P.S. TLDR? Too long, don’t feel like rea­ding, rather get straight to the point? At the bot­tom of the post are the links to the new pages: Akseløya, Mid­ter­huk­ham­na and the old mines on the north side of Advent­fjord.

The last few weeks have once again been jam-packed, but it was worth it, working on the new edi­ti­on of the Spits­ber­gen gui­de­book. More on this in a few weeks from now.

Polar night atmo­sphe­re in Advent­da­len.
The pic­tu­re shows the illu­mi­na­ted cor­ner sta­ti­on of the old coal-fired cable car at End­a­len.

At the same time, I have been working on a cou­ple of pages dedi­ca­ted to cer­tain are­as and indi­vi­du­al loca­ti­ons on Spits­ber­gen. After all, that’s whe­re you can tra­vel online, get­ting to fan­ta­stic places with just a mous­eclick which other­wi­se are dif­fi­cult to reach, if at all.

Hint of a nor­t­hern light over Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The­se include, among others, four pages that tog­e­ther illus­tra­te the lar­gest more or less con­ti­guous monu­ment of indus­tri­al histo­ry in Spits­ber­gen, name­ly the mining land­scape from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry on the north side of Advent­fjord:

• Advent City was the first ever attempt on Spits­ber­gen to mine coal indus­tri­al­ly.
• Hior­th­hamn fol­lo­wed a few years later and is one of Svalbard’s most remar­kab­le cul­tu­ral monu­ments from the pio­nee­ring days of coal mining with its shore­li­ne com­plex.
• Sne­heim is the old mine belon­ging to Hior­th­hamn. At an alti­tu­de of 582 met­res on Hiorth­fjel­let, incre­di­ble!
• The old mess and accom­mo­da­ti­on area “Ørne­re­det” is part of the Sne­heim mine, the old mine belon­ging to Hior­th­hamn.

Also new are the pages about Rus­selt­ved­tod­den (ever heard of that?) at the sou­thern end of Akseløya (ah of cour­se … the beau­tiful Akseløya in Bell­sund) and Mid­ter­huk­ham­na. And the­re are brand new pages dedi­ca­ted to Sas­senfjord respec­tively Tem­pel­fjord. Oh yes, don’t for­get a quick trip to Agardhbuk­ta on the east coast 🙂

The moon abo­ve the old cable car cent­re in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

A few weeks ago, I wro­te about Record mel­ting of Svalbard’s gla­ciers in 2024, on this site, focus­sing on con­se­quen­ces of cli­ma­te chan­ge on land.

But of cour­se the chan­ges are not limi­t­ed to the land; the sea is also affec­ted. Or, per­haps more accu­ra­te­ly, it plays a major, dri­ving role.

The Gulf Stream

In the North Atlan­tic, much is known to depend on the Gulf Stream. With its com­pa­ra­tively warm water mas­ses, it brings enorm­ous amounts of heat from the south and thus ensu­res the rela­tively mild cli­ma­te in the hig­hest lati­tu­des such as 78 degrees north, whe­re the Isfjord today remains lar­ge­ly ice-free all year round, while some fjords in nor­t­hern­most Green­land or Cana­da (Elles­me­re Island) only beco­me ice-free brief­ly in sum­mer or not at all.

Even small chan­ges in the Gulf Stream have a mas­si­ve impact on the regio­nal cli­ma­te in the north-east Atlan­tic. If the Gulf Stream brings a litt­le more warm water or if the water is a litt­le war­mer, the North Atlan­tic will beco­me con­sider­a­b­ly war­mer. If the sup­p­ly of warm water decrea­ses or no lon­ger rea­ches as far north, a regio­nal coo­ling could also occur that could affect the who­le of north-west Euro­pe. In the long term, this sce­na­rio can­not be ruled out as part of cli­ma­te chan­ge, but the oppo­si­te is curr­ent­ly the case.

Kongsfjord

Jør­gen Ber­ge from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø has been kee­ping a clo­se eye on Kongsfjord for more than 20 years. As the rese­arch sett­le­ment of Ny-Åle­sund is loca­ted in Kongsfjord, this fjord has been stu­di­ed clo­se­ly for a long time, with deca­des of data available on all kinds of details. In addi­ti­on, the fjord is loca­ted on the part of the west coast that is most stron­gly influen­ced by the Gulf Stream, so it can ser­ve as an ear­ly war­ning sys­tem for chan­ges in the­se curr­ents and their local effects.

Kongsfjord near Ny-Åle­sund: an ocea­no­gra­phic and mari­ne bio­lo­gy rese­arch labo­ra­to­ry.

Ber­ge told Barents­ob­ser­ver about his work and obser­va­tions. The result anti­ci­pa­ted: a ‘radi­cal chan­ge in the mari­ne eco­sys­tem.’

