The Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty was signed in 1920 and it came into force in 1925. It sea­led Nor­we­gi­an sove­reig­n­ty over the Sval­bard archi­pe­la­go (the name “Sval­bard” was not used in the trea­ty) and regu­la­tes access for citi­zens of trea­ty mem­ber sta­tes.

Fre­d­rik Wedel Jarls­berg, the Nor­we­gi­an nego­tia­tor in Paris,
signed the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty on 09th Febru­ary 1920 in Ver­sailles.

A ran­ge of count­ries have joi­n­ed the trea­ty sin­ce 1925. Until recent­ly, Lat­via and North Korea (!) had been the latest new mem­bers. Both joi­n­ed the trea­ty in 2016.

In April 2024, howe­ver, Anka­ra rati­fied their signa­tu­re under the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty. Sin­ce then, Tur­key is the latest signa­to­ry coun­try.

This will not chan­ge much in real life: Nor­way does not make a dif­fe­rence bet­ween citi­zens of mem­ber sta­tes and tho­se from other count­ries. The­re are, for exam­p­le, more than 200 peo­p­le from Thai­land and the Phil­li­pi­nes living in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Their respec­ti­ve count­ries of ori­gin are not mem­bers of the Spits­ber­gen trea­ty.

Tur­key appears to be inte­res­ted on a dif­fe­rent level, as the Barents Obser­ver wri­tes: recent­ly in July, a dele­ga­ti­on from Tur­key visi­ted Pyra­mi­den, a for­mer Rus­si­an coal mining sett­le­ment in Isfjord, to look at the poten­ti­al of run­ning a rese­arch faci­li­ty the­re. Rus­sia has announ­ced plans to deve­lop Pyra­mi­den as an alter­na­ti­ve to Ny-Åle­sund, whe­re a ran­ge of count­ries run rese­arch faci­li­ties under Nor­we­gi­an lea­der­ship.

Sjuøya­ne is the page of the week. This page is dedi­ca­ted to the litt­le archi­pe­la­go of ‘The Seven Islands’, which are the very nor­t­hern­most islands and islets of the Sval­bard archi­pe­la­go.

The page has exis­ted for years, but I have impro­ved it signi­fi­cant­ly now with new map, images and pho­to gal­lery and the text has also got a cou­ple of updates. When I work on the tra­vel blog, lin­king places that we just visi­ted to the­se pages, I like to make updates and impro­ve­ments as I stumb­le over older pages that need some love.

Phippsøya, the lar­ges island of Sjuøya­ne.

Sjuøya­ne have some fasci­na­ting land­scape and they are a fasci­na­ting area to visit if all works out, but it can cer­tain­ly be chal­ling to get the­re, let alo­ne to get ashore. If get­ting the­re is not available in real life, then a vir­tu­al trip the­re is just one mou­se click away 😀

The for­mer fire­drill area near Sval­bard air­port clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en has been a mat­ter of con­flict for years. The area is con­ta­mi­na­ted with “per- and poly­fluo­ro­al­kyl sub­s­tances” or short PFAS, which come as part of fire extin­gu­is­hing foam which was used in lar­ge quan­ti­ties on the fire­drill area over years. PFAS is harmful to both health and envi­ron­ment and it is hard­ly bro­ken own under natu­ral con­di­ti­ons. Hence, once released it stays in the envi­ron­ment for very long and it accu­mu­la­tes in the food chain.

The fire­drill area in ques­ti­on was aban­do­ned 24 years ago, but PFAS con­cenc­tra­ti­on levels in the soil are still high. Some of the con­ta­mi­na­ted soil was remo­ved in 2023, but more remains and fur­ther clean-up has been mat­ter of legal and public dis­pu­te for a long time. Avi­nor, the Nor­we­gi­an com­pa­ny that runs the air­port (and other ones in Nor­way), argued that effort and cos­ts are too high. But now, the Nor­we­gi­an minis­try for cli­ma­te and envi­ron­ment has deci­ded that the clean-up must be com­ple­ted.

