Arctic Antics
... and the words no one wants to hear: "Real Feel -33C" !
Saturday morning and the UK is in the grip of an arctic cold snap. Well that’s what the weather forecast says. I’m about to experience the real thing so we shall see…
In a somewhat inauspicious start, it is in fact too cold to get into the car. The door is frozen shut and I don’t have any de-icer. Spaying warm water doesn’t help as it just instantly freezes. Eventually I resort to filling a spray bottle with antifreeze and trying this. After a fair amount of jiggery pokery I finally manage to get the passenger door open, allowing me to get in and start the engine to get the car heating up. I can’t help thinking that if -7C is this problematic, am I prepared for the arctic circle??
Regardless, a short while later I hit the road to pick up Ethan and head down to Luton airport.
Not surprisingly, weather turns out to be a bit of a theme on the trip. Approaching Tromso, the pilot informs us that he has been instructed to slow his descent as they need to get the snow plough out to clear the runway before we can land. This does not instantly fill me with confidence but by the end of the trip, I very much have a renewed appreciation for the skills of pilots who fly in these conditions. There is not a single UK airport that would stay open in these conditions and yet flights in and out of Tromso and Svalbard involved some of the smoothest take-offs and landings I have experienced - albeit with some of the maddest acceleration/deceleration. Kudos to the flight crews though - they know what they are about!
Our initial stopover in Tromso doesn’t really give us time to explore, but time enough to experience the surprising range of veggie options at the Burger King next to the hotel and and get our first experience of shocking prices in the hotel bar.
Morning and we are back to the airport for the second leg of the journey to Longyearbyen. There is a major de-icing operation before we are able to take off, which rather puts my car efforts to shame.
There is some slight daylight appearing in Tromso by the time that we take off, but this gradually fades away as we fly north and it is clear that we will not be seeing this again for a few days.
When we arrive in Svalbard the temperature is a brisk -20C. It is quite windy too and Accuweather has the “Feels Like” temperature at -33C. I’m not sure I even understand what -33C feels like or how the feel of this compares with -20C but I guess I will find out. Amusingly, Accuweather classifies anything below -31C as “Dangerously cold”. According to the help, this means that any exposed skin is liable to frostbite within 2 minutes. Probably be keeping those layers on then.
Longyearbyen is a bizarrely civilised and well provisioned place considering where it is located, with a number of very pleasant bars and restaurants (including some very high end ones) and a huge supermarket. I think it’s main focus is the tourist trade these days, but the roots are in whaling and coalmining and it is now home to a university for arctic studies.
First things first though, we need to take on some sustenance in the hotel bar (highly recommended plant based sandwich, which is basically a mushroom burger, and more eye-wateringly expensive beer).
Suitably refreshed, we suit up and venture out to explore - or at least have a wander up and down the main street of shops and restaurants. It actually doesn’t feel too bad but I suspect our forays will be brief. Weirdly, there seemed to be a Loch Ness monster in the park and a strange pyramid behind the town (I suspect that this would be far less mysterious in daylight and without the snow).
I have discovered that the Night Sight setting on the camera on the Pixel is like some military grade night vision goggles. All well and good for getting pictures in the dark, but this gives me a dilemma in that I am not capturing the true essence of what I am seeing. I imagine I will get over it.
The local Coop supermarket is huge and very well provisioned, but something tells me that they perhaps have some antsy customers…
I keep making quick forays outside into the wee small hours of the morning (although time quickly starts to lose meaning here), whenever the aurora alert app suggests that there might be a chance, in the hope that the sky will clear and reveal a glorious display. Bugger all chance of that.
The next day we spend some time pottering around the museum in awe of the stories of the early “settlers”. I think that the original settling was more of a shipwrecking and surviving through the winter, but sounds as though the folk who decided to stay were pretty hardcore. Svalbard went through various iterations of national ownership before it was made a sovereign territory of Norway but with all signatories to the Svalbard Treaty having equal right to engage in commercial (but not military) activities here. This means that to this day you do not need a visa to visit and pretty much anyone can move here. Hard to believe it is not overflowing! Largely speaking it is Norwegians and Russians who have settled here. There were also quite a number of Ukrainians but, not surprisingly, most of those left the Russian “mining” town when the war started.
Temperature today is also a much milder -15 feels like -24. #EasyMode
In the evening, we are booked on a snow cat to head out of town in search of the northern lights. Just as well that we hadn’t booked the snow mobile tour as Ethan has been hit by some virus and I and too cowardly to add additional wind chill by zipping around at speed and in the dark. I think this was the right choice as when we did head out of town, the coldness reached a whole new level. The wind wasn’t as strong that day, but I guess there is something about being out on an exposed snow field. The guide had made it clear that we were unlikely to see any aurora and offered everyone the chance to bail and get their money back, but everyone seemed quite up for it.
