Old hospital staircase

Why should you be inte­res­ted in the old stair­ca­se of a hos­pi­tal that no lon­ger exists?

The old hos­pi­tal stair­ca­se (“Gam­le syke­hus­trap­pa”) on 8 March,
short­ly befo­re the start of events.

Quite sim­ply becau­se it’s a very important cul­tu­ral site in Lon­gye­ar­by­en 🙂 Of cour­se, it’s not about the old hos­pi­tal its­elf, which was built on this site in 1916, very clo­se to Sval­bard church, and demo­lished in 1978 (it was one of the few buil­dings in Lon­gye­ar­by­en to sur­vi­ve the Ger­man attack in 1943).

The point is that this is exact­ly whe­re the first rays of sun­light will reach Lon­gye­ar­by­en again on 8 March. After seve­ral months wit­hout suns­hi­ne, this is of cour­se a reason to cele­bra­te, and this is done for a who­le week with various cul­tu­ral events: the “sol­fest­u­ke” (sun fes­ti­val week). The high­light is the actu­al Sun Fes­ti­val (Sol­fest) on 8 March.

The Sun Fes­ti­val week tra­di­tio­nal­ly beg­ins with the very popu­lar Sun Fes­ti­val Revue.
But you will only enjoy it if you know what has been going on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en over the past 12 months, and if you under­stand Nor­we­gi­an.

At 12 noon, half of Longyearbyen’s popu­la­ti­on gathers on the steps of the old hos­pi­tal, and with spee­ches and songs, in which espe­ci­al­ly the youn­ger child­ren of Lon­gye­ar­by­en are audi­bly invol­ved, the sun is chee­red on until it appears a litt­le later in the south over the moun­ta­ins – wea­ther per­mit­ting, of cour­se. A few minu­tes later it’s gone again, but it’s ama­zing how quick­ly the days get lon­ger and soon you can enjoy the sun again at mid­day in other parts of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The moment when the sun comes out from behind the moun­ta­ins on 8 March is always a gre­at moment! It is gree­ted with sin­ging and chee­ring.

In the lower parts of the town clo­se to the fjord, such as IGP and SSU (the equip­ment shops on the shore near Advent­da­len), you can catch a few rays a few days ear­lier. But this area didn’t exist when the tra­di­ti­on began, so the return of the sun is cele­bra­ted on 8 March.

An open-air church ser­vice is also part of the tra­di­tio­nal Sun Fes­ti­val week pro­gram­me.

And if you want to, you can hike up the Troll­stei­nen, a moun­tain south of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, at the end of Febru­ary and see the sun the­re at mid­day.

When the hos­pi­tal was demo­lished in 1978, the stair­ca­se dis­ap­peared with it, but it was later dis­co­ver­ed that this place was so important to the peo­p­le of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, who cele­bra­te the return of the sun, that a new ‘old hos­pi­tal stair­ca­se’ was built the­re in 1992.

Here are two views of the old hos­pi­tal stair­ca­se in pan­o­r­amic mode …

… taken on 13 March, five days after the sun first appeared the­re.

And a small coll­ec­tion of pho­tos from the sun fes­ti­val, the main event on 8 March on the stairs of the old hos­pi­tal, and some of the asso­cia­ted events.

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

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