Coal is still mined at Mine 7 in Advent­da­len, near Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Mine 7 is the last Nor­we­gi­an coal mine in Sval­bard still in ope­ra­ti­on.

But not for much lon­ger: the mine is due to clo­se this sum­mer, with pro­duc­tion due to cea­se towards the end of June.

Many in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are not hap­py about this, and wha­te­ver one’s views on coal mining in gene­ral, the­re is no doubt that the loss of seve­ral dozen well-paid indus­tri­al jobs is signi­fi­cant for a town of around 2500 inha­bi­tants. Various sup­pli­ers are also expec­ting a loss of busi­ness.

Sur­face instal­la­ti­ons of mine 7.

The “news” has now rea­ched the poli­ti­cal are­na in Oslo. Even Emi­lie Enger Mehl, who as Minis­ter of Jus­ti­ce and and such respon­si­ble for Norway’s Sval­bard poli­cy play­ed a decisi­ve role in the decis­i­on to clo­se Mine 7, has now spo­ken out accor­din­gly, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten. The only pro­blem is that Mehl is no lon­ger a minis­ter. The loss of office obvious­ly led to a chan­ge of opi­ni­on in Mehl’s case.

The end of mine 7 is not just a poli­ti­cal issue, howe­ver: the coal reser­ves will soon be exhaus­ted and the mine would not be able to ope­ra­te for much lon­ger. If Nor­way wants to con­ti­nue coal mining in Sval­bard, a com­ple­te­ly new mine would have to be deve­lo­ped, which would also mean exten­ding the road into so far untouch­ed are­as. Years ago, coal depo­sits were explo­red on the moun­tain Bas­sen on the north side of Advent­da­len (Bas­sen is part of Ope­raf­jel­let) with the idea of deve­lo­ping “Mine 8” the­re.

The moun­tain Bas­sen in Ope­raf­jel­let was once inten­ded to beco­me “Mine 8”.

Howe­ver, this never mate­ria­li­sed and it seems poli­ti­cal­ly unli­kely that it will ever hap­pen. And so Nor­we­gi­an coal mining in Spits­ber­gen will pro­ba­b­ly be histo­ry by the end of this sum­mer.

A win­dy ride Satur­day after­noon in Advent­da­len.

Wea­ther is always good, you always have some. Lon­gye­ar­by­en often has a lot of it, and the last few days have been no excep­ti­on. During the night from Thurs­day to Fri­day, the­re was a seve­re storm over parts of Spits­ber­gen, which cau­sed con­sidera­ble dama­ge to the tem­po­ra­ry faci­li­ties in the field.

On Satur­day evening, the flight from Oslo to Lon­gye­ar­by­en was can­cel­led, and the night was so stor­my that it was dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble to get from A to B, even within the town. Ava­lan­che-expo­sed are­as were clo­sed by the Sys­sel­mes­ter.

Sun­day mor­ning in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Under such con­di­ti­ons it is bet­ter to work on new edi­ti­ons of books and other pro­jects. The­re are curr­ent­ly visi­ble results in the ‘This page should be more beau­tiful’ sec­tion: Seve­ral pages have been enhan­ced with maps, pho­to gal­le­ries and pos­si­bly text. It’s worth taking a vir­tu­al look at the pla­ne wreck at Kapp Bor­then (the pla­ne from the war), Svens­khu­set at Kapp Thord­sen (the ‘ghost house’) or the old trapper’s hut on Lågøya. Enjoy!

As always I love to work on this web­site, making new pages or making old ones bet­ter. Today I have got three new ones:

The ‘old hos­pi­tal stair­ca­se’ in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Not far away, but an inte­gral part of Longyearbyen’s annu­al cul­tu­ral calen­dar.

Far away and dif­fi­cult to reach are Depotod­den with the Oxford House in Bren­ne­vins­fjord and the small Jäder­in­fjord in Lady Fran­k­lin­fjord, both on Nord­aus­t­land.

The Oxford House at Depotod­den in Bren­ne­vins­fjord has a beau­tiful page of its own.

All three sites are worth a litt­le digi­tal visit – have fun and enjoy the weekend!

A week in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, part 1: The sun fes­ti­val

It’s alre­a­dy been a week. On the 8th of March, peo­p­le gather at the stairs of the old hos­pi­tal, clo­se to Sval­bard church, as the first rays of sun­light reach Lon­gye­ar­by­en – for the first time sin­ce the begin­ning of Octo­ber! Of cour­se the­re are pro­per cele­bra­ti­ons. A bit more about that and more pic­tures can also be found on the new page about the loca­ti­on of the event, the old hos­pi­tal stair­ca­se.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Last Mon­day (24 Febru­ary) the­re was an encoun­ter bet­ween a polar bear and a group of tou­rists near Fred­heim in Tem­pel­fjord. Details have now emer­ged in an artic­le in Sval­bard­pos­ten, making it clear that the inci­dent was dra­ma­tic and that it was only by luck that no one was inju­red and the polar bear was not.