Accor­ding to Ber­ge, the water mas­ses in the Kongsfjord are warm­ing by 0.1 degrees per year across the enti­re water column, i.e. by no less than 2 degrees in just 20 years. Two degrees is quite enough to dra­sti­cal­ly chan­ge the ocea­no­gra­phic-eco­lo­gi­cal cha­rac­ter of a sea area – and the warm­ing does not stop. The cha­rac­ter of the Kongsfjord has chan­ged from ‘arc­tic’ to ‘Atlan­tic’ during this time. In ocea­no­gra­phic terms, this initi­al­ly means that the water is war­mer and sal­tier.

The eco­sys­tem: plank­ton and sea­birds

Of cour­se, this is not wit­hout con­se­quen­ces for the eco­sys­tem. High-arc­tic, fat-rich plank­ton such as the cope­pod Cala­nus gla­cia­lis is incre­asing­ly being dis­pla­ced by its sub­arc­tic and less fat-rich rela­ti­ves Cala­nus finn­mar­chi­cus and Cala­nus hyper­bor­eus, which has con­se­quen­ces for sea­birds that feed on plank­ton. The high Arc­tic Litt­le auks in par­ti­cu­lar, which used to be – and still are, as of now – very num­e­rous, pre­fer to feed on the ener­gy-rich Cala­nus gla­cia­lis. If they have to rely more and more on their less ener­gy-rich rela­ti­ves, their diet will beco­me incre­asing­ly pro­ble­ma­tic.

Litt­le auks on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen.

Recent histo­ry shows that the bree­ding popu­la­ti­ons of sea­birds are shrin­king almost ever­y­whe­re in the North Atlan­tic. The litt­le auks still seem to be doing quite well, but it is very dif­fi­cult to count the­se very small birds that breed invi­si­bly under rocks. The case is clear for guil­l­emots, puf­fins and gulls, whe­re some colo­nies in nor­t­hern Nor­way have prac­ti­cal­ly col­lap­sed sin­ce the 1980s. Dis­ap­peared.

Fjord ice: rin­ged seals and har­bour seals

Ano­ther aspect is that the Kongsfjord has hard­ly fro­zen over for around 15 years. Rin­ged seals, once the most num­e­rous seals in the fjords of Spits­ber­gen, need the fjord ice in spring to give birth to their young and to rest. The har­bour seal, which is also known from the sou­thern North Sea, is now much more com­mon on the west coast of Sval­bard than the rin­ged seal, which is very simi­lar in appearance. Seals have been natu­ral­ly occur­ring in Sval­bard for thou­sands of years and this obser­va­ti­on may be coin­ci­den­tal, but it fits in with the sci­en­ti­fi­cal­ly con­firm­ed deve­lo­p­ment of the fjords from a high­ly arc­tic eco­sys­tem to an Atlan­tic one.

High Arc­tic rin­ged seal (left), sub­arc­tic har­bour seal.
Both live on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen.

Fish, mus­sels and tem­pe­ra­tu­re records

Ber­ge also speaks of a chan­ge in the spe­ci­es com­po­si­ti­on of fish and mus­sels. Spe­ci­es such as her­ring and cape­lin, which one would not expect to find in high Arc­tic fjords, are spre­a­ding, as are mus­sels.

More and more com­mon in Sval­bard: blue mus­sels.

Glo­bal warm­ing is more noti­ceable at the poles than at lower lati­tu­des; it is esti­ma­ted that the Arc­tic is warm­ing by a fac­tor of three to four more than other regi­ons. If one hopes that cli­ma­te chan­ge can somehow still be limi­t­ed to a warm­ing of 1.5-2 degrees, then this figu­re is the glo­bal avera­ge. For the Arc­tic, you can mul­ti­ply that by three or four.

In recent years, record tem­pe­ra­tures have been regu­lar­ly mea­su­red in Sval­bard, most recent­ly on 11 August at 20.3 degrees, the hig­hest value ever mea­su­red on an August day near Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Even the pre­vious­ly high Arc­tic fjords in the north-east of Sval­bard will not remain unaf­fec­ted by this deve­lo­p­ment. This is con­firm­ed both by a regu­lar look at the ice map and by per­so­nal expe­ri­ence in the fjords of Nord­aus­t­land and in Hin­lo­pen Strait, whe­re the pre­vious­ly wide­spread water tem­pe­ra­tures of around 0 degrees are now rather rare and small-sca­le, espe­ci­al­ly in the sou­thern Hin­lo­pen Strait and on the sou­thern side of Nord­aus­t­land, whe­re the cold East Spits­ber­gen Cur­rent from the Arc­tic Basin is still exer­ting its influence. In the nor­t­hern Hin­lo­pen Strait and in the fjords in the west and north of Nord­aus­t­land and up to Sjuøya­ne, water tem­pe­ra­tures of 6-8 degrees are incre­asing­ly com­mon, indi­ca­ting the incre­asing influence of mild Atlan­tic water (Gulf Stream).