Part of the con­ta­mi­na­ted soil near the hor­se riding cent­re clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port was remo­ved in August 2023.

Avi­nor has bud­get­ed 25 mil­li­on kro­ner (about 2.1 mil­li­on Euro) for the cle­a­nup pro­ject. Work is sche­du­led to start in August, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

Jørn Dyb­dahl, for­mer owner of the hor­se riding cent­re clo­se to Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port, died in 2023 from can­cer. Dyb­dahl hims­elf suspec­ted the PFAS con­ta­mi­na­ti­on to be the reason for his fatal ill­ness.

Two gui­des of a French ship each got a fine of 20,000 kro­ner (about 1750 Euro) for having dis­tur­bed polar bears. The inci­dent hap­pen­ed on 23rd June in Mos­sel­buk­ta in north Spits­ber­gen. Two polar bears, a mother with her cub, were eating on a dead wha­le. The gui­des dro­ve Zodiacs with pas­sen­gers towards the bears in a way that cau­sed them to move away from the wha­le car­cass, accor­ding to a press release by the Sys­sel­mes­ter.

Polar bears enjoy­ing a wha­le car­cass (archi­ve image, Hin­lo­pen Strait 2023).

Accor­ding to § 30 of the Sval­bard envi­ron­men­tal law (Sval­bard mil­jø­l­ov), „it is for­bidden to lure, to feed, to fol­low polar bears or to take any other action that may lead to dis­tur­ban­ce or dan­ger for peo­p­le or the polar bear(s)” (author’s trans­la­ti­on).

The­re will be new rules from 2025. Then, a mini­mum distance of 500 met­res (until 30 June) respec­tively 300 met­res (from 1st July) will be requi­red by law.

The new pho­to book “Spits­ber­gen – cold beau­ty” has 227 images that take you on a com­pre­hen­si­ve jour­ney around Spits­ber­gen, both geo­gra­phi­cal­ly, sea­so­nal­ly and regar­ding wild­life and a bit of histo­ry here and the­re.

I took the pho­tos over a peri­od of almost 20 years, on uncoun­ted tours and jour­ney from 2005 (when I had just bought my first digi­tal came­ra) to 2023. For me, many of them are con­nec­ted to unfor­gettable memo­ries, and the decis­i­on for every sin­gle one came tog­e­ther with indi­vi­du­al decis­i­ons against 1000 other images that might just as well have been in the book now.

In the book, the pho­tos can and do speak for them­sel­ves. The­re is no long text to dis­tract the eye. My own thoughts, sto­ries and memo­ries don’t mat­ter the­re. But I would nevert­hel­ess like to share some of them. The place to do so is here. It might turn out to be a litt­le series over time if you like. We’ll see what hap­pens.

The first image: nor­t­hern light

In the Arc­tic, the year beg­ins in the midd­le of the polar night. Hence, so does the pho­to book. And how to illus­tra­te the beau­ty of the polar night bet­ter than with a nor­t­hern light?

A nor­t­hern light pho­to was thus also the ope­ner of the first ver­si­on of the book in 2011. I remem­ber how proud I was of my very nor­t­hern light pho­tos! But alas, I lacked all requi­re­ments for pro­per nor­t­hern light pho­to­gra­phy. I dare to say that this resul­ted in a rapid deve­lo­p­ment as far as I am con­cer­ned and things did impro­ve. But the 2011 ver­si­on of the book was prin­ted, and every time I took a copy of that ear­ly edi­ti­on up and saw that pho­to, I was kind of put off and I thought “that should be bet­ter”. Well, now it is. Over the years sin­ce then, I have spent count­less cold evenings equip­ped with warm clo­thes, full frame came­ra, high qua­li­ty prime len­se and tri­pod in Advent­da­len, whe­re I took the pho­to of my final choice in 2019.

The first pho­to in my new pho­to book Spits­ber­gen: Cold beau­ty: nor­t­hern light.

