A while ago, I star­ted tel­ling the sto­ries of the pic­tures in the new pho­to book ‘Spits­ber­gen – Cold Beau­ty’, and I wan­ted to con­ti­nue that. Now it is about the new calen­dar, but the idea is the same: the sto­ries behind the pho­tos, as I’m final­ly get­ting round to picking it up again.

The 2025 calen­dar is a dou­ble calen­dar, Spits­ber­gen and Green­land are pre­sen­ted with 12 pic­tures each. Here we have Novem­ber and Decem­ber, so four pic­tures and four sto­ries in total.

Calen­der “Spits­ber­gen & Green­land 2025”: Novem­ber

Autumn in the Arc­tic – during this time of year, we are hoping for beau­tiful light. Low sun during day­ti­me and end­less sun­sets. Of cour­se, the sun doesn’t shi­ne at all in Sval­bard in Novem­ber, as the polar night beg­ins at the end of Octo­ber. The Spits­ber­gen pic­tu­re for the Novem­ber page was taken on a beau­tiful day at the end of August 2022, on the first ever cir­cum­na­vi­ga­ti­on of Spits­ber­gen with sai­ling ship Mean­der. The wea­ther was real­ly on our side, and then you can go to cra­zy places whe­re you wouldn’t nor­mal­ly go. Becau­se they are very expo­sed, becau­se the waters clo­se to the shore are unchar­ted and shal­low.

This is exact­ly the case in the exten­si­ve Dis­ko­bukt on Edgeøya. Here, every wave quick­ly turns into a brea­k­er even befo­re it rea­ches the shore, and at low tide the pro­pel­ler whirls in the mud well befo­re you get any­whe­re near the coast. It is sen­si­ble to stay away from such places in ever­y­day life. But not every day is ever­y­day life, and we are not always sen­si­ble, are we 😄 other­wi­se whe­re would we end up … cer­tain­ly not in this part of Dis­ko­buk­ta! (This is not about the rela­tively well known kit­ti­wa­ke colo­ny in the nor­t­hern part of Dis­ko­buk­ta.) Whe­re we were ashore in the evening of this unfor­gettable day and went for a litt­le hike to and up a low hill. I had seen this hill so many times from a distance as we sai­led past and always thought that one day I would have to go the­re … and this was just the right oppor­tu­ni­ty! It just has to hap­pen, you can’t force things like that.

Dis­ko­buk­ta on Edgeøya (not the one in west Green­land) is aptly descri­bed as ‘vast’ or ‘wide open’. Bar­ren, high arc­tic, a vast, dark­ly colou­red allu­vi­al plain. Num­e­rous wha­le bones add varie­ty to the other­wi­se mono­to­no­us land­scape impres­si­on, and the gre­at light of a beau­tiful evening at the end of August at around 78 degrees north did its part.

The Novem­ber-Spits­ber­gen-image shows Dis­ko­buk­ta on Edgeøya.

I had been the­re years befo­re. On that occa­si­on: hori­zon­tal snow – and a polar bear on the shore. That was gre­at too. But that evening at the end of August, when we were able to go ashore … unfor­gettable! That’s the stuff my Spits­ber­gen dreams are made of. It was so beau­tiful that I rea­li­sed on the spot that one of the pic­tures would be in the calen­dar as soon as pos­si­ble. ‘Calen­dar poten­ti­al’ is the hig­hest pho­to­gra­phic stan­dard here 🙂

The other sto­ries are told rela­tively quick­ly. In Score­s­by­sund in East Green­land, the musk ox is rough­ly what the polar bear is to Spits­ber­gen: tou­rists usual­ly want to see them.

Now they usual­ly stand some­whe­re far away on a moun­tain slo­pe. It takes a bit of luck to see them up clo­se. And too clo­se is also poten­ti­al­ly unhe­alt­hy, of cour­se, espe­ci­al­ly when you are hiking.

One fine day with ear­ly win­ter mood in Sep­tem­ber in Rypefjord, deep in Score­s­by­sund, ever­y­thing was just right: the musk oxen were quite clo­se to the shore and we could see them per­fect­ly well from the boat – the love­ly Ópal from Ice­land. And very hel­pful to secu­re not only some nice views, but actual­ly good pho­tos: I had my 600 mil­li­met­re lens with me, the real­ly big one that usual­ly stays in Spits­ber­gen and lives on the ship rather than being drag­ged around on land. Just for the polar bears. Or in Green­land for the musk oxen. The effort was worth it here.