Fred­heim two days after the dan­ge­rous encoun­ter.

The group had been on a day trip by snow­mo­bi­le from Lon­gye­ar­by­en and had rea­ched Fred­heim and were pre­pa­ring to stop for a meal. Accor­ding to one of the French tou­rists invol­ved, the polar bear sud­den­ly appeared within two or three met­res of the group.

The details of what hap­pen­ed next are not public know­ledge, but accor­ding to wit­nesses, one woman fell as she ran away, and short­ly after­wards the bear had rea­ched her and was stan­ding with one paw on her back. Howe­ver, it is said that the bear was not aggres­si­ve and did not try to attack the woman or anyo­ne else. Accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten, French­man Antoine Ter­ro­n­es descri­bed the polar bear’s beha­viour as fol­lows: “I did not per­cei­ve it as an attack, it was not as if the bear was hun­gry and deter­mi­ned. It see­med rela­xed, rai­sed its head as if it was snif­fing, and wal­ked slow­ly towards us.”

But then the bear picked up speed and star­ted fol­lo­wing the woman, who was soon on the ground with a bear’s paw on her back.

At this point, the gui­des fired with signal pis­tols and rif­les to sca­re the bear away, which was suc­cessful. One gui­de was said to have been rea­dy with a rif­le to shoot the bear, but befo­re that point came, the ani­mal was dri­ven away by a shot from a signal pis­tol. The bear then moved away from the group as more shots were fired.

The­re was ano­ther group of tou­rists near­by and their gui­des had pre­pared with signal pis­tols and rif­les.

The who­le inci­dent hap­pen­ed in a mat­ter of moments.

As soon as the imme­dia­te dan­ger had pas­sed, the group retur­ned to Lon­gye­ar­by­en and infor­med the Sys­sel­mes­ter. All tho­se direct­ly invol­ved then met with a cri­sis team to deal with the shock. Accor­ding to eye­wit­ness Ter­ro­n­es, some of the peo­p­le invol­ved were quite affec­ted by what had hap­pen­ed, and the dis­cus­sions with the cri­sis team were very hel­pful in deal­ing with the situa­ti­on.

Fred­heim with polar bear (the pho­to was taken years ago).

The use of a cri­sis team after a polar bear encoun­ter whe­re the­re were no inju­ries or worse to humans or ani­mals is unu­su­al and alre­a­dy sug­gested that the inci­dent was dra­ma­tic.

Unfort­u­na­te­ly, not enough is known about the exact cour­se of events to real­ly under­stand what hap­pen­ed and how the polar bear was able to get so clo­se to the group unno­ti­ced. Accor­ding to eye­wit­nesses, one of the gui­des had gone out to check the area for polar bears. In gene­ral, the beha­viour of ever­yo­ne invol­ved in the inci­dent was prai­sed and descri­bed as impec­ca­ble, accor­ding to others who have recei­ved first-hand reports just minu­tes befo­re the inci­dent. Sval­bard­pos­ten quo­tes French­man Ter­ro­n­es as say­ing: “When the bear came, the gui­des reac­ted quick­ly and cor­rect­ly. I think they saved our lives. I have not­hing nega­ti­ve to say about their reac­tion. They did ever­y­thing they could in a dif­fi­cult situa­ti­on.”

The bear can actual­ly be seen in a pho­to­graph taken befo­re it appeared, alt­hough it was not dis­co­ver­ed until later. When the pho­to was taken, the bear was on the shore of Tem­pel­fjord, about two or three kilo­me­t­res nor­the­ast of Fred­heim.

Com­men­ta­ry

So much for the infor­ma­ti­on actual­ly known in public. Bey­ond that, it would be inte­res­t­ing to know exact­ly how many peo­p­le were the­re in total, how many gui­des were the­re and, most important­ly, whe­re exact­ly the peo­p­le invol­ved were at the time in ques­ti­on. To be clear, this is not about poin­ting fin­gers, it is about try­ing to under­stand how a polar bear could get within a few met­res of a group of peo­p­le unno­ti­ced. But wit­hout real­ly accu­ra­te infor­ma­ti­on, we can only spe­cu­la­te.

