If you’re on Face­book, you can watch a rather dra­ma­tic mobi­le pho­ne video of a clo­se encoun­ter with a polar bear in Pyra­mi­den. No fur­ther details are known, the per­son was able to jump onto a snow­mo­bi­le at the last moment and dri­ve away. This link leads to the short video on Face­book, the video is cir­cu­la­ting wide­ly.

Clo­se encoun­ter with a polar bear in Pyra­mi­den.
Screen­shot of a video by Rebec­ca Baack.

After the equal­ly dra­ma­tic clo­se encoun­ter bet­ween a group of tou­rists and a polar bear near Fred­heim in Tem­pel­fjord, this is the second encoun­ter bet­ween humans and polar bears this year, which only by luck escaped wit­hout serious con­se­quen­ces.

Too long to read? The key mes­sa­ge: in Ny-Åle­sund you can make mobi­le pho­ne calls, but you can­not use Blue­tooth or WLAN. It is important that all con­nec­tions on ALL rele­vant devices are deac­ti­va­ted!

Ny-Åle­sund.

In more detail

Ny-Åle­sund has had a mobi­le net­work sin­ce Novem­ber 2023. It was intro­du­ced becau­se many of the sci­en­tists and employees in the small town in Kongsfjord had expres­sed the cor­re­spon­ding wish, for their work, for safe­ty in the field and for pri­va­te use.

The pro­blem

Howe­ver, one man’s joy is ano­ther man’s sor­row: the sen­si­ti­ve mea­su­ring instru­ments at the geo­de­tic sta­ti­on of the Nor­we­gi­an Geo­de­tic Insti­tu­te (Kart­ver­ket) can be dis­tur­bed by elec­tro­ma­gne­tic waves emit­ted by mobi­le devices. For this reason, the use of the pro­ble­ma­tic fre­quen­ci­es bet­ween 2.1 and 2.5 GHz is also pro­hi­bi­ted in Ny-Åle­sund.

The geo­de­tic sta­ti­on near Ny-Åle­sund.

The 5G mobi­le net­work can use fre­quen­ci­es in this ran­ge, but does not have to. Due to a lack of tech­ni­cal exper­ti­se, I can only assu­me that the trans­mit­ter mast in Ny-Åle­sund uses fre­quen­ci­es out­side the inter­fe­rence ran­ge.

Fre­quen­ci­es

In any case, Blue­tooth (2.402 GHz and 2.480 GHz) and WLAN (inclu­ding 2.412 to 2.472 GHz) are ful­ly within the spec­trum that is gene­ral­ly used, but inter­fe­res with devices in Ny-Åle­sund and is the­r­e­fo­re pro­hi­bi­ted. Howe­ver, the devices, which include mobi­le pho­nes, came­ras, smart­wat­ches, head­pho­nes, com­pu­ters, prin­ters, etc., do not know this, nor do their users.

As the Norsk Kart­ver­ket is repea­ted­ly expe­ri­en­cing mal­func­tions in the ope­ra­ti­on of the geo­de­tic station’s mea­su­ring equip­ment, the pro­blem is curr­ent­ly back in the public eye – and not for the first time. In addi­ti­on to Sval­bard­pos­ten, the Ger­man tech­no­lo­gy web­site Hei­se also recent­ly published an artic­le on the sub­ject.

The solu­ti­on

Even if – it should be noted at this point – the mobi­le net­work in Ny-Åle­sund was not set up for tou­rists but for the town, tou­rists visi­ting the town by boat appear to be respon­si­ble for a signi­fi­cant part of the pro­blem. As is so often the case, the solu­ti­on could actual­ly be quite simp­le: Mobi­le pho­nes can be used, but all Blue­tooth and WLAN con­nec­tions must be deac­ti­va­ted. If this is not pos­si­ble, for exam­p­le with wire­less head­pho­nes or smart­wat­ches, the devices may not be used in Ny-Åle­sund. If you have them with you any­way, for exam­p­le on a ship, they must remain on board, as low down as pos­si­ble, in the hope that the metal hull will help to shield them.

Important­ly, this appli­es not only in Ny-Åle­sund, but within a radi­us of 20 kilo­me­t­res around the town, i.e. in the enti­re Kongsfjord.

Online in Ny-Åle­sund? Sure – but only via mobi­le net­work or wired,
not via WLAN.

