Romanianflyer

Mostly true indeed Fredrik74! Although in the end I easily managed to survive the Svalbard winter weather, I have to say that it felt colder than Siberia. Except from the moment of actually standing on Lake Baikal or along the Angara River where there is just no shelter for the wind, I found the temperatures to be quite easy to deal with in Siberia. I could even take off my gloves to snap some pictures for 5-10 minute sessions at a time. In Svalbard that was much harder, and you really need to take care to dress with an additional layer of clothes.

To compare, while dog sledding and walking around Lake Baikal I had just two or three layers of clothes (pants and thermopants, plus t-shirt, sweater and winter jacket for my upper body). I was extremely happy that while riding on the snow mobile and walking through some remote areas I had an extra layer of the specially designed snow mobile suit which we got as part of the tour to put over my already quite thick winter jacket (which on its own consists out of 2 layers).

Thanks WesternCDN, I will put up more installments over the weekend!

I just checked the airport location of YFB in your profile and wow - does Iqaluit seem remote and great as well! I always thought somehow of Northern Canada to be much more of a "flyover country" (OK - that was solely judged by whatever I saw out of a plane window!), with just lots of water, endless forests and not many special other features. Reading more about it now and seeing some pictures such as for example Auyuittug NP it does however look absolutely spectacular too. I'm sure there should be plenty more out there that should be amazing to see given it is such a vast territory?

Indeed DanielW! When it comes to Scandinavia I either prefer the height of summer or deep winter to visit, while for pretty much the entire rest of Europe I would actually go out of my way to make sure I won't visit in those two seasons due to dreadful weather or being too hot and most of all too massively overcrowded. But even though I love Scandinavia in its usually nice summer weather (except for the volatile Norwegian coastal weather) it all just looks even a wee bit more picturesque and peaceful with some winter snow.

Thanks Hezu I actually didn't know that! I can only imagine how high the costs must be, especially when importing more luxury goods. I got a couple of beers in town from Svalbard Bryggeri (the northernmost brewery in the world if I'm not mistaken - they make some good brews!) and I can only imagine how high the costs are for some imports. To put into perspective, I know some Romanian craft beer brewers in person and at times they already complain about some import costs such as those of hops and special bottles suitable for bottling (which they get from Belgium and Germany respectively).

I did find however the supermarket in town to be extremely well-stocked and prices indeed not necessarily higher than in the rest of Norway, which I did kind of expect.

Romanianflyer

Part 3: First impressions of Svalbard
Hotel: Mary-Ann's Polarrigg, 98 EUR/night incl. breakfast

There are just a few miles of roads on the island of Svalbard so hiring a car is not exactly something which you would do as a tourist here. In winter all transport is done by snow mobile, while in summer it is mostly done by boat or ATV. The airport itself is just a few miles out of Longyearbyen itself and there are taxis available for passengers, as well as two buses (8 EUR) which await every flight arrival and which stop at all major hotels in town. It is easy to go completely without cash in Norway as everywhere you can pay with card. This includes the airport bus which has a card terminal on board. Normally I always take cash from an ATM when in a new country as there are always the odd shops, pubs or restaurants which don't accept cards, but for Norway this really is not necessary at all.

My hotel, Mary-Ann's Polarrigg, was the first hotel in town where the bus halted. Despite it being late at night the reception was open and after a smooth check-in process I got the keys to my room. While Norway is already expensive in general, Svalbard hotel prices are even more so. To put it into perspective: my smallish single room at the Polarrigg was just under 100 EUR/night. Other no-name hotels went for 200 EUR a room while the better lodges and the only top-end hotel, the Radisson Blu, asked 350 EUR for a night (although booked in advance it can be had for 150 EUR/night – but unfortunately that was not the case for the duration of my stay).

The Polarrigg is basically a compound of several old wooden miners' barracks which have been converted into a hotel. It has a rather unique atmosphere, with lots of props such as polar bear heads and old maps in the corridor making it almost feel like a museum. The rooms can be best described as resembling a ship cabin. Although small, they had good-working heating, windows with a view and a desk. Internet was fast throughout the hotel.