Spe­cu­la­ti­on is never good, but not thin­king at all is even worse. So here is a bit of spe­cu­la­ti­on.

We know that the bear was on the shore north-east of Fred­heim befo­re the inci­dent. We also know that the group in ques­ti­on were pre­pa­ring their lunch at the Fred­heim huts when the bear sud­den­ly appeared next to them.

The Fred­heim huts are situa­ted on a ter­race a few met­res hig­her than the near­by shore. The slo­pe lea­ding down from the ter­race to the shore can only be seen if you are stan­ding clo­se to it; if you stand a litt­le fur­ther away, the­re is a blind spot. It is reasonable to assu­me that the bear was wal­king in this area when it approa­ched unno­ti­ced. This is also an obvious assump­ti­on as this is exact­ly the rou­te along the shore that bears often take.

Over­view pic­tu­re of Fred­heim and sur­roun­ding area with pos­si­ble posi­ti­ons to illus­tra­te the assu­med sequence of events. The bear was appro­xi­m­ate­ly at posi­ti­on 1 when it was pho­to­gra­phed but not seen (it was only dis­co­ver­ed later in the pho­to). If the bear was fol­lo­wing appro­xi­m­ate­ly the dot­ted rou­te, this could explain why it was not seen when – if – the group was at posi­ti­on 3. All posi­ti­ons are assu­med, espe­ci­al­ly posi­ti­on 3 is only assu­med based on the exis­ting descrip­ti­on and know­ledge of the ter­rain and the usu­al (but not the con­cre­te) pro­ce­du­res on site.

Assum­ing that this was the case (which is not a cer­tain­ty), the important takea­way would be to bear in mind that safe­ty always depends on the are­as of ter­rain that you can not see. It is not enough that the­re are no bears whe­re you can see them if they were the­re. The ques­ti­on is what is the­re whe­re the ter­rain obscu­res the view.

Con­stant vigi­lan­ce and ‘what-if’ thin­king, espe­ci­al­ly in rela­ti­on to are­as of ter­rain that can­not be seen, are and will remain key aspects of stay­ing as safe as pos­si­ble in polar bear coun­try.

The fact that the polar bear was visi­ble in a pho­to­graph taken pri­or to the inci­dent, but was not reco­g­nis­ed, is a point that may give pau­se to tho­se invol­ved.

The­se points should be taken into con­side­ra­ti­on, espe­ci­al­ly if you are one of tho­se respon­si­ble for others in the Arc­tic. But not only that, becau­se it is always the atten­ti­on of all tho­se pre­sent that can, should and must con­tri­bu­te to avo­i­ding dan­ge­rous situa­tions.

One final com­ment: If it were the case – and this is the impres­si­on given by the descrip­ti­ons available – that a woman was lying on the ground, the polar bear was stan­ding right next to her or even more or less on top of her, and a gui­de was stan­ding a few met­res away with a rif­le, rea­dy to shoot to kill, but did not do so, for exam­p­le in order not to end­an­ger peo­p­le in the con­fu­sed situa­ti­on with shots and/or to pro­tect the polar bear, as long as shoo­ting was not abso­lut­e­ly neces­sa­ry: hats off, you have to have the ner­ves to act like that!

For deca­des, most con­su­mers in Lon­gye­ar­by­en have pro­ba­b­ly not given much thought to their drin­king water. After all, it is drin­king water from the sur­roun­ding arc­tic natu­re, so sure­ly it should be clean? Even after inter­me­dia­te sto­rage in the arti­fi­ci­al lake Isdam­men in Advent­da­len or – depen­ding on the sea­son – in a drin­king water reser­voir on the out­skirts of Gru­ve­da­len. Of cour­se, the­re is also fil­te­ring and moni­to­ring.

The drin­king water lake ‘Isdam­men’ in Advent­da­len.

But the care­free tran­quil­li­ty around drin­king water has been over for a few months now: Legio­nella bac­te­ria have been detec­ted in drin­king water samples from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. This is initi­al­ly no reason to panic, as tap water that is com­ple­te­ly free of legio­nella is rather rare world­wi­de. It depends on the exact type of germ and its num­ber. Many Legio­nella types are harm­less to humans, and bac­te­ri­al counts below the per­mit­ted limits are almost always pre­sent, espe­ci­al­ly in older pipe net­works such as in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Howe­ver, due to the rather dribb­ling com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on stra­tegy of the local aut­ho­ri­ty (Lon­gye­ar­by­en Lokals­ty­re), the issue did beco­me, well, an issue. It was a bit like ‘we have legio­nella in our drin­king water, but don’t worry, ever­y­thing is fine’. More pre­cise details on the type and bac­te­ri­al count were not made public; accor­ding to offi­ci­al infor­ma­ti­on, the water was (and is, with one caveat, see below) still drinkable and safe for human health.