Rare­ly ice-free in the past, now regu­lar­ly in sum­mer:
Fjords on the north coast of Nord­aus­t­land.

The Arc­tic Oce­an: from white to blue

The sea ice of the Arc­tic Oce­an is both a vic­tim and a dri­ver of this deve­lo­p­ment. This is one of tho­se feed­back effects in the glo­bal cli­ma­te sys­tem whe­re the effect rein­forces the cau­se. In this case, an area of water that has beco­me ice-free due to warm­ing no lon­ger reflects the sun’s rays, but absorbs them and con­verts them into heat, which in turn melts even more ice and even lar­ger are­as of water absorb the sun’s rays … and so it goes on.

Accor­ding to a stu­dy recent­ly published in Natu­re Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, the Arc­tic Oce­an could beco­me ice-free on a dai­ly basis by around 2030. This stu­dy is the first to look at the deve­lo­p­ment on a dai­ly rather than a month­ly basis. The Arc­tic Oce­an could the­r­e­fo­re be ice-free on a dai­ly basis in a few years’ time if warm win­ters with litt­le ice for­ma­ti­on are fol­lo­wed by warm ear­ly sum­mers with high ice loss.

The Arc­tic Oce­an of the future: incre­asing­ly blue ins­tead of white.

On the other hand, the stu­dy also descri­bes sce­na­ri­os accor­ding to which an ice-free Arc­tic Oce­an will not be obser­ved by the year 2100. Both pos­si­bi­li­ties are rather extre­me sce­na­ri­os; the real deve­lo­p­ment may lie some­whe­re in bet­ween. Or not, the extre­me sce­na­ri­os are also pos­si­ble accor­ding to the sci­en­ti­fic models.

As Jør­gen Ber­ge told Barents­ob­ser­ver: ‘It is likely that the cen­tral Arc­tic Oce­an will evol­ve from a white (ice-cover­ed) oce­an to a blue (open water) oce­an. What that means, we don’t know.’

It will hard­ly sur­pri­se anyo­ne, con­side­ring the warm sum­mer with new tem­pe­ra­tu­re records, such as the war­mest tem­pe­ra­tu­re ever mea­su­red in Sval­bard in August: the arc­tic gla­ciers have suf­fe­r­ed mas­si­ve­ly this year. Espe­ci­al­ly in Sval­bard, whe­re cli­ma­te chan­ge is hap­pe­ning seven (!) times fas­ter than the glo­bal avera­ge, as gla­cio­lo­gist Emma Wad­ham from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø told the Barents Obser­ver. Just on 23 July 2024, a record-warm day, the gla­ciers lost 55 mil­li­me­t­res of water equi­va­lent or five times the nor­mal value, accor­ding to cli­ma­to­lo­gist Xavier Fett­weis from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Liè­ge, who ana­ly­sed satel­li­te images. And that was just one day in a week-long peri­od in which tem­pe­ra­tures were on avera­ge around 4 degrees abo­ve the long-term avera­ge for this peri­od.

Melt­wa­ter on a gla­cier sur­face.

The trend towards mel­ting is par­ti­cu­lar­ly pro­no­un­ced in Sval­bard, but it is pre­sent throug­hout the Arc­tic. The loss of ice on land in turn has feed­back effects on the cli­ma­te: land absorbs more solar radia­ti­on than ice and snow and the­r­e­fo­re warms up even fas­ter; to a les­ser ext­ent, this also appli­es to expo­sed ice com­pared to snow.

Edge of a small ice cap on Storøya in nor­the­ast Sval­bard. Num­e­rous small melt­wa­ter chan­nels are visi­ble on the sur­face of the ice cap. Wet firn and expo­sed ice absorb more solar radia­ti­on than dry, white snow, which leads to increased mel­ting. The ice-free land that is now expo­sed next to the ice cap is also bet­ter able to con­vert solar radia­ti­on into heat.

The impact on the mari­ne eco­sys­tem is yet ano­ther issue: incre­asing amounts of sedi­ment-laden melt­wa­ter are flowing into the pre­vious­ly most­ly clear water of the fjords and coas­tal waters. Due to its sedi­ment load, the melt­wa­ter is mur­ky and opaque, allo­wing litt­le light to pass through. This in turn has an impact on algae growth, which is depen­dent on light for pho­to­syn­the­sis.

Melt­wa­ter with sedi­ment load at Mona­co­b­reen in Lief­defjord.

But the chan­ges of the mari­ne eco­sys­tem of the Arc­tic are ano­ther sto­ry. More about that later.