All standard rooms have shared bathrooms in this hotel, although this seemed to be a standard thing at every single one of the cheaper hotels in town. That said, this wasn't a big deal in the end as there seemed to be a bathroom for every two rooms or so, and I never had to wait. The bathrooms were also kept clean at all times. There is also a nice common room next to the reception where you can work or socialise with other travellers or those who came here on a work trip. It is the typical kind of hotel to socialise a bit and both guests as well as workers (had a long chat with the Polish reception girl upon departure who shared some interesting tales of life on the island) were extremely friendly. I would certainly not hesitate to stay again in the hotel, although I would advice to book further out in advance than I did (especially if visiting in the summer high season) as rooms can fill up quickly and prices tend to fluctuate. For example, the Polarrigg also has some en-suite family rooms and good-looking suites (with Jacuzzi) but those were all booked out when I started to search for accommodation a few weeks in advance.

Waking up the next morning gave me the first glimpses of Svalbard during daylight from the window of my room. At such moments you start again to realise how remote this location is.





Each morning a breakfast buffet is set out in a room next to the dining room. I thought the breakfast was quite good (especially when keeping in mind the remote location of Svalbard and how much needs to be imported). The bread was of great quality, there were fruits and veggies, cold cuts, as well as some hot dishes such as sausages, potatoes, beans and eggs.







I went for a full English – which is exactly what you need to prepare for a long day of arctic exploration.





Next up: A snow mobile tour to the Russian mining town of Barentsburg

mad_atta

Great adventure! Subscribed

Dover2Golf

Wow, I've been to Tromso in the winter, clearly I need to take the next step and go to Longyearbyen.

Romanianflyer

Thanks again for following, mad_atta. The next installment is coming up in a few minutes.

I can really recommend Longyearbyen!

How was Tromsø Dover2Golf? I would love to make a trip once as far north as Tromsø, making my way up from Trondheim to Bodø by train, taking in the Lofoten, up to Tromsø, and then travel back south into Sweden on the iron ore railway from Narvik.

Romanianflyer

Part 4: A day trip on snowmobile to Barentsburg

One of the most interesting aspects of the island of Svalbard is the mining concession giving to the Russians and the still active mining town of Barentsburg – a sort of little Russia on the official territory of Norway.

Although Norsemen probably have discovered the island centuries before and used it for fishing and hunting, the first “official” discovery of Svalbard comes on the name of Dutchman Dutchman Willem Barentsz, who sighted the archipelago in 1596 searching for the Northern Sea Route to Asia. He named the island Spitsbergen ('Spitse bergen' – or 'pointy mountains' in English) after the wild mountain scenery. For those wondering, the Norwegian Svalbard means 'cold shores' and the first official landing only happened in 1604 when an English ship landed here. It were the Dutch though whom in 1619 constructed the first settlement, with a few other countries following suit (all doing so for whaling purposes). By the late 17th Century the Russians arrived and even wintered, being more interested in hunting of land mammals, although they later left at the time when the Norwegians arrived in bigger numbers.

Fast forward to the turn of the 20th Century and Svalbard has become an increasingly popular place for arctic exploration and the mining of newly discovered coal deposits. Norwegians, British and even Americans came to the islands as talks were started to discuss the status of the island – although World War 1 put a hold to that. After the war the Svalbard Treaty was signed, granting full sovereignty to Norway. However, all signatory countries were granted rights to fish, hunt and mine the mineral resources (currently only Norway and Russia make use of these rights). Russia immediately started mining operations in the towns of Barentsburg, Pyramiden and Grumant. During the cold war, about two thirds of the island's population of 4,000 came from the Soviet Union. Grumant was closed after it was depleted in 1962 while the much larger town of Pyramiden was closed in 1998 after its coal was depleted as well. Barentsburg has however remained active as a coal-mining town According to the latest statistics, there are currently 471 people still living in Barentsburg (almost entirely Russian and Ukrainian nationals) where they are employed by the Russian state-owned Arktikugol company.

Enough history – back to the trip! I booked my tour to Barentsburg through Spitzbergen Adventures. At 3,190 NOK (329 EUR) it wasn't cheap – but then nothing on the island really is. At least it included the whole bunch: snowmobile, insurance, fuel, snowmobile outfit, helmet, gloves, shoes, drinks, lunch, pick-up and drop-off at your hotel. I booked just a day before through the easy-to-use website of visitsvalbard.com. You have to pay in advance online and will instantly receive confirmation. As all people on today's tour stayed in different hotels further away I was the last person to be picked up and driven to the Spitzbergen Adventures office/warehouse. We began the tour with a briefing on our route and some compulsory health and safety guidelines.