If you look at dif­fe­rent polar light pho­tos, on the inter­net, in books or maga­zi­nes, they are often very bright and extre­me­ly colourful. The­re may be the odd excep­ti­on, but in by far most cases this is a mat­ter of exag­ge­ra­ted twis­ting knobs and but­tons during image pro­ces­sing. It is important to resist this tempt­a­ti­on, the­se results are not rea­li­stic.

That one nor­t­hern light pho­to in the old 2011 edi­ti­on would have been reason enough for a new edi­ti­on of the book. Well, here it is, and this time I am hap­py with it 🙂.

The first sun­light

The return of the sun wit­hout seve­ral months of sun­light is always a very spe­cial event, any­whe­re in the Arc­tic. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which is sur­roun­ded by moun­ta­ins, this does not hap­pen befo­re 08 March. If you have a free view to the south, you can enjoy that delightful view con­sider­a­b­ly ear­lier. In Farm­ham­na, a trap­per sta­ti­on on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen, we could cele­bra­te the return of the sun as ear­ly as 20 Febru­ary during my time the­re in 2022, and this is when I took this pho­to.

First sun­light in Farm­ham­na, 20 Febru­ary 2022.

My time in Farm­ham­na will fore­ver be among­st my tre­asu­red memo­ries. The­re are seve­ral more pho­tos from Farm­ham­na and sur­roun­dings that have made it into the new Spits­ber­gen pho­to book.

New Spits­ber­gen pho­to book: Cold beau­ty.

The Lan­geøya pan­ora­ma is the page of the week. Lan­geøya is a small island in the sou­thern part of Hin­lo­pen Strait. The page as such has exis­ted for a while, but now I have added some more infor­ma­ti­on and pic­tu­re. If you read Ger­man, then I recom­mend to have a look at the Ger­man ver­si­on of the page which includes a quo­ta­ti­on from Carl Kol­dew­ey, an explo­rer who visi­ted Lan­geøya in 1868.

No pre­view here, but Lan­geøya is just one mou­se click away!

The yacht “Grön­land”, Koldewey’s ship in 1868.

The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has pre­sen­ted a new “Sval­bard­mel­ding”, a new govern­ment poli­cy state­ment for Sval­bard poli­tics for the upco­ming years. It is the first one sin­ce 2016.

Streng­thening Lon­gye­ar­by­en as an attrac­ti­ve place to live for Nor­we­gi­an fami­lies will be a focus for the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment. Ano­ther one will be bet­ter con­trol of cri­ti­cal infra­struc­tu­re, cer­tain­ly inclu­ding Longyearbyen’s ener­gy sup­p­ly. Bet­ter (but not neces­s­a­ri­ly more) flats are ano­ther poli­ti­cal goal, and so is streng­thening employ­ment rights. Svalbard’s sci­ence land­scape will see a “sci­ence office”.

More details will have to wait a while. We left Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the after­noon with good old SV Anti­gua and we are loo­king for­ward to some beau­tiful days in nor­thwes­tern Spits­ber­gen. News will have to wait a while, but the tra­vel blog should get some updates over the next cou­ple of days 🙂

The Nor­we­gi­an Insti­tu­te for Natu­re Rese­arch (NINA) has film­ed a polar fox mother giving birth to 8 cute litt­le fox babies. This remar­kab­le event took place in cap­ti­vi­ty in main­land Nor­way, within a pro­ject desi­gned to release polar foxes into the wild.

Click hie­re to access a short video on You­tube show­ing seg­ments of the birth. It is real­ly worth see­ing, even if you don’t under­stand the Nor­we­gi­an comm­ents (it is about the researcher’s inte­rest to learn more about sur­vi­val rates in and out­side the den).

Fur­therm­mo­re, the­re is a live­stream from the arti­fi­ci­al den. Don’t miss it while the­re is still some action in the­re! 🦊🐱🐱🐱🤩

P.S. in case the abo­ve link to the live­stream does not work, try to access the one on NINA’s web­site. It appears to chan­ge some­ti­mes.

Polar foxes near Ny-Åle­sund: pro­ba­b­ly siblings. Pho­to taken in August, seve­ral months after they were born (sym­bo­lic image).