Black sheep

It is pro­ba­b­ly fea­si­ble to com­mu­ni­ca­te the­se fair­ly simp­le mea­su­res to rese­ar­chers and employees who are stay­ing in Ny-Åle­sund for a lon­ger peri­od of time, but it is a dif­fe­rent mat­ter for tou­rists who only visit for a short time. Unof­fi­ci­al­ly, it is known that ope­ra­tors of the lar­ger ships that sail the­re regu­lar­ly some­ti­mes show indif­fe­rence, igno­re all calls and do not even switch off the WLAN net­works on board when their ships are in har­bour. Whe­ther pas­sen­gers on board are made awa­re of the ban and the mea­su­res descri­bed cle­ar­ly and in good time is at least doubtful.

Regu­la­ti­on?

And as is so often the case, one or two black sheep are enough to bring a who­le herd into dis­re­pu­te, and the call for ‘regu­la­ti­on’ of ship­ping traf­fic in the Kongsfjord is alre­a­dy loud. It doesn’t take much ima­gi­na­ti­on to visua­li­se that this could quick­ly turn into a clo­sure of the enti­re fjord to the public – after all, respon­si­ble poli­ti­ci­ans in the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment imme­dia­te­ly rejec­ted poli­ti­cal mea­su­res and cal­led on tho­se invol­ved to find a solu­ti­on.

On SV Anti­gua, ever­yo­ne was cer­tain­ly asked to switch off Blue­tooth and WLAN. But what about the big one and the smal­ler sai­ling boats?

Com­ment and pro­po­sal

Do we have to go for maxi­mum con­flict and demand that Ny-Åle­sund ‘choo­se bet­ween mass tou­rism and rese­arch’ and call for govern­ment regu­la­ti­on, as John­ny Wel­le, direc­tor of Kart­ver­ket, did in Sval­bard­pos­ten?

It could be so easy if ever­yo­ne joi­n­ed in and imple­men­ted the mea­su­res men­tio­ned, it real­ly isn’t that much to ask. Most of the ships that visit Ny-Åle­sund show that this is pos­si­ble.

And Kings Bay, as the owner and ope­ra­tor of the town and har­bour, could put pres­su­re on the ships that don’t feel the need to play in the rain. The elec­tro­ma­gne­tic spec­trum is recor­ded, inter­fe­rence quick­ly beco­mes visi­ble and, in case of doubt, the har­bour mas­ter can acti­va­te the WLAN and Blue­tooth func­tion on his mobi­le pho­ne to see whe­ther a ship pre­sent has set up cor­re­spon­ding net­works. And pen­al­ties for the moorer and, if neces­sa­ry, a moo­ring ban are cer­tain­ly within the scope of King’s Bay’s opti­ons, wit­hout the need for legis­la­ti­on. This should get the mes­sa­ge across, and anyo­ne who is still stub­born will be ban­ned.

Kings Bay, what are you wai­ting for?

A pho­to and a report have been doing the rounds on social media for days: Joshua Hol­ko from Aus­tra­lia, owner of Wild Natu­re Pho­to Tra­vel, was tra­vel­ling with a group of pho­to­graph­ers on the small (12-pas­sen­ger) MS Freya in the Van Mijenfjord when they obser­ved a heli­c­op­ter from the rese­arch ves­sel Kron­prins Haa­kon cha­sing a polar bear at a distance of around three kilo­me­t­res. This is a com­mon pro­ce­du­re used by sci­en­tists to get within shoo­ting ran­ge to tran­qui­li­se, exami­ne and tag polar bears.

Hol­ko descri­bes the pro­cess as fol­lows (the ori­gi­nal text from 20 April can be found on Holko’s Face­book pro­fi­le): “I docu­men­ted this dis­gus­ting sce­ne of so cal­led ‘rese­ar­chers’ har­ras­sing, and cha­sing a Polar Bear with their heli­c­op­ter. This bear we had obser­ved from more than 3 km away res­t­ing peaceful­ly and wal­king on the ice. When the heli­c­op­ter came, they pani­cked the bear. They then cha­sed it inces­sant­ly at low alti­tu­de for more than thir­ty minu­tes befo­re suc­cessful­ly dart­ing the now utter­ly exhaus­ted bear. This bear was ter­ri­fied, run­ning for its life.”

Polar bear and heli­c­op­ter, pho­to­gra­phed by Joshua Hol­ko during the descri­bed inci­dent in Van Mijenfjord from a distance of about three kilo­me­t­res.

Fur­ther comm­ents fol­low in the ori­gi­nal artic­le.

The prac­ti­ce of cha­sing and stun­ning polar bears with heli­c­op­ters for sci­en­ti­fic pur­po­ses has been cri­ti­cis­ed many times over the years, but so far wit­hout any con­se­quen­ces. The cur­rent case is now attrac­ting wide­spread media atten­ti­on, inclu­ding in the edi­to­ri­al media, such as NRK and, of cour­se, Sval­bard­pos­ten.