The Novem­ber-pic­tu­re for Green­land: Musk oxen in Rypefjord.

Calen­der “Spits­ber­gen & Green­land 2025”: Decem­ber

Of cour­se, I wouldn’t miss the nor­t­hern lights at the end of the year. Decem­ber is the deepest polar night, and of cour­se, you just can’t get to the most remo­te cor­ners of Spits­ber­gen at this time of year. But why should you, you can see the nor­t­hern lights won­derful­ly in Advent­da­len, not far from Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The Decem­ber-image, Spits­ber­gen: Nor­t­hern light abo­ve Advent­da­len.

Lar­ge parts of Green­land, inclu­ding Score­s­by­sund, are actual­ly even bet­ter for obser­ving the nor­t­hern lights than Sval­bard, whe­re you are alre­a­dy north of the hot auro­ra zone, the Auro­ra Oval. Score­s­by­sund is the right place to be, as the­re is a lot of action when it only gets dark at night. And due to the more sou­t­her­ly loca­ti­on, this is the case ear­lier in the year than in Sval­bard, Sep­tem­ber is a pret­ty relia­ble month. In this pic­tu­re we see the nor­t­hern lights over Bjør­neøer­ne, with the magni­fi­cent Øfjord and the striking Grundt­vigs­kir­ke moun­tain in the back­ground.

The Decem­ber-pic­tu­re, Green­land: nor­t­hern light over Bjør­neøer­ne.

The dou­ble calen­dar ‘Spits­ber­gen & Green­land 2025’ is available in the Spitzbergen.de web­shop in two sizes (A3 and A5), as well as many other gre­at things – not just books – of cour­se.

Now, Lon­gye­ar­by­en is loca­ted in Advent­fjord, isn’t it 🤪😵‍💫 this is actual­ly not only one of my infa­mous puns, but actual­ly a not so rare misun­derstan­ding. The name Advent­fjord has not­hing to do with the Advent sea­son, but with an Eng­lish wha­ling ship, the Adven­ture, which was the­re in the 17th cen­tu­ry.

But that’s not what this is all about, it’s about the start of the Advent sea­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­re is also a Christ­mas mar­ket here, or rather two, even. Howe­ver, they are a litt­le dif­fe­rent to what most of us may be used to. On two weekends, in mid-Novem­ber and last weekend, the hard-working and crea­ti­ve artists, craft­speo­p­le and ever­yo­ne in bet­ween set up their stalls, first in the cul­tu­ral cent­re (Kul­tur­hu­set) in the town cent­re and on the first weekend of Advent in the artists’ cent­re (kunst­ner­sen­trum) in Nyby­en hig­her up in the val­ley, whe­re the gal­lery used to be some years ago. Unfort­u­na­te­ly no roas­ted almonds and no mull­ed wine, but lots of gre­at han­di­crafts made in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, inclu­ding Eva Grøn­dal from the local pho­to­grapher dynasty of the same name (first pic­tu­re) and Wolf­gang Hüb­ner-Zach from the car­pen­try work­shop Alt i 3 (that’s whe­re the beau­tiful kit­chen boards and drift­wood pic­tu­re frames come from 😉). And lots of other gre­at things. Lena’s decep­tively real cho­co­la­te fos­sils, awe­so­me! To name just one more exam­p­le.

Christ­mas mar­ket in Nyby­en

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

And then, of cour­se, the­re is the tra­di­tio­nal torch­light pro­ces­si­on on the after­noon of the first Sun­day in Advent – it is dark, even the street lights are swit­ched off in the area during the event – from the Huset to Santa’s let­ter­box below the old pit 2b, the ‘jule­n­is­se­gruve’ (Santa’s pit). Father Christ­mas is working hard up the­re now, so this old coal mine, aban­do­ned sin­ce 1964, is now lit up again until Christ­mas. And down by the road is the let­ter­box whe­re the child­ren (inclu­ding the older ones, if they want to) post their let­ters to Father Christ­mas with all their wis­hes.

The rou­te con­ti­nues to the cent­re, whe­re the Christ­mas tree is lit. Of cour­se, the­re are warm words, cheerful sin­ging and good cheer and, last but not least, Father Christ­mas arri­ves with his assistants and dis­tri­bu­tes a small advan­ce to the many child­ren.

The Christ­mas tree is lit

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

This marks the start of the Advent sea­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, and ever­y­whe­re else too, of cour­se. I wish ever­yo­ne a hap­py and joyful Advent sea­son!