Arctic Adventure Part 13 - finally get there

Left the west coast of Norway and headed north.

Is the sun about to go under the horizon or did it just come up? Neither.  We're above the arctic circle and the sun won't disappear for another couple months.

Time to look at the chart.

This is Svalbard (Spitsbergen is the name of the bigger island)By Rob984 - Derived from File:Location European nation states.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50433261

Svalbard is a large dirt archipelago way the hell up north. 

 It's run by the Norwegians. To be accurate "Administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area administered by a governor appointed by the Norwegian government". The fact is - Svalbard (with two towns - Longyearbyen and Ny Alesund) is the northernmost settlement in the world with a permanent civilian population. There are other settlements farther north, but are populated only by rotating groups of heavily drinking researchers.

I believe this is part of the European Space Research Agency

This is some of the most rugged land you can find.  Even trees throw in the towel here.

When I say way far up north, it's hard for an American to appreciate just how far north I mean. For me, Bangor, Maine is way far north.  Latitude-wise Bangor is south of London. First stop was Longyearbyen 

(Bought 4 T-shirts and a couple mugs here)

The 78 degree shop gets its name from the parallel it sits on.
For contrast - Barrow, Alaska (northernmost city in the US) sits on the 71st parallel (Norwegians laugh at them when Alaskans say it's cold).  Here's a better way to view things.

You'd think there wouldn't be doodely-squat up there but in fact it has a rich history. In 1604 some Englishmen landed and started hunting walrus. They didn't get 'em all:

They lay in a big heap, then quarrel with each other.  I know people like that.

The only reason we were able to get this close to the walrus is that they just happened to surface in front of the ship (which was moving at  minimum steerage speed).

We had a good idea of where to look for walrus thanks to this ice captain (flown in by helicopter) who took over the ship. He looked kinda like Rod Stewart and was a delight to talk to.

Naw mate, I dunno nuthin' 'bout ice

Almost all of Svalbard is a nature preserve. You can't hunt anything.  But that doesn't mean things can't hunt you.

Means "over all of Svalbard"

They aren't kidding.

This isn't Detroit

Two's safer than just one

Sure hope there isn't a round in the chamber! That could make for a deadly bike accident.

The last thing you want when a polar bear decides to make you lunch is a jammed gun.  Before you walk out of town you are encouraged to fire your weapon down the pipe.

Here's why there are so many guns in Svalbard:

Seeing wild polar bears the safe way (there's 12 decks of 1/2" steel between me and him).

Lone male.  Polar bears will eat anything (including hikers)

I was stoked out of my mind to actually see one of the beasties.

2 cubs (mom is behind the ridge)

To be fair, I didn't take the pictures of the polar bears in town. When it comes to making a choice of whether to take a cool picture or get eaten - I side with screaming and running to the nearest shelter (for this reason nobody locks their doors). Our ice captain (Rod Stewart) took us up one of the fjords where they are known to hang out this time of year and we scored.

In the late 1800's coal was discovered. My thought was that there must have been veins of coal coming all the way up to the surface because who in the hell would go digging in permafrost just for yucks?

Turns out I was right!  Look closely at the dark patch in the middle of the snow.  That's coal.

Svalbard may be tough to get to (impossible in winter) but back in the day there was enough coal to make production worth the trouble.

Entrance to one of the mines.

That big insulated pipe was used for blasting steam up to the mines (good way to power equipment).

Several companies (one American) built elaborate systems for mining the coal and getting it off the mountains for shipment.

If you had to walk around all the time with a gun, pretty soon you'd want to shoot something (note all the bullet holes in the bucket).

Nice grouping of shots 

All but one of the coal mines are now closed.  The one open mine is nice and handy.  They use the production to heat the town and generate electricity.

Whats left of the old ship coal loading station

Coal wasn't the only thing mined in Longyearbyen. They also mined marble, but this had a bad ending. Some loudmouth from London (Donald who?) managed to scam a group investors on a scheme to export marble slabs.  He raised millions and did indeed build a marble mining operation. It came to an ignoble end when the marble "slabs" arrived back in England.  During the journey south the marble warmed up and unfroze.  The slabs of marble were really only frozen marble gravel (essentially worthless).

