It is, to start with, just an admi­nis­tra­ti­ve act: the inha­bi­tants of Barents­burg are now being regis­tered by Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties in the regis­ter of inha­bi­tants of Sval­bard. Until now, this was only done for inha­bi­tants of Lon­gye­ar­by­en; now this prac­ti­ce will also be used in the other sett­le­ments. Next to Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den, this also includes the Polish rese­arch sta­ti­on in Horn­sund and Ny-Åle­sund, in any case pro­vi­ded a mini­mum stay of half a year for anyo­ne to be regis­tered as a local.

Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties want a bet­ter over­view of who is living in Sval­bard. In exch­an­ge, tho­se regis­tered as locals do get cer­tain rights, inclu­ding more oppor­tu­ni­ties within fishing and hun­ting, wider-ran­ging rights to tra­vel free­ly over lar­ger parts of the archi­pe­la­go and no envi­ron­men­tal fee on flight tickets to Lon­gye­ar­by­en (which is gene­ral­ly included in any flight ticket to Lon­gye­ar­by­en). Locals can also buy a hut or flat; some­thing that is, howe­ver, likely to remain a dream for most, con­side­ring that the­re are hard­ly any offers and, if any, pri­ces are usual­ly bey­ond of what most can pay.

Locals in Barents­burgs. Reinde­er will, howe­ver not be regis­tered.

For many howe­ver, it may make a dif­fe­rence to get a per­so­nal num­ber (for non-Nor­we­gi­an citi­zens: a so-cal­led D-num­ber) which is essen­ti­al for things like ope­ning a bank account in Nor­way, get­ting a mobi­le pho­ne con­tract or pret­ty much any kind of insu­rance, regis­ter a car or snow mobi­le or being able to use the pay­ment app Vipps which is very com­mon in Nor­way. Some may also app­re­cia­te the oppor­tu­ni­ty to buy alco­hol more free­ly in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Accor­ding to infor­ma­ti­on pro­vi­ded by the Rus­si­an mining coma­ny Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol, the­re are as of 01 Sep­tem­ber 340 peo­p­le living in the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments, by far most of them in Barents­burg. Among­st the­re, the­re are 202 men, 109 women and 29 child­ren. 219 peo­p­le have Rus­si­an pass­ports and 57 are Ukrai­ni­ans. In addi­ti­on, the­re are 62 Tajiks, one Kazakh and one per­son from South Afri­ca, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

Good news, for a chan­ge! The litt­le motor sai­ling Kob­ben is back in Nor­way, the man on board is in good con­di­ti­on, con­side­ring all cir­cum­s­tances.

Kob­ben had left main­land Nor­way on 13 Sep­tem­ber with cour­se for Lon­gye­ar­by­en but never arri­ved. A major search and res­cue ope­ra­ti­on was star­ted with major resour­ces, inclu­ding seve­ral heli­c­op­ters, fixed-win­ged air­craft and ships, but the search did not yield any result. Due to a lack of any infor­ma­ti­on about the boats whe­re­a­bouts, the who­le sea area bet­ween north Nor­way and Spits­ber­gen had to be sear­ched. The ope­ra­ti­on was aban­do­ned after seve­ral days, and the worst was feared due to stor­my wea­ther in the rele­vant peri­od.

The yacht Kob­ben is back in Nor­way (pho­to: Nor­we­gi­an SAR aut­ho­ri­ty).

On Fri­day (27th Sep­tem­ber), Kob­ben was final­ly clo­se enough to land, the islands of Ves­terå­len in north Nor­way, for the man on board to cont­act his fami­ly by mobi­le pho­ne who could then inform the SAR aut­ho­ri­ty. The boat had engi­ne trou­bles and was towed into the port of Ande­nes, as NRK reports. One can only suspect that com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on equip­ment on board was insuf­fi­ci­ent or mal­func­tio­ning or both. But that’s details, ques­ti­ons others may ask when the time is up for it – most important­ly, the man is back home and well. He is said to have done the crossing bet­ween Nor­way and Spits­ber­gen more than 40 times.

The SAR (search and res­cue) ope­ra­ti­on for the motor sai­ling yacht Kob­ben is dis­con­tin­ued wit­hout result, and it appears more than likely that the boat met a tra­gic end at sea.

The miss­ing yacht Kob­ben in main­land Nor­way (pho­to­grapher unknown).

Kob­ben left north Nor­way on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 13, with cour­se for Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but the boat never arri­ved. After depar­tu­re, the­re was no fur­ther cont­act that could give an indi­ca­ti­on about the whe­re­a­bouts or fate of the boat. The crew was one man, a Nor­we­gi­an of +70 years who is said to have had con­sidera­ble regio­nal sai­ling expe­ri­ence.

