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Svalbard – the black mountains

It took me half a day to figure out what was 'wrong' in Svalbard – obviously it is a desolated mountain kingdom, but it is black, barren mountains – crna gora of the north – Birgitte put words on the missing pjeces – not a tree, not a bush – nothingness. Black, gray, white. And no life – except 8 species of birds, and supposedly a polar bear somewhere out there.

How did we end up here? I don't know – probably because it is there and you can get there for your bonus points as it counts as domestic Norway. It is a close to the North Pole as I'll ever get, 78 degrees north, Longyearbyen. SAS had in June 'half bonus price' for all of Scandinavia, so we travelled business class for the same bonus price as normal. All four of us had gained a lot of bonus miles from a travel around the world previously this year, so we could also pay for two of the three nights at the Radisson Blu hotel – in this case the 'northernmost full service hotel' – everything in town was the northernmost, like the text on the ATM.

From Denmark, Longyearbyen is farther away than Africa, and it took a full day of travelling to get there – the landing was spectacular with the black mountains in the midnight sun – arriving 23:30 it was our first midnight sun. Here the sun starts to set again in late August, so it was 'daylight' for our entire visit. It felt strange from the moment we landed – kind of tired, but it seemed like late afternoon. A couple of propelled Russian planes were at the runway. Outside the fjord was full of ice, which I also found out later was something special that hat not happened since 2004 – something with the currents bringing it here. Arriving at the hotel was also kind of surreal with few clues that we were well after midnight – the first signs of insomnia? Strange place.

We had two full days here. The first day, we walked down to the fjord and were immediately attacked by the arctic terns – you know those that migrate between Antarctic and Arctic every year. Anders was the first victim, and received a big poo right in his head to warn him off. We then read the signs saying, do remember to wave a stick over your head to warn them off, which we then did.
Today was partly clouded with a temperature of about 7 degrees, but quiet weather. Anders was not too well – too little sleep, so he had an afternoon nap and I fetched a couple of sandwiches from the nearby centre (100 NOK). We visited the 'must see' museum which was actually very good with well explained exhibitions of the history, the first explores, the mining, the seed vault, the animals, the people (75 NOK/Adult). There are a couple of places to get a decent dinner in town, but as everything else, it is incomprehensible expensive, so we bought a pizza from the two Thai's that have the pizza-shop in town, and it will probably be the only time I'll think 168 NOK is cheap for a pizza, but it was here. And a very good one.
Saturday we had booked a full day sailing trip with one of the two boats, Langøysund, that do the day tours to the glaciers, Pyramiden and Barentsburg. There are not many options, and what is available you can see on www.svalbard.net – we booked from http://www.htg.svalbard.no/ But it is VERY pricy, I had negotiated (per email) that we could go on a daytrip, two adults and two children, down to 3500 NOK (!). And I can say it was not worth it, and Birgitte thought the trip should have been cancelled. Our daytrip should go to the Barentsburg and Esmarkbreen – and a pass by the bird cliffs of Fuglefjellet. But Barentsburg was blocked by pack ice, as it had been for several days. It was not announced until we left the Esmarkbreen glacier that we could not go there today, but I can't believe they did not know earlier. When we sailed closer it was an ocean full of pack ice. Of the 10 hours of sailing, one hour here was actually the highlight – it was totally quiet, full of ice (much of it in a beautiful blue colour), and the fog made it like we were polar explorers. The staff were nice, and Anders spent the most of the time at the bridge with the captain, steering the boat. 10 French were dropped off at the Esmarkbreen with their kayaks, and they were supposed to sail for a week – they looked very discouraged in the fog and seemed all to want to cancel everything. Cold, somewhat wet, cold, cold, cold. We put on all the clothes we had – I can only recommend to bring twice as much clothes as you would think of. Some of the other guests on the boat were inside for the whole 10 hours, looking out – I wonder what brought them here. Three hikers (Norwegian) were on the boat, and should have been off in Barentsburg. They had rented a dog and a rifle, and should cross the mountains. They never got off, and had to return and try again next week. So all in all, a couple of good moments and a nice sailing trip, but not worth the price.

So what else is there to do? You cannot really go outside the town – you need a dog and a gun (do you have a license?), so if you have more than a couple of days, you'll soon have been everywhere you are allowed to go – unless you have sufficient funds to pay for a guide or a tour – expect between 1000-1500 NOK per person per day for a tour. We met a Belgian couple, who had a week there, and they were quite discouraged, they had never imagined it would be so expensive. Two days for us was fine.
The people living in Svalbard are mostly contracted people. There is no one who is born here and no one dies here – no old people's homes. They have a contract for normally 2-3 years and are assigned a house (there are not many privately owned houses), and work to make a lot of money. You still belong to the fylke where you are from and pay taxes there. Most that come here are outdoor persons, which would go hiking with their rifle in their spare time, or like the snowmobile in winter.

Svalbard was interesting to visit, it will not be my favourite place, but if you look for desolation, go for it. Don’t expect to see wildlife – you'll be luck to see more than birds.

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