The High Arctic 2009

The time had arrived for us to do something very different indeed as we boarded the Boeing 737 for our flight out of Tromso Norway, heading further north and to the west to Spitsbergen, the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago north of Norway.

Flight from Tromso, Norway to Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen Island

Flying across Svalbard

Longyearbyen is the only town in the archipelago and is the northernmost city in the world and was founded in 1906 when it was established for mining by an American.

Longyearbyen and mining gantries

There are about 2,000 residents in the city and it is very novel due to its location.  

For example, the mines still operate with gantries built throughout the city transporting buckets full of coal to the port.

We stayed in a very nice hotel and within the city are some very good restaurants to enjoy.  If you leave the city limits, by law you are meant to carry a firearm because of the risk of being attacked by any of the 3,000 polar bears on the island.

We were here for 2 nights to do a little sightseeing around the town, including going on 'sled' ride around the outskirts, the sled having wheels because of the lack of snow, but still pulled by a team of huskies.

The primary reason however for being here was to board the ice-hardened Russian expedition ship called the Akademik Ioffe, one of 2 sister ships allegedly used for sending and receiving sonar signals whilst searching for US nuclear submarines.

Akademik Ioffe - 'home' for 12 days of expedition cruise

We boarded the ship, along with about 65 other passenger, almost half the normal number due to the impact of the GFC and met the guides who would be looking after us for 12 days of expedition cruising.

Our route over the next 12 days as shown in the map involved exploring around the coast of the archipelago, including sailing above 80 degrees latitude or 885kms from Nth Pole, before turning west to Greenland for more exploring and then sailing south to finish in Iceland.

Expedition cruise route

Cruising the Spitsbergen coastline 

Each guide is a specialist in something, for example - photography, marine biology, geology and history.  

Some were professors and some highly acclaimed professionals who all simply enjoy being in the Arctic.

Expedition cruising means literally exploring places which take the guides interest by poking the ship into bays before boarding rubber zodiacs to explore whatever was nearby.

Remember though, we were on an ice hardened ship for a reason... ice, lots of it either in the form of sea ice as we cruised almost anywhere this far north, ice near the shore when undertaking landings on land by zodiac and of course... icebergs.

Our ship nudging its way through sea ice

Our main reason for being on this trip was to experience something totally different, which it surely was, to see the ice and icebergs and wildlife, especially polar bears.

Our expedition journey was a resounding success as hopefully the following few pictures attest to as should some additional photos in the link at the end of this post.

Watching a young polar bear searching for eggs

Walrus less than 5m from the zodiac

Cruising amongst the icebergs

Humpback whale joining us next to the ship

Polar bears are big... very big

Arriving on the coast of Greenland included a visit to a community who had not seen a ship for 18 months, and it was great to talk to the locals about their way of life.  

"Have you noticed climate impacts at all?" I asked a 80 yr old matriarch.  

"Sure, plenty, its much easier to dig graves now, the permafrost is lower" came her reply.

These Inuit people are allowed to hunt for a specific number of polar bear each year as they have done for centuries and everything is used in some way as a part of their culture.

Its a tough environment to live in and extremely remote but the country and scenery is serene, quiet and spectacular.

Truly remote living

Outside frozen loo with a view

The final leg of our expedition involved 2 days sailing south to the island of Iceland, more of which will be described in the next post.

If you would like to see a few more photos of our travels in the high Arctic, simply click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos of High Arctic 2009

Until next time.... go well!