Kob­ben did not have an AIS sys­tem that could have sent a posi­ti­on by radio signals. The lack of any infor­ma­ti­on made the who­le Barents Sea from main­land Nor­way to Lon­gye­ar­by­en inclu­ding south Spits­ber­gen an area that SAR forces had to work their way through, which was done with heli­c­op­ters, fixed-wing air­craft and ships. But now the search is dis­con­tin­ued, Kob­ben is still miss­ing and the­re is litt­le hope for her bra­ve sin­gle-han­ded sail­or.

The wea­ther has been quite stor­my in the rele­vant area and peri­od of time.

The best poli­ti­cal ide­as come from Rus­sia the­se days (and just in case someone does not under­stand the sar­casm here: the com­ple­te oppo­si­te is obvious­ly the case). Mem­ber of par­lia­ment Ivan Suk­harev said accor­ding to Barents-Obser­ver that Rus­sia should build a pri­son for ter­ro­rists in Spits­ber­gen to iso­la­te them the­re. Alter­na­tively, he sug­gested Nova­ya Zem­lya, a Rus­si­an arc­tic island sou­the­ast of Sval­bard. It would be not­hing less than a revi­val of the ter­ri­ble Gulag sys­tem of Sov­jet times.

Nor­we­gi­an law ful­ly appli­es in the Rus­si­an sett­le­ment Barents­burg in Spits­ber­gen.
The Rus­si­ans can run a coal mine and tou­rism, but no pri­son.

The Nor­we­gi­an Sys­sel­mes­ter (high govern­ment repre­sen­ta­ti­ve) Lars Fau­se quick­ly made clear that the who­le ter­ri­to­ry of Sval­bard inclu­ding the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments are under Nor­we­gi­an law and sove­reig­n­ty. No sta­te or other enti­ty other than the Nor­we­gi­an sta­te is entit­led to car­ry out duties of sove­reig­ny such as cri­mi­nal pro­se­cu­ti­on, inclu­ding run­ning a pri­son. Rus­si­an does not have any sove­reign rights in Sval­bard. Accor­ding to the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty, a Rus­si­an com­pa­ny such as Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol may run a coal mine or tou­rism on their pro­per­ties in Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den, but not­hing that invol­ves sove­reign rights.

Rain? We have had our share of rain in Spits­ber­gen this sum­mer, that’s for sure. And that is exact­ly the pro­blem with tho­se 25 mm of rain that the Nor­we­gi­an meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal ser­vice pre­dicts for Fri­day (06 Sep­tem­ber): the soil is alre­a­dy pret­ty much water satu­ra­ted and any addi­tio­nal rain will this run off quick­ly at the sur­face, which may lead to floo­ding and thus to dama­ge. Ear­lier this year the pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten was dama­ged by floo­ding in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, rain pene­t­ra­ting into the ground may cau­se soil lay­ers to thaw that have been fro­zen for hundreds or even thou­sands of years. This may affect slo­pe sta­bi­li­ty around Lon­gye­ar­by­en and other are­as.

Older lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, near the ceme­ta­ry (left side in the pic­tu­re): simi­lar events may hap­pen after the strong rain­fall expec­ted on Fri­day.

The air­line SAS on the ground due to strike – this reminds of the very unp­lea­sant (to put it mild­ly) situa­ti­on in July 2022, which show­ed how much a remo­te place like Lon­gye­ar­by­en depends on relia­ble traf­fic, espe­ci­al­ly air traf­fic. This time, it is the cabin staff.

As usu­al in such a situa­ti­on, the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment is hard to pre­dict. It is by no means clear that con­se­quen­ces will be as dra­stic as in July 2022, an agree­ment bet­ween the con­flict par­ties may be rea­ched at any time. And by the way, the other air­line, Nor­we­gi­an, is not affec­ted any­way.

Sval­bard­pos­ten repor­ted on Fri­day that, as far as Lon­gye­ar­by­en is con­cer­ned, traf­fic is expec­ted to work as sche­du­led during the weekend but the strike may pick up on Wed­nes­day, wit­hout any­thing in par­ti­cu­lar being said about Mon­day and Tues­day.

SAS and Lon­gye­ar­by­en: occa­sio­nal­ly a com­pli­ca­ted rela­ti­onship. Curr­ent­ly, an upco­ming strike might affect flights for an uncer­tain peri­od of time.

Tra­vel­lers boo­ked on flights affec­ted by the strike are cont­ac­ted by the air­line direct­ly. Tho­se who don’t get any mes­sa­ge should expect their flight to depar­tu­re as sche­du­led.

Fin­gers crossed for ever­y­bo­dy who is tra­vel­ling the­se days!

In a rowing boat from Trom­sø to Lon­gye­ar­by­en – pos­si­bly not ever­y­bo­dies dream and wit­hout any doubt some­thing that many would con­sider cra­zy or even impos­si­ble. That was obvious­ly not shared by Andy Savill, Toby Gre­go­ry and Orlaith Demp­sey, who star­ted “The Arc­tic Row 2024” in Trom­sø and arri­ved in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Fri­day (16th August) after 16 stre­nuous days across the Barents Sea.