On Thurs­day (Novem­ber 21) the Nor­we­gi­an Par­lia­ment in Oslo, the Stort­ing, has pas­sed the new Sval­bard­mel­ding ange­nom­men. The Sval­bard­mel­ding is a govern­ment stra­tegy paper that out­lines the Sval­bard poli­tics for the next 5-10 years. It includes thus no con­cre­te legal mea­su­res but rather a set of inten­ti­ons and ide­as which have to be dis­cus­sed and tur­ned into laws in the future.

Let’s take a step back. Nor­we­gi­an Sval­bard poli­tics is based on the fol­lo­wing five prin­ci­ples:

• A con­sis­tent, con­stant main­ten­an­ce of Nor­we­gi­an sove­reig­n­ty.
• Com­pli­ance with the Sval­bard Trea­ty and moni­to­ring its imple­men­ta­ti­on.
• Main­tai­ning calm and sta­bi­li­ty.
• Pro­tec­tion of the region’s natu­re.
• Main­tainan­ce of a Nor­we­gi­an popu­la­ti­on.

Nor­we­gi­an flags in Lon­gye­ar­by­en (on the Nor­we­gi­an natio­nal day on 17 May): Lon­gye­ar­by­en and all of Sval­bard are and will remain Nor­we­gi­an. But the govern­ment would pre­fer to have a hig­her pro­por­ti­on of Nor­we­gi­ans among­st Longyearbyen’s popu­la­ti­on. Sys­sel­mes­ter Lars Fau­se (front right) is the hig­hest repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment on site.

And what’s in it?

Quite a lot, the docu­ment has more than 80 pages. You can down­load it on the government’s web­site.

And the govern­ment has alre­a­dy imple­men­ted seve­ral major legal pro­jects in the recent past, inclu­ding a reform of the local elec­to­ral law that cost many for­eign voters their local voting rights. The new rules for tou­rists that come into force on 01 Janu­ary, 2025 are ano­ther important new set of legis­la­ti­on. Ener­gy and housing are other important topics that have been work­ed on for years alre­a­dy on various levels, see below.

Some important points of the new Sval­bard­mel­ding:

Men­tal health

The­re are peo­p­le with men­tal health pro­blems all over the world and Sval­bard is of cour­se no excep­ti­on. Howe­ver, tho­se who are con­fron­ted with acu­te men­tal health pro­blems in Lon­gye­ar­by­en have very limi­t­ed access to pro­fes­sio­nal help. This may have cost two peo­p­le their lives in the recent past: the­re have been two sui­ci­des in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in 2023.

It is main­ly thanks to the com­mit­ment of Longyearbyen’s poli­ti­cal youth that the govern­ment wants to impro­ve this situa­ti­on, but accor­ding to them, applau­de is not due befo­re a psy­cho­lo­gist is actual­ly instal­led in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, accor­ding to NRK.

Air­freight

This is not about same day deli­very to the final con­su­mer. But a sup­p­ly of goods of all kinds, inclu­ding fresh pro­du­ce accor­ding to modern stan­dards, should be available in Lon­gye­ar­by­en all year round. The­re had been some dis­cus­sion and uncer­tain­ty sur­roun­ding the Nor­we­gi­an Post’s freight flights to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Now the govern­ment is pro­vi­ding money to main­tain freight flight logi­stics, which of cour­se invol­ve more than just app­les and bana­nas. Howe­ver, it remains to be seen how this will be orga­nis­ed in the long term.

Emp­ty shel­ves in Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken (Coop Sval­bard) in Lon­gye­ar­by­en:
not unhe­ard of, but unde­si­red.

Low taxes

Sval­bard is and shall con­ti­nue to be a low-tax area. The back­ground to this lies in the Sval­bard Trea­ty; in short, Nor­way as a sta­te should not bene­fit from taxes and duties. The­r­e­fo­re, the­re is no VAT on Sval­bard and other taxes and duties are also often lower than on the main­land. This should gene­ral­ly stay as it is, but adjus­t­ments are pos­si­ble.

Housing and popu­la­ti­on

Things are likely to get much more exci­ting for many here. The govern­ment wants to free­ze the size of Lon­gye­ar­by­en at the level befo­re the dead­ly ava­lan­che on 19 Decem­ber 2015, and Lon­gye­ar­by­en should not grow bey­ond that. And the govern­ment wants the Nor­we­gi­an share of the popu­la­ti­on to increase.

House buil­ding in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The impres­si­on that the town is gro­wing is wrong:
it is about repla­cing what has been lost sin­ce 2015.