It’s a fascinating trip and the guide is very good. The first time we got out of the snow cat, he was pointing out the isolated cabins dotted around the valley. Apparently a number of people find the urban bustle of Longyearbyen (pop. 2500) somewhat oppressive and live out here for a bit of peace.
The second stop is to take a look at some reindeer. Apparently they tend to just live off fat reserves in the winter (although they will occasionally dig down to plants if they smell that the nutritional value is worth the effort - mad olfactory skillz!) and don’t move more than a few hundred yards a day. So where there are when winter starts is pretty much where they will be for the duration. Our guide is also a hunter and I couldn’t help thinking that this reindeer behaviour didn’t really present a sporting challenge (although I am of course too polite to mention this). It may well also explain why they feature so heavily on local restaurant menus (along with whale carpaccio and smoked seal).
Given that there is no chance to see the northern lights, we are then taken to a nice cosy cabin (or at least it was cosy after the fire got going) for a warm drink and a Q&A). By this point, my feet had turned to ice from too much trudging through snow and I had foolishly taken a a glove off to try and work my phone better (that’s a mistake you only make once!), so I was in need of some warming.
Most of the questions were about polar bears of course. I now know that most of these live on the other side of the island but that they get about one a year approaching Longyearbyen. At that point every gets and alert and the police head out to try and scare it away. If this doesn’t work, they tranq and airlift it away. Although they have been known to make their way back from several hundred miles away. I guess Longyearbyen must smell tasty.
It turns out that, unlike other bears, polar bears don’t attack because they have been disturbed. If they attack it is because they fully intend to eat you. Apparently they never stop eating if food is available and they have been known to get to about 1.5 tons. Imagine that running at you at 40 mph!
Anyway, clearly bear control is a more serious business here. No pepper spray for the isbjorn, polar bear handling is basically to first try to scare them off with a flare gun (essentially a flash bang grenade). If this doesn’t scare them - or if you have the misfortune/incompetence to fire it over the bear so that it explodes behind and scares them toward you - the rule is to shoot and not stop shooting until the bear is definitely dead. This is definitely frontier territory!
A few more photo shots before heading back to town…
The next day, Ethan is too poorly to venture out so I just make a supermarket run and then we spend the day grazing, although we did make use of the hotel sauna and hot tub. Now I like a good sauna but am not a huge fan of hot tubs. This one had to be tried though as it was exposed to the elements (temperature had dropped again at this point). Much as it is probably healthy and is certainly an experience to throw off a robe and go padding through the snow to a hot tub in artic temperatures, I feel it is an experience that does not need to be overdone.
Wednesday and time to head back to Tromso. After checking out, we loiter in the hotel bar waiting for the airport shuttle bus. Now everyone I interacted with in Norway was really friendly and helpful, with the possible exception of the airport bus driver. He was quite brusque and I wasn’t convinced that if we weren’t at the bus stop he would wait for us so we rushed to intercept him as the bus turned up. Now I took the long route across the car park whereas Ethan thought he had spotted a short cut before sinking up to his waist in snow. No time to rescue, I would have to go back after making it clear to the bus driver that he had more people to pick up. Turns out that our instincts were correct as some stragglers came running out of the hotel waving their arms and the bus driver casually ignored them. I would have thought that somewhere like Svalbard you would never leave anyone at the side of the road but what do I know? He then treated us to a fine display of road rage, tailgating a snow plough whilst wildly honking his horn before a (what seemed to me not entirely safe) overtaking. Seems like a man not entirely happy in his job. Benefit of the doubt though, that might be any of us after not seeing the sun for several months!
On the flight back to Tromso we were treated to a display of aurora (huzzah!). Not easy to get a decent picture through the plane windows but gave it a go.
Also caught sight of the Svalbard Seed Vault illuminated above the airport on the way out, so double tick there.
A day to kill in Tromso before the final leg of the journey home, so we get the bus into town and have a wander around. Now it was raining in Tromso and this on top of the lying snow made things a little treacherous. I am newly converted to the cult of grit and its glorious properties of grip!
Challenging walking conditions aside, Tromso looks like a nice town and could well bear another visit. We dutifully trudged across the bridge to admire the Arctic Cathedral…
… before heading back to the Troll Museum (well you have to)
To be fair, I also managed to wangle a senior discount (I will be shameless about this everywhere from now on!). When the woman on the desk mentioned that there was a senior rate, I asked what qualified and it turns out that in Norway it is over 65 or if you are retired. Now that is a damn civilised country.
Definitely a country I would like to see more of. As for Svalbard - its a fascinating place and I’m glad I experienced it in the depth of the arctic winter, but if I go back I think it will be in the summer when more of the island is accessible by boat so that you can go out wildlife spotting, visit the Soviet ghost town etc.
Well worth the trip though. I could get used to this retirement malarky.
Tony looks way to happy. UKRI are going to make you the poster boy for EV at this rate.......
That looks like quite an adventure!
If you get chance to use your phone without the risk of digit loss, try the new astro setting, just ensure your are on a tripod or stable surface, it's impressive!