Svalbard
The things you find when cleaning out a disk; preparing for
re-installation of your laptop on a larger disk once the laptop
comes back
from repair... I thought I had posted this in early January,
but apparently not. As it would be a shame to just throw this away,
here goes:
I am sitting in the Oslo airport, waiting for boarding back home
to start. Seeing the sun after a week of darkness still feels
strange.
Inital trouble
It's been a very interesting week, starting with our trip to
Oslo in the other direction. We spent New Year's Eve in Oslo,
timing our forced overnight stay before reaching
Svalbard to coincide
with something interesting. The close timing of our travel meant
that there was exactly
one flight to Oslo we could take.
Never having heard of Air Baltic before and finding out that they
are a discount airline, my gut feeling told me to be be wary. I
refuse to fly with those airlines on principle, not wanting to
support their business model while hurting airlines with decent
treatment of customers. Unfortunately, I was forced to book with
them in this case. As it turns out, my gut was right. More on that
below.
Our plane was late in landing and my luggage was lost. As it was
New Year's Eve, the staff at Oslo airport understandably wanted to
be home, not at work. Still, getting them to file a report was
tedious and finding out days later that the report was incomplete
was, well, not good. The express train from the airport to Oslo
central station had closed early without any advance notice or
local signs, presumably because of NYE. The gates were simply
closed and that's that. We figured out how the bus system worked,
got our tickets from a vending machine, saw the one bus to central
station drive away, and proceeded to wait in the outside waiting
area; at least we had a front spot in the queue. While we don't get
cold easily, it was funny to see Norwegians in thin clothes stand
around in the biting wind, apparently being comfortable. A young
mother with a baby, who didn't anticipate being forced to wait
outside at -15C, as opposed to just sitting down in a train, had no
warm clothes for her son; something that was fixed by wrapping him
in spare clothes from Ilona's luggage. After waiting for about
thirty minutes for the next bus to appear, it parked twenty or
thirty meters away from the designated parking spot. The rough
queue disintegrated and if not for Ilona's leaving me with luggage
and backpacks and storming off to fight the masses, said mother
with baby and ourselves would have waited for another thirty
minutes. More than hundred people were left stranded at the airport
to celebrate there or on the bus. Meh. We hurried, by taxi, from
central station to hotel to harbour and arrived about five minutes
to twelve.
NYE itself was nice. We stood on top of the opera house and
watched a rather impressive show of fireworks through the
thickening mists. Norwegian fireworks pack
lot more punch
than German ones; you actually feel your clothes shake when they go
off.
Getting to Longyearbyen
The flight from
Troms to
Longyearbyen had
free in-flight Wi-Fi and flying over the edge of satellite coverage
demonstrated how far we were from everywhere else rather
impressively. Arriving at Longyearbyen, I fixed the lost luggage
claim with the help of an extremely nice woman working at the
airport. She confirmed that Air Baltic is legally required to
reimburse me after an arcane system based on a virtual IMF currency
to the tune of about 1.500. That may sound like a lot, but seeing
as I had most of my scuba gear with me, that's not even half of
what my luggage was worth. I was forced to get by New Years with
what I had on my body and went shopping the next day when I could
buy at least a few things. I got by with spending about 180 by
going for non-fitting bargain bin clothes, wanting to reduce impact
on Air Baltic. Shortly after that, my luggage arrived, unannounced.
Air Baltic refused to reimburse me even though they are legally
required to, again the airport staff confirmed this. But unless I
sue in the country of destination, Norway, I won't see any money.
Long story short: Avoid Air Baltic if possible. They will break the
law to cheat you out of money when they have a reasonable
expectation of getting away with it.
Update: Yep, seems
they got away with it unless I take legal measures. You have been
warned.
Longyearbyen itself was very nice. We started off with a short,
guided taxi tour around the city, seeing literally everything of it
as there's not a lot of Longyearbyen to start with.
Dogsledding
Next day, as noted earlier, we went shopping and spent the
"evening" with dogsledding which turned out to be tons of fun. We
helped with harnessing the dogs which is somewhat cumbersome as the
dogs are so eager to burn off their energy that they want to run
all over the place, not being put into a harness and snapped onto
the pull-line. Never having been dogsledding before I was a bit
wary, but riding over not too rough terrain is almost trivial once
you get the hang of it; listen to what the musher in front of you
yells and emulate the same shouts with your own dogs. If the dogs
become too fast, step onto the brake pad which simply drives spikes
into the snow. If the dogs slow down while going uphill, skate with
one foot to help them. That's it for speed. As the dogs are
following the musher's sled anyway, steering the dogs was not a
concern. Fun fact: The musher used a laser pointer to steer his
dogs; simple, efficient, and presumably fun. We learned, by
demonstration, that sledding dogs can eat snow, take a leak, and
take a dump while running at full speed and pretty much all at the
same time. The dogs are left either in cages or on long chains far
away from the city as they tend to bark and howl a lot. We were
surprised to learn that, even when there are seals left to hang dry
as dog food nearby, there are no problems with bear attacks.
Apparently even the extremely aggressive and hungry one year old
males will
not go near dogs. Still, while out in the ice
and snow, our guide carefully flooded all crevices and cliff bases
to root out female bears with young ones early. They hide their
children from the wind and
they will attack, dogs and all,
if we get too close. That's why our musher carried rifle in his
sled and flare gun on his body.
Snowmobile
The next "morning", we drove around by snowmobile. This turned
out to be extremely boring as it was a curated trip with over half
a dozen snowmobiles in our group; a stark contrast to our two-sled
tour the day before. The last time I went snowmobiling, we raced
each other up and down a two-star black (i.e. steep, bumpy, and
curvy) ski slope, jumping several meters when racing over larger
bumps and crossing streets, so riding single file at 30 km/h was...
anticlimatic. Again, the guide had rifle and flare gun with
him.
We spent the afternoon and evening walking around the city.
Ice bears, part I
As the ice caves and the glacier were still closed, we decided
to have another walk around the city. Having planned make it a
quick tour, we lost track of time due to lack of sun and ended up
walking around for seven hours.
A note about that trip.. If you are alone with your wife,
unarmed, climbing up a very steep and slippery mountainside over a
sheet of ice with deep snow underneath and loose rocks in between,
and then start shining around with your flashlight under the stilts
of an
abandoned
mine that looks like in a horror movie, the correct answer to
"What are you doing?" is never ever "Looking for
ice bears". Even if it's the truth, this is not an acceptable
answer.
I crawled up the last part on all fours, camera and tripod in
hand while Ilona stayed about two dozen meters below the mines'
entrance, refusing to go another step towards the mine. As soon I
made it up the creaky and shaky, for a lack of a better word, let's
call it ladder, she forced me to come down again. Bleh, but I guess
I deserved that.
Armed photographer
Next day, we got final confirmation that we would not be allowed
to rent snowmobiles to explore the hinterland on our own and that
other for some, and I quote, "crazy Russians", no one would even
attempt to cross over to Barentsburg. Thus, we ended up renting a
car for the ~20 kilometers of total road length. That turned out to
be a great idea as it allowed us to get away from the light and
take some very nice long exposures. It was then that I got a rental
rifle, as well. There is a law against leaving the town unarmed and
I was not about to test my luck too much.
Turns out that, as part of Germany's WWII reparations, Norway
received our all hand guns and as they still function perfectly
when dirty and in cold climate which makes them still popular in
Svalbard, today. The
Karabiner 98 Kurz
which I received is built incredibly well. It's somewhat scary
inasmuch every detail is designed to make this weapon ready to
fire. If you hurry or are inexperienced, you
will end up
with an unlocked and loaded rifle after putting in the bolt.
Putting the safety in and not chambering a bullet takes conscious
effort and knowledge of the weapon. This is in stark contrast to
other weapons I had the chance to dissect, which all defaulted to
being safe. Even other military weapons such as the AK74 and the
M4A1 are inherently more secure, designed to be locked and safe.
The Mauser K98... not so much.
As an aside, they didn't bother to remove the Reichsadler and
Swastika from the rifle, contending themselves with striking out
the German registration number and stamping the rifle with a
Norwegian one. I guess Norwegians don't really "care" about these
signs as much as we Germans do. In a way, that's a good thing I
guess, at least as long as it's an indication of indifference
towards the sign, not one of forgetting or ignoring the underlying
issues.
Still, I was very glad to have rented the rifle. While Ilona
tended to stay in the running car with heat and lights on, I went
out and away from the car. Even when standing near a street, a
medium snow storm will make you appreciate the four powerful
arguments against being eaten by a random bear which are at the
ready over your shoulder.
We even went to the
shooting
range so I could get some practice. The procedure is very
trusting, as is anything in Longyearbyen. After accessing the
interior of one of the houses in a particular way which I won't
specify here, you simply switch on the floodlights, put up the red
flag, position a target and write your name into the guest book.
Once you're done shooting, toss a few coins into the bowl next to
the guest book, remove the targets and flag, turn off the lights,
close the door and that's that. Unfortunately, the way in was under
a few meters of snow so I couldn't get in any practice shots.
Ice bears, part II
Later, as I was standing on a wind-polished slate of ice taking
pictures of the
Seed
Vault (
located
here), I heard an ice bear roar behind (i.e. to the north of)
me. I consciously remember hearing the bear, I consciously remember
facing the other way around, half-crouched, rifle raised in the
direction of the roar. I also consciously remember smacking the
safety off and chambering a bullet after having regained control of
my body. I do
not remember spinning around on a
wind-polished slate of ice, so treacherous I hand to balance with
my arms and didn't even lift my feet when walking over it, without
losing balance or footing, nor do I remember crouching and raising
the gun. Evolution really
is amazing; no matter what
primal chord that roar struck, it certainly saved a ton of people
over the years. In my case, thankfully, there was no bear to be
seen down the slope. There may be no sun or anything, but the snow
reflects the starlight so you tend to see surprisingly far and as I
was on on the mountainside and the roar came from down from the
coast, and as I had my rifle, I decided to finish the photo session
while keeping the slope in close view. In hindsight, I am still
glad I decided to do that as the shots came out rather nice.
Next day, we drove out to
Mine 12, the farthest you can away from Longyearbyen. The dump
truck transporting coal alternated between driving a full load of
coal back to the city and being its own snowplow. One quick trip to
get coal, one slow and empty trip to plow away snow, rinse, repeat.
If not for that, our 4WD would never have made it all the way up to
the mine. Neither snow storms in North America nor around the Alps
prepared me for what people on Longyearbyen consider normal wind in
their backyard. This is where the word wind-swept was invented. The
main reason that Svalbard is inhabited at all, other than the Gulf
Stream, is coal. We have been told that the coal up there is of
extremely high quality and while I can't say much about that, I can
say that it's hard as stone. This is nice as it does not smear when
you get coal all over yourself. Just shake out your jacket and
pants and you are good as new.
On our way back, we met two locals who had just prepared the
glacier and ice caves for tourists. Had I known that in advance, I
would have tried to go with them to take pictures completely away
from all artificial light. Oh well, can't have everything.
Speaking of not being able to have everything, the outdoor hot
tub in our hotel which integrated ice bar and BBQ grill was still
under several meters of snow so we couldn't use that, either.
Finally, the few divers who are in Longyearbyen didn't have time
to take me onto a trip while I was there. As I already missed my
opportunity to dive the Arctic circle when the one diver on
Gr msey
happened to be on the mainland and barely missing it by diving
Str tan
instead, this was kind of a bummer. On the plus side, this has
given me a goal to pursue and achieve.
Random notes
For the rest of my notes, I will resort to a largely unsorted
list of bullet points as there's just too much to talk about in
prose.
- There are a lot of things in Norway that are similar to the
Iceland (where we spent our honeymoon over June, experiencing
permanent sunshine)
- Norway uses Torx screws everywhere and
for everything. This makes sense and I can't understand why Germany
is lagging behind so severely.
- There is free coffee everywhere.
- The coffee is horrible.
- Roads are built onto an artificial ridge, increasing wind
speed. This ensures that sand, snow, and debris are always swept
off the road and can't pile up too much.
- As easy as it is to lose track of time when the sun is always
up (in Iceland, we come down from a mountain after an extended walk
at 01:30 in the morning and never realizing how late it was until
we wanted to drive a few more kilometers), it's just as easy to
lose track of time when it's always dark. We went for a "short"
walk to take a few pictures and, on coming back to the hotel,
realized that it had taken us seven hours.
- You start to realize where sagas, trolls, little people and
other folklore is coming from when exposed to raw nature.
Especially once vision becomes bad and you see shadows dance in the
snow (and sand, in Iceland's case) storm.
- The concept of Common Land is
pervasive. Just walk anywhere, no one cares.
- No one has ever heard of OpenStreetMap, which is weird as
people up there rely on GPS a lot.
- Locals tend to keep all lights on 24/7. I guess that's
understandable.
- There is an eerie shine all over the land as the snow reflects
and re-reflects the little light given off by the moon and
stars.
- Almost all houses are built from wood. Drift-wood in the early
days, imported wood today. The few concrete cause massive problems
when the cold makes their floors and walls crack. Also, concrete is
very hard to heat when it's sitting right on the perma-frost.
- Houses are not built on the ground, but on stilts. Drill a few
holes into the ground, put long trunks into them, wait a few months
for the perma-frost to freeze them into place and build your house
on that. This insulates your house and gives you storage space
below. Simple and efficient.
- Winter is so cold that people in Longyearbyen are forced to
build water, sewage, and electricity infrastructure over ground, on
stilts, and put in active heating. Else, it would burst or
rupture.
- Our hotel had the taps running 24/7 as they already had a pipe
burst a week before we arrived.
- The air is incredibly dry even though Longyearbyen is a coastal
city. This is great as snow does not stick to anything, including
clothes and camera lenses during long exposures against the wall in
a snowstorm. Not so much when you suddenly realize that this means
all rocks will be loose, scraping your shin open quite
thoroughly.
- It's very hard to judge distances in permanent darkness; you
will usually underestimate distances by a lot.
- This also means that you should not trust people when they tell
you that Mine 2 is "not far away".
- Ice bear danger is real.
- Locals will not tell you about hiking trails unless you assure
them that you are armed.
- Snow storms are amazing, impressive, and frightening. They will
also make distances appear a lot farther, all of a
sudden.
- While Longyearbyen does not have any sales or alcohol taxes and
alcohol is still more expensive than in Germany.
- Stating that you won't drink before the sun goes down is a neat
trick.
- Coldness and dryness mean your lips will burst open within
seconds after holding a flashlight in your mouth as I usually do.
As it's dark all the time, I tended to do that a lot. I learned
quickly not to, though.
- I saw an arctic fox run through Longyearbyen, we saw two
reindeer and we saw what we think are ice bear tracks behind our
hotel.
- Timing your travel to catch the Quadrantids is
useless when there are several independently moving layers of
clouds for a full week.
- The Aurora
Borealisis an elusive thing. We have a few long exposures with
it showing, but we didn't see anything with our bare eyes.
- The few minutes when we saw stars, meteors, the moon, Jupiter,
and Venus all at once were worth it and more.
- Survival is no joke up there. They keep a coal mine running
just to power their local plant.
- That plant has its own storage facility for coal in case the
mine shuts down.
- There are several independent "fire houses" that can provide
energy and heat in case the power plant shuts down.
- The seed vault is somewhat boring on the outside, but it's one
of the most important sites on Earth and visiting it was nice.
All in all, it was well worth it.
PS: If you know anyone working with Google Maps, ask them to
consider improving their coverage of the Arctic.
This is a real pity. As is the rest of the Arctic and the fact
that Google Earth cheats you out of the North and South Pole by
stretching adjacent tiles into and over them.