Accor­ding to the Nor­we­gi­an Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Office (SSB), 2595 peo­p­le curr­ent­ly live in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Ny-Åle­sund, inclu­ding 1621 Nor­we­gi­ans, i.e. around 63%. The lat­ter is not enough for the govern­ment. In fact, the pro­por­ti­on of Nor­we­gi­ans in the popu­la­ti­on has been fal­ling for years, which is part­ly due to the clo­sure of Nor­we­gi­an coal mines in Sveagru­va and Lon­gye­ar­by­en: In the­se well-paid and pre­vious­ly secu­re indus­tri­al jobs, a high pro­por­ti­on of the work­force was Nor­we­gi­an. The stra­tegy for­mu­la­ted in ear­lier Sval­bard stra­tegy papers of repla­cing mining with hig­her edu­ca­ti­on, rese­arch and tou­rism has pro­ved to be coun­ter­pro­duc­ti­ve from the government’s point of view, as the jobs in the­se are­as are much more inter­na­tio­nal than tho­se in mining. The govern­ment wants to take coun­ter­me­a­su­res here (com­ment: the rules that come into force on 1 Janu­ary 2025 should also be seen in this light; the poli­ti­cal dis­ap­point­ment over the rela­tively low Nor­we­gi­an share of the jobs crea­ted in tou­rism is likely to be at least as important as envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, which is pro­ba­b­ly more of a pre­text here). End of com­ment).

Housing poli­cy, which has long been a hot topic in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which is cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a housing shorta­ge, has been a tool used by the govern­ment for a while now to increase the Nor­we­gi­an share of the total popu­la­ti­on: Even though the over­all sup­p­ly of housing is not expec­ted to exceed the 2015 level, the res­truc­tu­ring that ine­vi­ta­b­ly occur­red after the ava­lan­ches in 2015 and 2017 (over 100 flats were clas­si­fied as at risk of ava­lan­ches and accor­din­gly demo­lished) also pro­vi­des an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reor­ga­ni­se owner­ship. The pri­va­te housing mar­ket is being redu­ced and the pro­por­ti­on of sta­te-owned housing is gro­wing in favour of employees of lar­ge, direct­ly or indi­rect­ly state/public actors, whe­re the pro­por­ti­on of Nor­we­gi­an workers is hig­her than in the ser­vice sec­tor, for exam­p­le. The­se actors include Lokals­ty­re (muni­ci­pal admi­nis­tra­ti­on), Sys­sel­mes­ter, UNIS, Fol­kehøgs­ko­le (edu­ca­ti­on) and others.

In addi­ti­on, living in Lon­gye­ar­by­en should remain attrac­ti­ve, espe­ci­al­ly for the Nor­we­gi­an popu­la­ti­on. And the­re is litt­le doubt that the­re is need for action here, as the avera­ge length of stay in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which is alre­a­dy cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a high level of fluc­tua­ti­on, is fal­ling.

Ener­gy

And what good is the nicest flat if the­re is no power from the socket and the hea­ting stays cold? It’s not that bad, but the sce­na­rio can­not be ruled out in the small town of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, who­se ener­gy sup­p­ly is cha­rac­te­ri­sed by the fact that it is not part of a supra-regio­nal grid. The sub­ject of ener­gy has long been a hot topic of dis­cus­sion in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. On the one hand, it is about the sharp rise in pri­ces for elec­tri­ci­ty and dis­trict hea­ting, but also about secu­ri­ty of sup­p­ly and whe­re ener­gy should come from in the long term. The days of coal as an ener­gy source in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are over and the cur­rent die­sel power plant fails to ful­fil all requi­re­ments in terms of secu­ri­ty of sup­p­ly, eco­no­mic effi­ci­en­cy and cli­ma­te neu­tra­li­ty. Today’s rea­li­ty is a far cry from the ear­lier idea of being a role model on an inter­na­tio­nal level; at the moment, peo­p­le are hap­py if the hea­ting is on during the cold months and the elec­tri­ci­ty is at least half­way afforda­ble, even if the govern­ment has to help out with money (sub­si­di­sed elec­tri­ci­ty pri­ces) and the mili­ta­ry with addi­tio­nal mobi­le gene­ra­tors.

Wha­te­ver the ener­gy sup­p­ly of the future looks like in Lon­gye­ar­by­en: The sta­te, repre­sen­ted local­ly by the mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kul­kom­pa­ni, will play an incre­asing­ly important role.

Visi­tor fee

The govern­ment wants tou­rists to con­tri­bu­te a hig­her pro­por­ti­on of public inco­me via a visi­tor con­tri­bu­ti­on. This con­tri­bu­ti­on would amount to up to 5%, which would be added to hotel stays, for exam­p­le; ship pas­sen­gers could be char­ged a flat rate of 150 kro­ner, for exam­p­le. Such a sys­tem alre­a­dy exists on the Nor­we­gi­an main­land, whe­re the reve­nue goes enti­re­ly to the respec­ti­ve muni­ci­pa­li­ties. In Sval­bard, the sta­te wants to reser­ve the right to a por­ti­on of the reve­nue.