Across the Barents Sea (with Bjørnøya in the back­ground) in a rowing boat.

The boat is spe­ci­al­ly desi­gned, but nevert­hel­ess the crew expe­ri­en­ced some tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. Near Bjørnøya, the auto stee­ring sys­tem fai­led and the crew had to steer manu­al­ly with ropes, some­thing that dis­tur­bed the watch sys­tem and cost a lot of sleep. The three were accor­din­gly quite exhaus­ted when they arri­ved in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Fri­day after­noon; they told Sval­bard­pos­ten that good sleep in a real bed, a show­er and food whe­re the hig­hest prio­ri­ties on their per­so­nal wish­list.

During the crossing, the team coll­ec­ted obser­va­tions and data inclu­ding under­wa­ter sound recor­dings for edu­ca­ti­on and sci­ence and to rise envi­ron­men­tal awa­re­ness.

Hot news from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, in the truest sen­se of the word. The meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal sta­ti­on at Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port recor­ded a stun­ning 20.3 degrees cen­ti­gra­de yes­ter­day (Sun­day, August 11) bet­ween 1400 and 1500 – war­mer than any August day befo­re on record, which goes back to 1964.

And it was wit­hout any doubt also warm in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, as we can con­firm from our own expe­ri­ence.

It felt like 30 degrees on Sun­day on the north coast of Spits­ber­gen ☀️🥵 it may well have been clo­se to 20 degrees, but we don’t have a pro­per ther­mo­me­ter here.

June and July pro­vi­ded some new ent­ries to a long ran­ge of record-brea­king wea­ther data in recent years. Cli­ma­te chan­ge is hap­pe­ning and it is stron­ger in the Arc­tic than else­whe­re.

The month­ly tem­pe­ra­tu­re avera­ge for June, as offi­ci­al­ly mea­su­red at Sval­bard air­port Lon­gyear, was as high as 8.3 degrees cen­ti­gra­de, hig­her than ever befo­re on record.

July was 1.3 degrees war­mer than the month­ly avera­ge, which now refers to the refe­rence peri­od of 1991-2020, a peri­od alre­a­dy signi­fi­cant­ly war­mer than the pre­vious refe­rence peri­od 1961-1990.

Tem­pe­ra­tu­re records in Spitz­ber­gen: tra­vel­lers could enjoy some warm and sun­ny sum­mer days both on small boats and on big ships …

But what real­ly caught the meteorologist’s atten­ti­on in July was the pre­ci­pi­ta­ti­on rather than tem­pe­ra­tu­re. With a stun­ning 48.7 mmm, it was more than twice as much rain than usu­al (20 mm), as the meteo­ro­lo­gist at Sval­bard air­port told Sval­bard­pos­ten. And inde­ed the­re were some very wet days in July, as both locals and tou­rists can con­firm. The small pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten in Lon­gye­ar­by­en (named after a coas­tal cave on Bjørnøya) was dama­ged by tor­ren­ti­al run­off during strong rain­falls.

… but the­re was also wind, fog and rain, and not too litt­le of it all. This is the pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which was dama­ged during hea­vy rain­falls.

The Rus­si­an north pole drift ice camp Bar­nea has been an annu­al event from 2002 for a cou­ple of weeks each spring. Offi­ci­al­ly, it is main­ly for sci­ence, but it was regu­lar­ly used by north pole tou­rists and at least occa­sio­nal­ly for mili­ta­ry pur­po­ses such as in April 2016, when Che­chen spe­cial forces made a brief appearance in the air­port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en on tran­sit to Bar­neo on a Rus­si­an-led trai­ning mis­si­on.

But the main use appears to be within tou­rism: for pri­ces from 20,000 dol­lars and more, tou­rists could fly from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to Bar­neo and con­ti­nue from the­re to the north pole by heli­c­op­ter or ski.

The flight logi­stics for tou­rists used to go through Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port, but this hub has not been available for this pur­po­se sin­ce 2018. This has led to nego­tia­ti­ons bet­ween the orga­ni­sa­ti­on behind Bar­neo, offi­ci­a­ly a Swiss com­pa­ny, and Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties.

Sval­bard luft­havn Lon­gyear in April, the Bar­neo-sea­son: no north pole flights from the­re.

Recent­ly the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment con­firm­ed their nega­ti­ve ans­wer: the air­port near Lon­gye­ar­by­en is at times ope­ra­ting near its capa­ci­ty limits, and neces­sa­ry stand­by emer­gen­cy ser­vices are limi­t­ed. It comes in addi­ti­on that the extra bur­don on the local flight hand­ling capa­ci­ties did usual­ly not bene­fit the local com­mu­ni­ty as Bar­neo tou­rists would usual­ly not stay in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­se are among­st the main argu­ments for the Nor­we­gi­an traf­fic minis­try, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

The Swiss Bar­neo com­pa­ny may still take legal steps against this decis­i­on.

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.