A reinde­er was obser­ved near Ny-Åle­sund in ear­ly May that show­ed unu­su­al beha­viour that poin­ted towards rabies, inclu­ding part­ly para­ly­sed hind legs. The ani­mal was later, howe­ver, not found again so a rabies infec­tion could not be con­firm­ed alt­hough it appears likely.

Rabies is dan­ge­rous both for ani­mals and humans (sym­bo­lic image).

Rabies out­breaks have been recor­ded seve­ral times in Sval­bard. The patho­gen may for exam­p­le tra­vel long distances with polar foxes that can migra­te on sea ice. Long-distance migra­ti­ons such as from Rus­sia to Spits­ber­gen or from Spits­ber­gen to Cana­da is pos­si­ble. Dif­fe­rent mammal spe­ci­es such as foxes, reinde­er, seals and dogs may be affec­ted, and the dise­a­se can be very dan­ge­rous also for humans. It is gene­ral­ly stron­gly advi­sed not to touch any dead ani­mals.

As expec­ted, the Nor­we­gi­an Par­lia­ment has pas­sed new regu­la­ti­ons regar­ding mini­mum distances to be kept from polar bears (and other stuff). The new rules will thus come into force in 2025.

This means that a mini­mum distance of 300 m is requi­red to be kept from any polar bear, regard­less of the cir­cum­s­tances. If a polar bear is dis­co­ver­ed within this distance or if it comes clo­ser (swim­ming or wal­king on ice or land), then you have to move away. This includes boats that are ancho­red. During spring (01 March – 30 June), the mini­mum distance is 500 met­res.

This is valid any­whe­re in Nor­we­gi­an waters such as Svalbard’s 12 mile zone.

A com­mon way to obser­ve a polar bear is from a ship. In the case, the bear was curious and it had deci­ded to approach the ship. No dis­tur­ban­ce or risk invol­ved.
Nevert­hel­ess for­bidden in Nor­we­gi­an waters from 2025.

Com­ment

The issue has, as you might ima­gi­ne, been mat­ter for a hea­ted public deba­te for some time, which has been reflec­ted on this site more than once. The­re is no need to go into detail here again. Many, inclu­ding a num­ber of peo­p­le with signi­fi­cant rele­vant expe­ri­ence, have expres­sed that the new regu­la­ti­ons are rub­bish, to put it blunt­ly. This includes this aut­hor. The new rules will do litt­le for ani­mal pro­tec­tion or to pre­vent ris­ky situa­tions, but they will great­ly dama­ge the tou­rism and film indus­try. The regu­la­ti­ons in force so far for­bid approa­ching a polar bear in any way that would invol­ve a risk of dis­tur­ban­ce or even dan­ger to ani­mal or peo­p­le, and that is good enough. As far as the­re were pro­blems, they were not due to a lack of regu­la­ti­on but rather a lack of con­trol and enforce­ment. The lack of con­trol and enforce­ment will con­ti­nue in the future, but from 2025 on exis­ting meaningful regu­la­ti­on will be repla­ced with over­re­gu­la­ti­on.

Dan­ge­rous situa­tions occur often in con­nec­tion to camps or huts, and the new regu­la­ti­ons will not make a dif­fe­rence here.

17th of May is the Nor­we­gi­an natio­nal day, a big day that is cele­bra­ted ever­y­whe­re in Nor­way with flaggs, pro­ces­si­ons and cul­tu­ral events.

Also in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Here are some impres­si­ons from the cen­tral event, the assem­bly on the “Tor­get” (squa­re) with spee­ches and sub­se­quent pro­ces­si­on. In addi­ti­on, the­re was a ran­ge of other events from com­me­mo­ra­ti­ons to an evening in the cul­tu­re house with music etc.