Inci­dents of this kind are rare­ly publi­cis­ed as they take place in very remo­te regi­ons and are the­r­e­fo­re rare­ly obser­ved by bystan­ders. Holko’s descrip­ti­on and pic­tu­re would have attrac­ted a lot of atten­ti­on also years ago. Howe­ver, the inci­dent now seems all the more stran­ge as the very strict distancing rules from polar bears that other­wi­se app­ly to ever­yo­ne (500 met­res from Febru­ary to June, other­wi­se 300 met­res) were intro­du­ced in Sval­bard this year. Hol­ko hims­elf explai­ned in a later artic­le that his aim was not to use one grie­van­ce to cla­im the right to ano­ther grie­van­ce, but that the aim must always be to ensu­re the pro­tec­tion of and respect for the polar bear, for which the new rules for the gene­ral public would not have been neces­sa­ry. Howe­ver, one can cer­tain­ly ask cri­ti­cal ques­ti­ons about sci­en­ti­fic prac­ti­ce. The aut­hor of this artic­le agrees.

Hol­ko for­mu­la­ted this as fol­lows in ano­ther artic­le on Face­book from 24 April: “Wild­life pho­to­gra­phy of Polar Bears doesn’t need a wide ang­le lens to be powerful, emo­ti­ve and dra­ma­tic. What is requi­red is an under­stan­ding and respect for the wild­life. Wild­life FIRST. Pho­to­gra­phy second. This is not a com­pa­ri­son bet­ween Sci­ence and Tou­rism. That is not the intent. This is a com­pa­ri­son bet­ween metho­do­lo­gies. How Polar Bears can be enga­ged with, with respect, or as in the case of the recent heli­c­op­ter inci­dent by rese­ar­chers, wit­hout respect that undu­ly stres­ses the ani­mal. I am not against the Sci­ence of Polar Bears. I am against inva­si­ve, stressful methods such as cha­sing bears from heli­c­op­ter.”

The distance rules app­ly to ever­yo­ne and this is unli­kely to chan­ge any time soon, nor is a more ethi­cal­ly based approach to rese­arch in sight. But the deba­te about this is once again in the world, and anyo­ne who wants to help make it effec­ti­ve can now even sign a peti­ti­on at Change.org that was star­ted after the cur­rent case.

Sta­tis­tics Nor­way (Sta­tis­tisk Sen­tral­by­rå) recent­ly published new figu­res on the popu­la­ti­on of Sval­bard. Accor­ding to the­se figu­res, 2556 peo­p­le were offi­ci­al­ly living in the Nor­we­gi­an sett­le­ments (Lon­gye­ar­by­en, Ny-Åle­sund) on 1 Janu­ary 2025, a decrease of 61 peo­p­le com­pared to the pre­vious year’s figu­res.

The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment will hard­ly be plea­sed that Nor­we­gi­ans are over-repre­sen­ted among tho­se who have left: A full 50 out of 61 (around 82%) have a Nor­we­gi­an pass­port. Accor­ding to the latest figu­res, the popu­la­ti­on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Ny-Åle­sund, total­ling 2556 peo­p­le, includes 1626 Nor­we­gi­ans (63.6 %). And the Nor­we­gi­an share of the popu­la­ti­on is likely to decrease even fur­ther when mine 7, the last Nor­we­gi­an coal mine in Spits­ber­gen, clo­ses in the sum­mer, as Nor­we­gi­ans are also dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly repre­sen­ted among the miners. The govern­ment will not be hap­py with this, as a hig­her pro­por­ti­on of Nor­we­gi­ans on Sval­bard is an expli­cit poli­ti­cal goal.

The­re were offi­ci­al­ly 2556 peo­p­le living in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Ny-Åle­sund on 1 Janu­ary 2025.

An inte­res­t­ing deve­lo­p­ment can also be seen in the non-Nor­we­gi­an popu­la­ti­on: while Thais (curr­ent­ly 113) were in second place after Nor­we­gi­ans for many years, they have now been over­ta­ken by Fili­pi­nos (127). In fourth place are Ger­mans (94) and in fifth place Rus­si­ans (67).

Spea­king of Rus­si­ans: 297 peo­p­le lived in Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den in Janu­ary, the lowest num­ber sin­ce popu­la­ti­on sta­tis­tics began in 2013. Among the­se 297 are also a num­ber of Ukrai­ni­ans.