If you're over 66 years old Longyearbyen actively discourages you from becoming one of their 2,100 residents. They don't want to get into the cemetery business because the ground is frozen year round. I guess they haven't heard that 60 is the new 40.

In the winter, fresh veggies are welcome, but rumor has it they also grow some terrific arctic weed here as well

Glacier 

The cold weather makes for silent glaciers (in Alaska the ice melts faster - hence the glaciers there crack and calve almost constantly)

The wind coming off the glaciers is classified as "Lazy wind" (too lazy to blow around you - so it just blows right through you)

I admit I was crazy enough to go on a jet-ski.

I'm encased in 7 layers of clothes. When facing the very real possibility of hypothermia, fashion goes out the window. 

This is the most northerly manned post office in the world

A nice surprise

Off duty sled doggie

As you would expect, snowmobiles outnumber cars 5 to 1

I don't know why the survival suits were being stored outside - airing out?

Fulmar - one of few birds that have a keen sense of smell. The theory is that they can smell fish oil on the surface, narrowing their search pattern

During the war, the Germans invaded Svalbard (after the Norwegians sabotaged the coal operations) What they really wanted was a good supply of coal for the German war machine. What they got instead was a weather station.

 As the war wound down the German soldiers became trapped. A Norwegian seal hunting boat took pity on them and the weather garrison surrendered to the the boat's captain. They were the last German soldiers of WW II to surrender.


Longyearbyen is famous for this place:

This is the entrance to the Global Seed Vault

The seeds are stored in 3-ply foil packs, then placed in the containers you see aboveBy NordGen/Dag Terje Filip Endresen - http://sesto.nordgen.org/sesto/index.php?scp=ngb&thm=pictures&mod=det&id=004531 (image link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27542360

The vault was constructed to be as far removed from the world as possible without going to the moon. They store hundreds of thousands of seeds from all over the world. In 2015 they allowed the first (and only) withdrawal, but the who came as a surprise.  It was Syria. The vault reminded me of the Hotel California song (Eagles) -"you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave".



NY-Alesund

Traveling slightly further north you will come to Ny-Alesund.

Ny-Ålesund is host to fifteen permanent research stations run by agencies from ten countries. It has that distinctive "off the grid" look to it.  Only 25 people live here full time. 

Still, they have a mailbox - most northerly (unmanned) mailbox in the world.

At first glance the metal tower looks like a drilling rig

It's not a drilling rig - its a zeppelin mooring mast

Ny Alesund was the jumping off point for many polar expeditions. 

This is the dirigible that claimed the first trans-polar flight (took off from Ny Alesund and landed in Alaska in 1926).

Walking about Ny Alesund is strictly regulated.  You have to stay on the dirt paths. You could get eaten by a bear, but they're really more interested in having tourists make no impact.  This I found amusing. Like Longyearbgen, Ny Alsund has a long history with dirty coal mining.  The remains of all the mining equipment abound.  Crap everywhere, but they ignore this and worry about tourists making a mess.

Quite funny, but I guess ya gotta draw the line somewhere.

Leaving Ny Alesund we, once again, set a northerly course. We didn't get far though.

This is as far north as you can get before you run into the Arctic ice pack

At last! The polar ice cap.

What took ya so long?

You'd think we'd have the place all to ourselves. That's a Norwegian research vessel hoggin' the view and trying to photobomb us.

One thing you learn about going to the north pole is that life can find a way to survive anywhere:

Bearded seal

Harp seal

At this point we're only 575 miles from the north pole. The geographic north pole, that is (the magnetic north pole is a different story.)  If you stood on the exact spot of the pole itself:

Ta-dah!
Ivan Pappanin 1937By Anonymous - Uploaded from http://www.polarmuseum.sp.ru/Win/7.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=671719

every direction you faced would be south.

From here we headed to the warm tropics of Iceland.