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The Kingdom of the Ice Bear
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Svalbard is an island archipelago not far from the North Pole. Ollie and I were lucky enough to have been bought a trip there as a wedding present (thanks Leif and Astrid!), which we took recently. We first flew to Tromsø, a small town in the north of Norway, where we stayed for a night. Tromsø is a cool wee place, situated pretty much in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains, fjords and lakes. We wandered through the town during the day, then settled in a bar where we polished off a bottle of wine for the evening. We even managed to find a nice Thai restaurant for dinner (after I had spent the day complaining bitterly about how rubbish eating out is in Norway).
The following morning we flew to Longyearbyen in Spitsbergen - the main town on the main island in the Svalbard archipelago. Landing in our wee plane, which was a lot less wee than I thought it would be, and full of people, I got my first glimpse of a ‘proper’ Arctic landscape. Since seeing Life in the Freezer back in the early 90s, I have dreamed of visiting the Arctic or Antarctic. It was so beautiful and exciting and managed to exceed all expectations that I had been harbouring for the past 15 odd years, as well as make me completely forget the hangover I had been nursing all morning. We got a bus into the town and to our hotel, which was not in the prettiest part of town, but very warm and cosy inside.
Considering its in such a remote, desolate and inhospitable place, Longyearbyen was suprisingly cosy and developed - it has several shops, a supermarket, a library, cinema (showing a film once a week) and several bars, cafes and restaurants. No-one actually comes from Longyearbyen. The average duration a person lives in the town is 2 years - and if you get pregnant on the island, you have to fly to the mainland and have the baby there. There is a big university teaching all manner of interesting subjects, and the state owned mining company, which employs many of the people living in the town, is actually making a profit for the first time in its history. You are not allowed to leave the town without a rifle, due to the fact that the surrounding countryside is full of polar bears.
We spent 5 days on the island. We took a snow scooter tour to the west coast, went dog sledging, ice caving and generally wandered around dressed like teddy-bears, most of the time with my jaw hanging open looking at the most incredible, most awe inspiring scenery I have ever seen. The day we spent on snow scooters had to be the highlight of the trip. We sped over ice and snow at up to 90km/hour, and managed to cover a distance of over 200km by the end of the day. We saw a polar bear over on the east coast, although he was out on the sea ice quite a distance away. But we saw him wandering about, doing his own thing, looking suprisingly yellow in amongst the bluey-white landscape.
The weather was great. We were there during the week the sun first comes back to Longyearbyen after months of winter darkness, so the days started with dawn, which hung around for a while, before skipping the middle of the day and going straight into dusk. My two favourite times of day are dawn and dusk, so this suited me quite well. The light was fantastic, giving everything a warm glow - at least, as warm a glow as you can get in the arctic. It was quite chilly - around -15′C most days with a nasty wind just in case -15 didn’t sound cold enough. The east coast, where we took the snow scooters, was decidedly colder - the Gulf Stream warms the west coast where Longyearbyen is situated, stopping the sea from freezing, and making it a slightly more pleasant place to live (the west coast is known as the ‘tropical arctic’). On the east coast, the sea is frozen and the temperature is bitterly cold.
I haven’t stopped being able to think about Svalbard since we returned to Oslo. I wouldn’t mind doing a masters degree at some stage, and I really couldn’t think of a better place to do it. Saying that, I think we were there at the best time of year. The girl that took us on the snow scooter trip remarked that the summer days are all the same - no dawn, dusk, no night time - and the winters are long, dark and depressing. Definately planning another trip there though - would be great to see the place in the summer. Photos from our trip can be found in the photos section.
Hope all is well with you down…