Visit from Barents­burg, spee­ches trans­la­ted to Rus­si­an

The­re were at least some visi­tors from the neigh­bou­ring Rus­si­an sett­le­ment of Barents­burg, name­ly a group of child­ren who con­tri­bu­ted with sin­ging to the morning’s church ser­vice. Other than the children’s escorts, the­re was no adult dele­ga­ti­on as no offi­ci­al repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from Barents­burg were invi­ted. All spee­ches were were trans­la­ted into Rus­si­an. During the cen­tral assembling, Lokals­ty­re­le­der (“mayor”) Ter­je Aune­vik found sui­ta­ble words addres­sing the back­ground of the day’s cele­bra­ti­ons which empha­si­ze fami­ly-fri­end­ly events, child­rens’ pro­ce­si­ons and cul­tu­re in con­trast to mili­ta­ry para­des, cele­bra­ting demo­cra­cy and free­dom rather than mili­ta­ry vic­to­ries such as cer­tain neigh­bou­ring count­ries. Wit­hout expli­ci­te­ly men­tio­ning Rus­sia or the Rus­si­an war of aggres­si­on in the Ukrai­ne, but cle­ar­ly refer­ring to the­se, Aune­vik unmist­aka­b­ly high­ligh­ted the importance of demo­cra­cy, free­dom and peace.

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

The­re may have been tho­se indi­vi­du­als in the crowd who sil­ent­ly and pos­si­bly not wit­hout some sad­ness thought of the blow local demo­cra­cy in Lon­gye­ar­by­en had suf­fe­r­ed quite recent­ly when non-Nor­we­gi­an resi­dents were depri­ved of their voting rights.

Sami sym­bols

The last pic­tu­re shows a Sami natio­nal cos­tu­me (“same­kof­te”) and flagg. It was not too long ago that public dis­play of such Sami sym­bols on the natio­nal day was accept­ed. Just 10 years ago, it was allo­wed but often seen as pro­vo­ca­ti­ve and hence still mat­ter of a some­ti­mes loud and more or less hea­ted public deba­te. Lon­gye­ar­by­en has a small num­ber of inha­bi­tants with Sami roots (in an ever­y­day con­text, most will per­cei­ve them as Nor­we­gi­ans, which is true but not the enti­re sto­ry).

It is almost temp­ting to wri­te “Spits­ber­gen about to beco­me Chi­ne­se”, but no, that is not the level we are working at here. That would be non­sen­se, alt­hough you might almost have belie­ved it, loo­king at some recent head­lines.

Pro­per­ty in Sval­bard: that’s how it star­ted

We have to go back to the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry for a moment. Spits­ber­gen was no man’s land and com­pa­nies, many small and a few lar­ger ones, came and clai­med rights, thin­king mining would be a way to make a for­tu­ne up north. Most com­pa­nies were far too small and did not have the expe­ri­ence or the funds to start mining at indus­tri­al level, but some did, such as John Mun­ro Longyear’s Arc­tic Coal Com­pa­ny which foun­ded Lon­gye­ar­by­en (then known as Lon­gyear City) in 1906.

60 sqa­re km of pro­per­ty are now on offer in Recher­chefjord – for 300 mil­li­on Euro.

Many of the small com­pa­nies quick­ly ran out of money, and some of them sold their claims to others. Many of the claims were over­lap­ping. It took years to sort this mess out, a pro­cess that was requi­red to be finis­hed befo­re the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty could enter force in 1925.

Com­pa­nies con­tin­ued to sell their various pro­per­ties also after 1925, and so did suc­ces­sors and heirs. Often it had beco­me clear that the­re would never be any mining or other kind of land use befo­re land or claims would be sold. Usual­ly the Nor­we­gi­an sta­te secu­red pro­per­ties and mining rights to get Svalbard’s land are­as under con­trol. By now, 99 % of Svalbard’s ground are owned by the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment. The Rus­si­an sta­te-owned mining com­pa­ny Trust Arc­ti­cu­gol owns some smal­ler land are­as in Isfjord (Barents­burg, Colesdalen/Grumant, Pyra­mi­den, Erd­mann­flya) – and then the­re is Kul­spids AS, one of many com­pa­nies that were foun­ded in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry to explo­re and exploit mine­ral resour­ces.