Sin­ce 2007, Sval­bard has had an ‘envi­ron­men­tal fee’ (mil­jø­ge­byr) of 150 kro­ner, which is included in flight tickets and paid by ships brin­ging pas­sen­gers to Sval­bard. This envi­ron­men­tal fee is admi­nis­te­red by the Sval­bard Mil­jø­vern­fond, to which anyo­ne in Lon­gye­ar­by­en can app­ly for finan­cial sup­port for pro­jects with an envi­ron­men­tal aspect. The envi­ron­men­tal fee is not part of the cur­rent dis­cus­sion, the visi­tor con­tri­bu­ti­on will come on top of it.

Until this hap­pens, the­re is cer­tain­ly need for fur­ther dis­cus­sion, for exam­p­le with regard to who bene­fits from the inco­me and what it can be used for.

We went up to a view­point in Skjer­vøy in the late after­noon. Even the rain stop­ped and the view over Skjer­vøy town and har­bour was love­ly!

Next day we star­ted for a final round of wha­le­wat­ching in Kvæn­an­gen – not wit­hout some suc­cess 🙂 – and then set cour­se for Ham­nes, one of few places in the wide area that was not des­troy­ed by Ger­man tro­ops in 1944/45 and hence has some of its his­to­ri­cal charme pre­ser­ved.

We went for a litt­le walk in Ham­nes and then enjoy­ed Captain’s Din­ner on board. Piet and the ser­vice crew had real­ly gone “all in”, making a won­derful (and very tasty) evening pos­si­ble for ever­y­bo­dy!

And as Cap­tain Dou­we descri­bed the trip, sum­ma­ri­sed in my own short words: “the worst wea­ther, the best wha­les”. Yes, the­re is some truth in that …

Pho­to gal­lery Skjer­vøy, Kvæn­an­gen and Ham­nes – 17th Novem­ber 2024

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

Wai­ting the wea­ther out in Mann­da­len tur­ned out to be a good thing. Well, Mann­da­len was in its­elf more than just worth a visit any­way, but now we have Kvæn­an­gen in reason­ab­ly calm con­di­ti­ons. A bit of swell, but almost no wind.

What can I say? It didn’t take more than half an hour until we saw the first orcas. Not much later fol­lo­wed some Fin wha­les. And then hump­back wha­les. Many of them. Stun­ning. What a day! Just have a look at the pic­tures. It went on for hours, whe­re­ver we went.

In the evening we went along in Rein­fjord. „Evening“, howe­ver, is a rela­ti­ve term here now. Sun­set is at 13:08 hrs …

Pho­to gal­lery Kvæn­an­gen (1) – 15th Novem­ber 2024

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

And we con­tin­ued with the wha­les on Satur­day. Wha­les are the focus of this voya­ge, and I would say we are doing well … the wea­ther is not of the grea­test sort and some more light would do, but wel­co­me to north Nor­way in mid Novem­ber 🐳 😀

Pho­to gal­lery Kvæn­an­gen (2) – 16th Novem­ber 2024

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

And again the­re is a strong low pres­su­re on the way to nor­t­hern Nor­way. To avo­id strong winds and big waves, we retrea­ted deep into Lyn­gen­fjord, to Mann­da­len. An inte­res­t­ing place, mee­ting place of cul­tures and eth­nic groups: Kvens, Sami and eth­nic Nor­we­gi­ans have lived here tog­e­ther for cen­tu­ries, often as a fri­end­ly neigh­bour­hood, some­ti­mes less so. The­re is a very inte­res­t­ing cul­tu­ral centre/museum in Mann­da­len dedi­ca­ted to the Samí peo­p­le, “Sen­ter for nor­dis­ke folk”. Of cour­se we went the­re.

Later we fil­led the dark part of the day with lec­tures and some on board cine­ma.

Pho­to gal­lery Mann­da­len (1) – 13th Novem­ber 2024

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

A strong low pres­su­re like the cur­rent one needs two days to move trough, so we spent yet ano­ther day in Mann­da­len with snow fal­ling the who­le day. We stret­ched our legs in the mor­ning with some day­light and con­tin­ued with our lec­tu­re series in the after­noon.

Pho­to gal­lery Mann­da­len (2) – 14th Novem­ber 2024

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

Svalbard’s polar bears are doing well – the popu­la­ti­on is sta­ble or even gro­wing slight­ly, many of the ani­mals are in good phy­si­cal con­di­ti­on. This is Jon Aars descrip­ti­on of the cur­rent situa­ti­on, see pre­vious artic­le.

But the­re are other opi­ni­ons. This is Mor­ten Jørgensen’s cri­ti­cal rep­ly to Jon Aars descrip­ti­on of the sta­te Svalbard’s polar bears curr­ent­ly are in. Mor­ten Jør­gen­sen is the aut­hor of the book Polar bears: bel­oved and betray­ed.

Polar bear on Prins Karls For­land.