The­re were offi­ci­al­ly 2556 peo­p­le living in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Ny-Åle­sund on 1 Janu­ary 2025

The news of mine 7’s future as a muse­um was an April Fool’s joke (and cle­ar­ly reco­g­nisable as such, I hope, isn’t it?) – this pro­ba­b­ly sounds like an even more absurd April Fool’s joke, but it’s not: the tariffs that the US govern­ment is said to have intro­du­ced also affect Sval­bard and Jan May­en.

But not becau­se they auto­ma­ti­cal­ly fall under the tariffs becau­se they belong to Nor­way, but becau­se they have their own tariffs. While Nor­way is sub­ject to a 15% tariff, exports from Sval­bard and Jan May­en to the US are sub­ject to a 10% tariff, accor­ding to NRK.

The good news is that, com­pared to many other count­ries, the export eco­no­my in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Olon­kin­by­en (the sta­ti­on on Jan May­en) gets off rela­tively light­ly.

The­re is sim­ply no export eco­no­my in the­se or other places on the islands. Svalbard’s only export so far has been coal, which has not been sold to the US in recent histo­ry. And the­re is no civi­li­an popu­la­ti­on on Jan May­en any­way, just a sta­ti­on, and the­r­e­fo­re no eco­no­my at all.

On Jan May­en the­re is just as much export eco­no­my as you can see in this pic­tu­re: none at all.

Sval­bard and Jan May­en are not the only remo­te islands wit­hout an export eco­no­my that the US govern­ment has impo­sed tariffs on. Accor­ding to Spie­gel online, they include the sub-Ant­ar­c­tic islands of Heard and McDo­nald, as well as Nor­folk Island near Aus­tra­lia.

Com­ment

If anyo­ne has an expl­ana­ti­on as to why this might make sen­se (lea­ving asi­de the fun­da­men­tal sen­se or non­sen­se of tariffs), I would be inte­res­ted to hear it. I have no idea.

Just a few impres­si­ons of the beau­tiful arc­tic win­ter, wit­hout many words.

A trip to Dunérbuk­ta on the east coast. Icy cold, about -25 degrees. And a litt­le remin­der of why you should always have a sho­vel with you in the snow (the second reason being the dan­ger of ava­lan­ches, of cour­se).

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

And ano­ther trip to beau­tiful Elve­ne­set in Sas­senfjord. You don’t always have to go far…

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

Make this page nicer

And more news from the ‘Make this page nicer’ sec­tion:

• Faks­evå­gen in Lom­fjord: the beau­tiful moun­tain hike on the edge of Hin­lo­pen Strait.
• Hingst­s­let­ta, also in Lom­fjord. It used to be a polar bear para­di­se a while ago, as the pic­tures will show.
• Sig­rid­hol­men, a litt­le pearl of natu­re in Kongsfjord.

And what else

And what else? Oh yes, the stocks are being rep­le­nis­hed. The enti­re sel­ec­tion of Sval­bard kit­chen slats from Lon­gye­ar­by­en is now back in stock.

Kit­chen boards from Lon­gye­ar­by­en:
now all available again in the spitsbergen-svalbard.com shop 🙂

Just last week, the clo­sure of mine 7, Norway’s last coal mine on Spits­ber­gen, which was ori­gi­nal­ly plan­ned for next sum­mer, was the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion not only in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but also in poli­ti­cal cir­cles in Oslo.

After geo­lo­gists recent­ly dis­co­ver­ed the foot­prints of a pan­t­o­don in the mine, the aut­ho­ri­ties reac­ted quick­ly to the sen­sa­ti­on: they plan to app­ly for mine 7 to be lis­ted as a UNESCO World Heri­ta­ge Site and to turn the mine into a muse­um so that the sen­sa­tio­nal find can be per­ma­nent­ly dis­play­ed to the public.

Incon­spi­cuous at first glan­ce, but a sen­sa­ti­on for geo­lo­gists:
Traces of a Pan­t­o­don in mine 7.

The pan­t­o­don, a mammal from the Palaeo­ge­ne (ear­ly Ter­tia­ry), the coal age of cen­tral Spits­ber­gen, is the oldest evi­dence of a mammal in this part of the Arc­tic. Remains of tree trunks, roots and bran­ches can also be seen in the area.

Wea­ve of bran­ches and roots in mine 7.

So mine 7 has a future bey­ond this sum­mer that ever­yo­ne, inclu­ding oppon­ents of coal mining, can look for­ward to.

Fos­si­li­sed tree trunk from the Palaeo­ge­ne era.