu­ti­on data of various sorts, inclu­ding acou­stic data. LoVe is, in other words, capa­ble of recor­ding sub­ma­ri­ne traf­fic at least to some degree. It tur­ned out that no less than 4 kilo­me­t­res of cable were remo­ved. 3 out of the­se 4 km of cable were later found in a distance of a good 10 km from the ori­gi­nal site. A natu­ral cau­se for the event can, as of now, not be excluded, alt­hough all opti­ons con­side­red (inclu­ding curr­ents, giant squid or wha­les) sound more or less bizar­re. Bot­tom traw­ling can not be ruled out eit­her, but it is hard to ima­gi­ne that this would have hap­pen­ed unno­ti­ced.

The­re is a lot of sub­ma­ri­ne traf­fic off Nor­way. Not all of them ope­ra­te as much in public as this sub­ma­ri­ne that is here seen being towed in the har­bour of Trom­sø.

In this con­text, remarks have been made that Rus­sia is tech­ni­cal­ly capa­ble of ope­ra­ti­ons on the sea flo­or at rele­vant depths. Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties inclu­ding the secret ser­vice are invol­ved in the inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, as was repor­ted by NRK and inter­na­tio­nal media such as Ger­man SPIE­GEL Online.

The­se cases shed a dif­fe­rent kind of light on the desi­re of the Nor­we­gi­an mili­ta­ry to con­trol high-reso­lu­ti­on map­ping of the Nor­we­gi­an sea flo­or inclu­ding Sval­bard and Jan May­en.