Mor­ten Jørgensen’s cri­ti­cal rep­ly to Jon Aars

To the state­ments made by the lea­ding polar bear rese­ar­cher at the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te, Jon Aars, as he has been quo­ted in the artic­le Ekstre­mår for sjøi­sen: – Har smel­tet raskt gjen­nom som­me­ren

I feel com­pel­led to make this com­ment:

The­re is a ten­den­cy in polar bear manage­ment to push the con­se­quen­ces of the many pro­blems that the spe­ci­es face into the future. Some­ti­mes the near future. But never right now. Becau­se that would mean that the hun­ting would have to stop, and the mana­gers can­not bring them­sel­ves to even begin to face that decis­i­on. This lais­sez-fai­re atti­tu­de of pro­jec­tion of today’s issues into the future spills over into sci­ence.

Latest, Jon Aars claims that the polar bears in Sval­bard for now are doing ok – but will face toug­her times in the deca­des to come. He even goes so far as to say that the local popu­la­ti­on is sta­ble and may be gro­wing.

He has abso­lut­e­ly no sci­en­ti­fic basis for making such state­ments.

The latest attempt at coun­ting the polar bears of Sval­bard led to the con­clu­si­on that the­re is no sta­tis­ti­cal signi­fi­cant chan­ge in the popu­la­ti­on sin­ce the pre­vious “count”. In other words, Jon Aars’ opti­mism is based not in sci­en­ti­fic data, but in … ? I guess only he knows.

Also: The pre­su­med sta­bi­li­ty of the popu­la­ti­on, based on the data from tho­se last two counts, is NOT a good sign. It is actual­ly almost evi­dence that the local polar bear popu­la­ti­on on Sval­bard is in dire straits. How so? Well, the other main­stream mista­ke which Jon Aars makes is to for­get the his­to­ri­cal con­text. If ever­y­thing was just fine, the local polar bear popu­la­ti­on in Sval­bard should in recent deca­des have shown, and should still be show­ing, a signi­fi­cant increase – based on their cur­rent local pro­tec­tion sta­tus after long peri­ods of extre­me over-hun­ting. The very fact that the popu­la­ti­on is still lin­ge­ring at a meager 200-500 or so bears is a clear indi­ca­ti­on that the dis­in­te­gra­ti­on of their main habi­tat is caus­ing the local popu­la­ti­on to be under mas­si­ve stress.

The Sval­bard polar bear popu­la­ti­on is clinging on. And must be pre­su­med to be facing a steep decli­ne soon. To bring forth unfoun­ded opti­mism is not good sci­ence, but only ser­ves to fal­se­ly appease tho­se who think that urgent action is not nee­ded for the polar bear to recei­ve full pro­tec­tion.

Mor­ten Jør­gen­sen

Octo­ber 30, 2024.

The drift is in the Arc­tic Oce­an is shrin­king and shrin­king, brea­king one nega­ti­ve record after the other, but nevert­hel­ess, Svalbard’s polar bears are doing well so far – that is, in very short words, the essence of a press release by the Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te that includes some infor­ma­ti­on pro­vi­ded by Jon Aars, polar bear sci­en­tist within the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te.

Dra­stic sea ice loss

The sea ice in the Arc­tic Oce­an is being lost a a dra­ma­tic pace. That is the unequi­vo­cal mes­sa­ge of a wealth of sci­en­ti­fic data, from satel­li­tes and other. In 2023, the loss of arc­tic drift ice amoun­ted to 3 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­t­res com­pared to the refe­rence peri­od 1981-2010, and the nega­ti­ve trend is con­ti­nuing in spi­te of a good ice win­ter 2023-24 in Spits­ber­gen.

Polar bears: the Sval­bard popu­la­ti­on

That has obvious­ly con­se­quen­ces for polar bears. The­re are appro­xi­m­ate­ly 250 polar bears living in the Sval­bard archi­pe­la­go. The num­ber 3000 that is often men­tio­ned in this con­text refers to the much lar­ger area of Sval­bard and Franz Josef Land inclu­ding sur­roun­ding sea are­as.

One of appro­xi­m­ate­ly 250 polar bears who spend their lives most­ly on land in Sval­bard.

But Svalbard’s polar bears are doing well despi­te less ice and shorter peri­ods with fro­zen fjords and ice-bound coasts. The­se bears are used to life on land and have, at least to some degree, deve­lo­ped tech­ni­ques to tap food-sources less depen­dent on sea ice or fjord ice. The­re are, for exam­p­le, tho­se bears that have deve­lo­ped the skill to hunt reinde­er.

The local popu­la­ti­on is sta­ble or even gro­wing slight­ly, accor­ding to Aars, and they are most­ly in good phy­si­cal shape.