Kul­spids AS

Kul­spids AS secu­red a land area of 60 squa­re kilo­me­t­res in inner Recher­chefjord. Asbes­tos is one mine­ral found in the area and mining was attempt­ed, but not suc­cessful. Kul­spids AS still exists and still owns the pro­per­ty, which today’s owners of the com­pa­ny now want to turn into money, as was initi­al­ly repor­ted by Bloom­berg. The sto­ry was quick­ly picked up by various Nor­we­gi­an media inclu­ding NRK.

“All bidders wel­co­me” is the seller’s mes­sa­ge, addres­sing indi­vi­du­als, com­pa­nies and govern­ments ali­ke. It is poin­ted out that also govern­ments such as the ones in Chi­na or Rus­sia could buy the pro­per­ty, if a pri­ce could only be agreed on. And of cour­se the geo­po­li­ti­cal signi­fi­can­ce of arc­tic are­as in gene­ral is also high­ligh­ted by Kul­spids AS repre­sen­ta­ti­ve.

Geo­po­li­ti­cal signi­fi­can­ce – or not

Wha­te­ver the geo­po­li­ti­cal signi­fi­can­ce actual­ly might include is, hower, unclear: any new owner, as well as the cur­rent one, has to com­ply with the Sval­bard envi­ron­men­tal law and the Spits­ber­gen (Sval­bard) Trea­ty. This makes pret­ty much any kind of land use impos­si­ble. No future owner, inclu­ding the govern­ment of Chi­na (or Rus­sia, for that sake) would legal­ly be able to build a hotel, a har­bour, a rese­arch sta­ti­on, a mine or a mili­ta­ry base. Nobo­dy would even legal­ly be able to dri­ve a snow mobi­le wit­hout spe­cial per­mis­si­on from Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties, which would be dif­fi­cult to get. The geo­po­li­ti­cal signi­fi­can­ce of the pro­per­ty bey­ond pres­ti­ge is hence doubtful.

Con­side­ring the abo­ve, rese­ar­cher Andre­as Øst­ha­gen of the Fri­dt­jof Nan­sen Insti­tu­te recom­mends the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment to remain calm and not make a very expen­si­ve panic purcha­se, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten. The mini­mum bid is set at the proud amount of 3.5 bil­li­on (yes, bil­li­on!) Nor­we­gi­an kro­ner – curr­ent­ly about 300 mil­li­on Euro. For com­pa­ri­son: at the latest com­pa­ra­ble trans­fer in 2014, when a lar­ge pro­per­ty on the north side of Advent­fjord was sold, the pri­ce was near one tenth of today’s mini­mum bid. Even then, the pri­ce was con­tro­ver­si­al – and mining or other land use would at least in theo­ry have been pos­si­ble, con­side­ring the pro­per­ty sold in 2014 was not part of any natio­nal park or other spe­ci­al­ly pro­tec­ted area.

Hence, it seems fair to assu­me that poin­ting at any geo­po­li­ti­cal or other importance of the pro­per­ty in Recher­chefjord or at poten­ti­al buy­ers such as Chi­na pri­ma­ri­ly ser­ve as a tool to push the pri­ce and to increase the pres­su­re on the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment to secu­re the land for Nor­way. Not­hing is so far known about any buy­ers actual­ly being inte­res­ted or any serious bids.

Mean­while, a spo­kesper­son of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment said that the govern­ment had actual­ly made an offer in the past which was con­side­red gene­rous con­side­ring that the pro­per­ty does not come with any land use poten­ti­al. The offer was tur­ned down by Kul­spids AS. It was also said that becau­se of an old con­tract bet­ween the govern­ment and Kul­spids AS, the pro­per­ty can not be sold wit­hout govern­ment appr­oval.

In any case, this is the very last major land area in Sval­bard still in pri­va­te hands. Once it is sold, the time of major pro­per­ties chan­ging from one owner to ano­ther will be over. The­re are very few other, small pri­va­te pro­per­ties in Sval­bard. In tho­se cases whe­re for exam­p­le a pri­va­te per­son owns a house in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, the pro­per­ty as such does not include the land the house is stan­ding on – this is alre­a­dy govern­ment pro­per­ty.