At the end of Febru­ary, Lokals­ty­re orga­nis­ed a resi­dents’ mee­ting to pro­vi­de infor­ma­ti­on on the cur­rent situa­ti­on regar­ding drin­king water (legio­nella and man­gane­se, see below), and the­re are now a num­ber of announce­ments and press releases on the Lokals­ty­re web­site as well as artic­les and let­ters to the edi­tor in the Sval­bard­pos­ten.

No health pro­blems due to Legio­nella are said to have occur­red so far. The­se could occur pri­ma­ri­ly by inha­ling germ-con­ta­mi­na­ted very small water dro­p­lets (aero­so­le) in the air, for exam­p­le when showe­ring. A poten­ti­al risk is said to exist abo­ve all for risk groups such as older or immu­n­o­com­pro­mi­sed peo­p­le.

Legio­nella noti­ce at the drin­king water tap in Lon­gye­ar­by­en har­bour.

A source for the germ could not be loca­li­sed; it is likely that lar­ge parts of the old pipe net­work and the bio­films con­tai­ned the­r­ein are the dif­fu­se source. The levels (bac­te­ri­al counts) were tem­po­r­a­ri­ly redu­ced by adding chlo­ri­ne and the pipes were flus­hed seve­ral times in sec­tions, but neither is a defi­ni­ti­ve solu­ti­on, at least not in the sen­se that Legio­nella will dis­ap­pear in the long term. At times, con­su­mers were advi­sed to take pre­cau­tio­na­ry mea­su­res, such as showe­ring wit­hout a show­er head to avo­id ato­mi­sing the water into fine dro­p­lets that could be inha­led. Sval­bard­hal­len (swim­ming and sports hall) was also clo­sed at times. All in all, the­re was quite a lot of fuss about a pro­blem that was actual­ly harm­less accor­ding to offi­ci­al infor­ma­ti­on, which led to a cer­tain amount of con­cern in town.

It will pro­ba­b­ly come down to the fact that chlo­ri­ne will have to be added to the drin­king water again and again in the long term in order to keep the bac­te­ri­al load within accep­ta­ble limits. The side effect is that the drin­king water tas­tes of chlo­ri­ne, just like in a swim­ming pool. It looks like you have to get used to it. The­re are also small, house­hold water fil­ters based on acti­va­ted car­bon that help the water regain its fresh fla­vour. Others have been buy­ing bot­t­led water from the Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken super­mar­ket for some time. The lar­ge (five lit­re) bot­t­les are now ratio­ned the­re: only three bot­t­les are sold per house­hold per day so that the­re is enough for ever­yo­ne.

Water bot­t­les in Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken.

But the­re is ano­ther pro­blem: man­gane­se, a metal (che­mi­cal­ly more pre­cise: tran­si­ti­on metal) that occurs fre­quent­ly in natu­re, inclu­ding in the sedi­men­ta­ry rocks around Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Man­gane­se is also pre­sent in pret­ty much every sip of drin­king water world­wi­de, but as always, the quan­ti­ty is the point.

The Nor­we­gi­an Health Aut­ho­ri­ty (FHI, Fol­ke­hels­e­insti­tutt), which was con­sul­ted, has now con­cluded that the man­gane­se levels in the drin­king water have been too high sin­ce Sep­tem­ber 2024 to sup­p­ly infants (0-12 months) with it. Affec­ted fami­lies can get free bot­t­led water at Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken. For ever­yo­ne else, howe­ver, the­re should be no health risk asso­cia­ted with the con­sump­ti­on of tap water; health-rele­vant expo­sure should only occur at hig­her con­cen­tra­ti­ons over lon­ger peri­ods of time (10 years and more). Acu­te poi­so­ning is only theo­re­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble at extre­me­ly high con­cen­tra­ti­ons.

This is the offi­ci­al posi­ti­on. For adults (ever­y­bo­dy older than 12 months 😄), the fol­lo­wing the­r­e­fo­re still appli­es: rai­se your glas­ses and che­ers, it just some­ti­mes doesn’t tas­te quite fresh, but it doesn’t mat­ter.

I would like to express­ly point out that I am not an expert on drin­king water and Legio­nella and man­gane­se in it; I am sum­ma­ri­sing offi­ci­al reports to the best of my know­ledge, but not my own assess­ment or opi­ni­on.