Are­as tra­di­tio­nal used by pregnant fema­les to give birth such as Kong Karls Land and Hopen have lost their signi­fi­can­ce in this con­text becau­se of now unre­lia­ble ice con­di­ti­ons in the­se are­as. It is belie­ved that the­se fema­les now use are­as fur­ther nor­the­ast, such as Franz Josef Land in the wes­tern Rus­si­an arc­tic.

Polar bears: the ocea­nic (drift ice) popu­la­ti­on

This so far sta­ble or even slight­ly posi­ti­ve deve­lo­p­ment appli­es to polar bears in Sval­bard with a lar­ge­ly land-based way of life. Things may well be dif­fe­rent for polar bears fol­lo­wing what we might con­sider a more clas­si­cal way of life for a polar bear, in the drift ice far from land.

Fri­day saw this year’s final sun­ri­se and sun­set; both were kind of hap­pe­ning at the same time and behind moun­ta­ins any­way, hence invi­si­ble from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The polar night star­ted on Satur­day, the first day wit­hout the sun coming abo­ve the hori­zon at all – until mid Febru­ary! The polar night, almost four months long, is, howe­ver, not com­ple­te­ly dark. The real dark peri­od (mør­ket­id) won’t start until ear­ly Decem­ber. Until then and in the last weeks of the polar night, the­re are a cou­ple of hours of twi­light mid day. Click here for more about mid­night sun and polar night.

The first day wit­hout sun: ear­ly after­noon at mine 3.

So now, with four months wit­hout sun to come, you could inde­ed get the Blues – and you do the­se days in Lon­gye­ar­by­en 😎 the Dark Sea­son Blues Fes­ti­val is hap­pe­ning the­se days, as every year in late Octo­ber, when Nor­we­gi­an and inter­na­tio­nal Blues acts come to Lon­gye­ar­by­en to share the various stages in town.

Dark Sea­son Blues Fes­ti­val in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Stein Stok­ke & the Engi­ne at work in mine 3.

One of the­se stages is at mine 3 abo­ve the air­port. Mine 3 used to be a real coal mine, but aban­do­ned in 1996, it is now used as a visi­tor mine and the sur­face instal­la­ti­ons are occa­sio­nal­ly used for cul­tu­ral events. This Satur­day, one could enjoy some hear­ty-hef­ty Blues the­re play­ed by Stein Stok­ke & The Engi­ne, a Blues band with a good name in Nor­way.

That is defi­ni­te­ly some­thing Lon­gye­ar­by­en shares with many other muni­ci­pa­li­ties in Nor­way and else­whe­re: public bud­gets are under stress, cos­ts are on the rise ever­y­whe­re and inco­me does not always meet expec­ta­ti­ons. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, for exam­p­le, the com­mu­nal art gal­lery Nord­o­ver did and does not yield the eco­no­mic result that had been hoped for. In the past, the gal­lery used to be in Nyby­en (the upper part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en). Now it resi­des in the same buil­ding as the super­mar­ket Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken, with a rather incon­spi­cuous ent­rance on the building’s nor­t­hern side that many tou­rists appar­ent­ly don’t see (or don’t care much about). When the gal­lery was in Nyby­en, it used to be a popu­lar stop on gui­ded bus tours for crui­se­ship tou­rists.

Clo­sing Sval­bard­hal­len (swim­ming & sports hall) for a lon­ger peri­od last sum­mer becau­se of legio­nella-loa­ded water didn’t help eit­her. As a result, a defi­cit of one mil­li­on kro­ner is expec­ted for the sec­tor lei­su­re and cul­tu­re in 2024 – the lar­gest sin­gle defi­cit in Longyearbyen’s public spen­dings this year. The total defi­cit amounts to 5.3 mil­li­on kro­ner (ca. 440,000 Euro) in 2024.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en in Octo­ber 2024: no snow, no money (the lat­ter is not quite true).

Part of the defi­cit can be accoun­ted for by means of inter­nal res­truc­tu­ring. The hig­hest sum is to be paid by the youn­gest mem­bers of the muni­ci­pa­li­ty: the bud­get of the com­mu­nal kin­der­gar­tens is now cut by 500,000 kro­ner. On the other side, the muni­ci­pa­li­ty of Lon­gye­ar­by­en still has a total of 70 mil­li­on kro­ner sit­ting in various bank accounts, as Sval­bard­pos­ten reports.

As a result, Lon­gye­ar­by­en is still much bet­ter off than many muni­ci­pa­li­ties in main­land Nor­way: for exam­p­le, Sen­ja (near 15,000 inha­bi­tants) south of Trom­sø has to deal with a defi­cit of 50 mil­li­on kro­ner in 2024, Trom­sø its­elf even lacks 259 mil­li­on kro­ner in last year’s bud­get, accor­ding to NRK. Until now, the finan­ces of 2023 Nor­we­gi­an muni­ci­pa­li­ties are under sta­te super­vi­si­on.

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.