The­se issues have been under dis­cus­sion for ages, and now the govern­ment has made decis­i­ons and, accor­ding to an offi­ci­al press release, announ­ced both new regu­la­ti­ons on field safe­ty, i.e. for all traf­fic out­side the sett­le­ments of Sval­bard, and for a com­pul­so­ry cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on sche­me for gui­des.

Both have been under dis­cus­sion for a long time, in par­ti­cu­lar a cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on sche­me for gui­des. To date, this desi­gna­ti­on has been unpro­tec­ted in Sval­bard and, apart from a licence to car­ry a wea­pon, no for­mal­ly veri­fied qua­li­fi­ca­ti­ons are requi­red to work as a gui­de in Sval­bard. This is about to chan­ge: Appro­pria­te cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on will be requi­red from 2027.

Any­thing can fall under the hea­ding of ‘field safe­ty’, from the ques­ti­on of how to secu­re camps from polar bear visits to whe­ther or not a wea­pon should be car­ri­ed in a car, for exam­p­le on the road in Advent­da­len (at least that was once under dis­cus­sion). Howe­ver, a lar­ge part of the regu­la­ti­ons in ques­ti­on will pro­ba­b­ly only app­ly out­side admi­nis­tra­ti­ve area 10. This area includes a lar­ge land area around Lon­gye­ar­by­en (Nor­dens­ki­öld Land) and Pyra­mi­den (Dick­son Land) as well as a smal­ler area around Ny-Åle­sund. Locals and tou­rists should still be able to move around rela­tively easi­ly in the­se are­as.

Gui­de at work (as polar bear guard): from 2027 with cer­ti­fi­ca­te.

What exact­ly this will look like, what is requi­red to get this cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on, whe­ther every gui­de must have it or only the lea­ding gui­des in the team, and what exact­ly the field safe­ty regu­la­ti­ons will requi­re, I can’t say yet. The press release is from yes­ter­day (6 June), I am curr­ent­ly sai­ling on SV Mean­der and the days are long and full, so the­re is no way to read the atta­ched docu­ments in full, and whe­ther the­se ‘details’ have all been fina­li­sed is not yet clear. I will return to the sub­ject here as soon as I have time and the rele­vant infor­ma­ti­on is available.

Mon­day was the last day of this won­derful trip. It’s unbe­lie­va­ble how quick­ly time flies when it’s so full and varied.

We spent this day in Bil­lefjord. Even though our hopes of see­ing a polar bear were ulti­m­ate­ly not rea­li­sed, this day was a won­derful end to a beau­tiful trip, with shore excur­si­ons in Skans­buk­ta and on Gips­huks­let­ta and a trip along the fjord ice edge in inner Bil­lefjord.

This was the end of this trip to the snow and ice land­scapes of the Arc­tic spring. Many thanks to ever­yo­ne who took part – it was a plea­su­re! And of cour­se to the crew of SV Mean­der!

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