The “TV-aks­jon” is a big event any­whe­re in Nor­way, but in Lon­gye­ar­by­en it is big­ger than most other places. It is a cha­ri­ty event crea­ted by the Nor­we­gi­an news plat­form NRK. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, it ran­ges from child­ren kno­cking on doors to coll­ec­tion money over an open day at school with sales of cake, books, theat­re plays and so on to the main event, a cha­ri­ty auc­tion that was held on Sun­day (20 Octo­ber) evening in the cul­tu­re house.

Pri­va­te indi­vi­du­als, com­pa­nies and orga­ni­sa­ti­ons dona­ted a total of 107 items that were auc­tion­ed for a good cau­se, which this time bene­fits child­ren with can­cer. The good cau­se is a dif­fe­rent one every year.

The “TV-aks­jon” in the Cul­tu­re House in Lon­gye­ar­by­en: an auc­tion sup­port­ing a good cau­se.

The list of items was long and included a good num­ber of very inte­res­t­ing offers. It ran­ged from small stuff, not neces­s­a­ri­ly adre­na­lin-kicking items such as tie­pins and cuff links dona­ted by the mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kul­kom­pa­ni, over various acti­vi­ties offe­red by ocal tour ope­ra­tors to exclu­si­ve events such as clim­bing the smo­ke pipe of the disu­s­ed coal power plant.

A hap­py bidder can join the priest on a heli­c­op­ter flight for a church ser­vice at the Polish rese­arch sta­ti­on in Horn­sund next year for 25,000 kro­ner.

The pro­ba­b­ly most exci­ting sale of the night was the very last item: the fur of a polar bear that was shot last year in Kross­fjord. Dona­ted by the Sys­sel­mes­ter, the ham­mer final­ly fell at 112,000 kro­ner (a good 9400 Euro). The ham­mer in ques­ti­on, by the way, was the famous “Fau­se-ham­mer”, dona­ted years ago by Sys­sel­mes­ter Lars Fau­se after he (Fau­se) inad­ver­t­ent­ly had made a hole into a chair leg with an unin­ten­ded pis­tol shot. Fau­se pre­sen­ted hims­elf both honest and humo­rous, first pay­ing the fine that comes for negli­gent hand­ling of fire­arms and then, being auc­tion­eer at a TV aks­jon hims­elf years ago, using this ham­mer that had been craf­ted from the chair leg in ques­ti­on. This time, the ham­mer was hand­led by Ron­ny Brun­voll, mana­ger of Visit Sval­bard.

The polar bear fur was auc­tion­ed for 112,000 kro­ner.

The hig­hest pri­ce, howe­ver, was paid for a trip to Ny-Åle­sund for 10 per­sons, inclu­ding flight the­re and back from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, one night and three cour­se din­ner in “Amundsen’s Vil­la”, then and now repre­sen­ta­ti­ve accom­mo­da­ti­on for the direc­tor of Kings Bay, the sta­te-owned com­pa­ny that owns and runs Ny-Åle­sund. The suc­cessful bidder put no less than 150,200 kro­ner on the table. But who wouldn’t love to join on that trip? 🙂

The­re is some ambi­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en to be num­ber one on the list of places regar­ding dona­ti­on per capi­ta (resi­dent). Despi­te of the remar­kab­le sum of 2.5 mil­li­on kro­ner, which inde­ed is a record for Lon­gye­ar­by­en, it wasn’t enough for the num­ber one place of this list, howe­ver: this amount cor­re­sponds to 1043.62 kro­ner, less then half of what was given by the com­mu­ni­ty of Rødøy (1139 resi­dents, south of Bodø) with 2311.46 kro­ner, accor­ding to offi­ci­al sta­tis­tics. Con­side­ring abso­lu­te num­bers, the lar­ge cities of Oslo, Ber­gen and Trond­heim (in this order) take the first places any­way. The total sum of this year’s TV aks­jon amounts to an impres­si­ve 367 mil­li­on kro­ner, of which 50 mil­li­on kro­ner were given by the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment.