This is the world’s northern-most town and has a population of just 2000 hardy souls. It is located on the west side of the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean half way between the North Pole and mainland Norway (820 miles from North Pole). It took us 38 hours to sail up here from the mainland. Longyearbyen is at 77 degrees north latitude which is 12 degrees above the Arctic Circle. Folks what I am trying to say is, we are way up here in the middle of nowhere!
Originally
established as a “company town” for coal mining operations in 1906, it was
almost completely destroyed by the Germans in 1943 during WWII. Coal is still mined on the island today. Mine #7 is the only mine still operating near
Longyearbyen and it supplies coal for Norway’s only coal fueled power station,
the Longyear Power Station. The Svalbard
Satellite Station was built here because of its excellent location to download
data from satellites in polar orbit. The
Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure underground facility capable of storing
millions of crop seeds to protect against natural and human disasters,
including nuclear holocaust. There is
also some tourism, 2/3rds of which comes from Norway.
The average
summer time temperature is 39 to 43 degrees F.
Summer lasts for two months! The
average temp during winter months is 10 to 3 degrees F. Snow covers the town from late September
through May. From approximately April 19th
to August 23rd there is no sunset here.
So now we can
say that we have visited the northern most and southern most towns in the world
as we were in Ushuaia, Argentina, during our “Circle South America” cruise with
Regent in early 2012.
Sailing into one of the fjords of the island of Spitzbergen.
The town (city) of Longyearbyen.
We arrived
at Svaldbard Island and sailed into the small fjord where the city of
Longyearbyen was nestled early this Saturday morning. It was so peaceful as no one seemed to be
stirring at 8:00 am. The terrain here is
mountainous but probably no higher than 3000 feet. There are glaciers flowing down the mountain
valleys and still snow in the higher elevations. Grey clouds were draped over the mountain
tops this morning with some sun peeking through a few holes which made the snow
kind of glisten. It truly was a
beautiful, panoramic view, making you
reflect on what God has bestowed on this Earth for us to enjoy.
Our tour
for today, “Wilderness Center & City Tour”, departed at 8:30. Our guide was a big, young, rugged-looking,
Norwegian man who spoke great English without much of an accent. Not a super knowledgeable guide but certainly
more than adequate. Although the girls
did not say anything, I’m pretty sure they thought him to be hansom. I had to laugh at the thought that part of
our excursion was a “City Tour” when there are only 2000 people living
here. How long can that take?? Well, the answer was 30 minutes as we stopped
in front of the church for photos and that took 25 of the 30 minutes. Our guide said we could go into the church
but you would have to remove your shoes.
He said shoes were to be removed before entering all the buildings. I’m not sure if he was serious or not. We drove down main street which has one
grocery store and five sporting goods stores.
For my Aussie friend, Peter, I did not see any bars!! The stores, apartments, and houses are
brightly colored (typical of Norway) and very well maintained on the outside,
at least. We did not go inside. Our next stop was at a sign just outside of
the city (there’s only one road and I’m not sure where it went). This stop was for a photo opt in front of a
polar bear sign. Yes, there are polar
bears up here. Our guide said if they
went beyond this sign they carried a rifle in case they would run into a
bear. Last time a polar bear was spotted
in town was in 2011 so pretty safe there.
Back on the
bus for a 300 yard drive back towards town stopping at the wilderness center on
the outskirts of Longyearbyen. Basically
this is where 50 Alaskan huskie dogs were boarded. The owner gave us a very interesting talk
about the huskies. He said he uses
Alaskan huskies as they are not pure bred dogs, and as such, much better for
pulling the sleds. During the summer the
dog teams pull wheeled sleds, mostly tourists, on 3 hour sightseeing trips and
during the winter they pull snow sleds for longer treks.
The dogs are only allowed to breed when his dog count
gets below 50 so no breeding occurred this year. The puppies are not touched by a human until
they have opened their eyes. At 8 months
of age they start to train them for pulling and by 1 year old they are used on
pulling teams. They are usually
“retired” at age 12. If they are still
in good shape they are given away as pets or some have to be put down. These dogs are treated VERY well and love
humans. He said finding a “good” lead
dog is hard to do and the lead dog in my photos was 12 years old and still a
great lead dog. The lead dog has to be
fast, strong, and smart. The dog man
also said on winter treks of several days the dogs provide a long lead time
warning if a polar bear approaches the camp while people are sleeping. Also interesting is that ducks come to the
water near where the dogs are kept to lay eggs because the foxes will not come
anywhere near where the dogs are housed.
Hunting of the ducks is prohibited.
The old codger also told us the polar bears prefer to eat fat (blubber)
seals and not skinny humans. Don’t think
I want to try that theory out however!
After his informative talk we were invited to have some delicious, hot
blackberry tea and a pancake (these pancakes were much better than the Russian
ones). There was also a small room with
nice fire roaring in the center pit. It
was a nice, balmy 48 degrees with no wind when we left the ship but by now it
was feeling colder as the wind had picked up.
As we arrived back at the ship two hours later, it was just beginning to
lightly rain.
After
returning to the ship we all went to the gym and worked out, even Rebecca. She must be getting better! We had our suite steward bring us scales for
the bathroom early on. I’m not exactly
sure why but scales will not weigh accurately unless the ship is stationary in
port. So for the first time since
leaving home I hoped on to see how much damage I had done with all this good
food and drink three times a day for the past 12 days. Hooray!!
Only a pound or two so I am pleased.
As I
mentioned yesterday we had dinner with Joe & Allison last night in Compass
Rose and we enjoyed the special order of French fried soft shell crabs as our
appetizer. Like us, they do a lot of
cruise traveling on all the other luxury cruise lines, not just Regent. We mostly do our luxury cruises on just
Regent but have also done a few Seabourn cruises too. The singer last night was mostly a slap-stick
comedian so the girls walked out of his show.
I stayed as enjoy laughing and smiling.
Tonight’s
agenda includes cocktails in the Horizon Lounge followed by dinner up in Sette
Mari, Italian restaurant, again. We will
then adjourn to the theater for another of the Jean Ann Ryan company’s
production shows, “Dancing to the Hits”.
Wish our friend, John Walters from Durango, was here to sit on the front
row with me to see the lovely female dancers.
Rebecca and I are looking forward to seeing John again as we will be
spending the month of September in Durango again.
No internet
today!! The ship is docked with
mountains on the north and south side of us today. I believe I am correct to say that the ship
uses a satellite that is geo-stationary over the Equator. The signals are line of sight and with the
Earth’s curvature plus the mountains, we have no chance for internet or the
news channels on TV. I am hoping we get
it back later this evening after sailing.
I am typing this on Word and will cut and paste it to the blog posting
for today later, if I can. I will try to
get the writing posted but may not get the photos added until later on. So what I am trying to say is, if you do not
see all my photos (over 40 of them) on this post, then try reading it again in
a day or two.
The
funniest thing happened today at the dog center. We all had returned to the bus before
Jane. Soon after she got on Allison said,
“I smell something bad”. We all smelled
it so I surmised it must be something Jane had stepped in. I ask her to check the bottom of her
shoes. There it was, a BIG mess of
doggie do-do and it really stunk. We
told her to go clean her shoes off and she did.
Moral of the story: Watch where
you’re stepping when around dogs. That
was nasty!!! My new name for Jane is
“Stinky”!
Allison, Rebecca, Jane, & Charlotte on our tour bus.
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