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.

The lay­man is ama­zed, the expert is asto­nis­hed: just now, when new­ly intro­du­ced new rules are caus­ing con­fu­si­on for many, the sys­tem mana­ger is cut­ting back on field inspec­tors. Yet this year in par­ti­cu­lar the­re is pro­ba­b­ly a lot to check and pro­ba­b­ly a few par­king tickets to hand out.

Nor­mal­ly, the Sys­sel­mes­ter has three teams in the field during the main sea­son, each con­sis­ting of a poli­ce offi­cer and a sci­en­tist, such as a bio­lo­gist. The­se teams are sta­tio­ned in Isfjord (Trygg­ham­na), Kongsfjord and north-west Spits­ber­gen (Mag­da­le­nefjord-Wood­fjord) and are the­re to keep an eye on tou­rists, docu­ment the con­di­ti­on of cul­tu­ral monu­ments, count birds and things like that.

You would have to be a field inspec­tor at the Sys­sel­mes­ter! This is how you would be accom­mo­da­ted in Mag­da­le­nefjord befo­re you move to Mus­ham­na.

This year, howe­ver, the­re will only be the nor­t­hern team, which will initi­al­ly be sta­tio­ned in Mag­da­le­nefjord and later move to Mus­ham­na in Wood­fjord. The teams in Kongsfjord and Isfjord have been can­cel­led for bud­get reasons, as Sval­bard­pos­ten wro­te.

It was exact­ly 100 years ago today that Roald Amund­sen took off with two fly­ing boats (sea­pla­nes) from Ny-Åle­sund in Kongsfjord. It was his first attempt to fly to the North Pole. The attempt was not suc­cessful: short­ly befo­re 88 degrees north, both aero­pla­nes had to land in the ice, and it was only with unspeaka­ble dif­fi­cul­ty that they mana­ged to take off again after 25 days. One of the two pla­nes had to be left behind, the six mem­bers of the expe­di­ti­on rea­ched Nord­aus­t­land in the other pla­ne and were res­cued the­re by a Nor­we­gi­an seal­ing ves­sel that hap­pen­ed to be near­by.

The famous expe­di­ti­ons with Nobi­le and the air­ships Nor­ge (1926) and Ita­lia (1928) fol­lo­wed in the years that fol­lo­wed. As is well known, the Ita­lia was wre­cked and part of the crew dis­ap­peared wit­hout a trace. Nobi­le and the remai­ning crew were res­cued. Amund­sen had set off in search of Nobi­le, but died in the pro­cess. His exact fate is still unknown today.

Roald Amund­sen in Ny-Åle­sund.

The two Dor­nier-Wal air­craft N24 and N25 took off on 21 May 1925 – exact­ly 100 years ago today – mar­king the start of this last, famous and dra­ma­tic chap­ter in Amundsen’s life as an explo­rer, cha­rac­te­ri­sed by fly­ing expe­di­ti­ons to the North Pole.

The Fram Muse­um in Oslo is dedi­ca­ting a new exhi­bi­ti­on to this expe­di­ti­on.

It was out of print for a long time, but now it’s back in a revi­sed form 🙂 the Sval­bardhyt­ter pos­ter. beau­tiful­ly illus­tra­tes the diver­si­ty of Spitsbergen’s many huts. 60 small mani­fes­ta­ti­ons of old Arc­tic adven­tures in wall for­mat (70×100 cm)!

Pos­ter Sval­bardhyt­ter, second edi­ti­on.

The font colour has been impro­ved com­pared to the first edi­ti­on so that the let­te­ring is easier to read.

The new font colour impro­ves rea­da­bili­ty.

The accom­pany­ing book­let Sval­bardhyt­ter pro­vi­des the infor­ma­ti­on that turns the pic­tures into small, exci­ting Spits­ber­gen sto­ries.

Makes the thing com­ple­te: book­let Sval­bardhyt­ter.