After that it was time to dress up. We received a full outfit for the snowmobile which you have to wear over your multi-layered winter clothes and jacket. Sounds like a lot of clothes – but trust me, you need it when you are driving at speeds which can easily reach 80kph. The extra outfit consisted of a one-piece snowmobile jumpsuit, snowmobile boots (for over your normal shoes), a balaclava, helmet and special gloves. This is how it looks like when you are all dressed up for the ride.



We were then driven in two sorties to the starting point in the middle of Longyearbyen where all snowmobiles were parked, where our guide for the day gave some last instructions on how a snowmobile actually works. It would be my first time on a snowmobile. To drive one is actually very easy when it comes to the controls – although to really master it would prove a bit harder and easier said than done. I would not have thought that it would still require quite some physical strength and concentration when steering!



It is required to carry a gun when venturing outside Longyearbyen due to the danger of polar bears. Of course, our company had a permit to carry a gun so our guide took one for us as a group. Just remember that if you want to venture out alone or as a group without a local guide, getting such a permit can be tricky or at least time-consuming – making it almost impossible to go on a spontaneous trip out of Longyearbyen without being part of a tour group.



I was assigned to the rearguard of our group of around 10 to 14. The trip to Barentsburg would take 55 kilometres one-way, and would take us over one mountain pass. The first few miles were along the main road of Longyearbyen and along a frozen river in the town's suburbs. After clearing this, we were starting the most challenging part of the route, which is the ride up and down the pass.



At flat lands it is remarkably easy to ride on a snowmobile, even when you hit high speeds of around 80kph. It is however more challenging going up and down a small mountain pass at much lower speeds. At such moments, steering becomes very heavy as there is of course no power steering like you would find in a car. The front skis which you steer still cover quite some bit of surface in the snow and it takes quite a bit of power and exact timing to put them in the right direction to make a corner. Especially in the beginning I accidentally hit a few times the throttle lever when I did not intent to do so, causing me to be catapulted into a corner at times I actually wanted to reduce speed. Luckily each time I managed to recover the snowmobile without creating an accident. As the day progressed I slowly got a better grip of the snowmobile and its controls.

Once we reached the top of the pass we immediately ventured on a bit more down, and only stopped a while later for some grand views over the surrounding scenery.







The rest of the journey was quite straightforward. The first bit was on a large plain with little to no corners. Here we could hit speeds of up to 80kph – except for a part about two thirds on the way in between some small hills littered with rocks which slowed us down a bit more as we had to zigzag through. At no point did it become boring. I was enjoying riding the snowmobile – and there was plenty to see such as deer and hunting huts. Once we came near to the coastline again we again made a brief stop.







Down at the fjord the views were again truly spectacular.







After 15-20 or so more minutes driving parallel to the coastline we finally reached the Russian mining town of Barentsburg.

Next up: Exploring the Russian mining operations at Barentsburg, and riding back to Longyearbyen through more spectacular landscapes.

lb8001

Dover2Golf

I went curious to see how I would cope with 24/7 darkness and to see how people lived with it.

I really enjoyed the experience - was there for three nights. There's a hugely different atmosphere to summer and people were going home earlier, it seems it's quite normal to work less hours during the 24/7 darkness and make up for it in the summer. The city is well lit, in fact quite spectacular from a distance and it's very safe to be out and about. I saw the Northern Lights several times too which made it all worthwhile. I'd certainly recommend it.

I haven't done much travel by train in Norway, it's not something I would look forward to again in a hurry, my experiences haven't been brilliant. I agree about Loften though but I'm minded to save my money and try the Hurtigruten voyage from Bergen to Narvik in the height of summer one of these years - I would only want to do it during the 24/7 daylight period which is of course when it's most expensive particularly if you need a single cabin.

Great report btw.

Romanianflyer

Thanks for following lb8001! I do indeed share the same feelings about remote and cold places. I hope to be able next winter to make another such trip (Yakutsk, Russia, is high on my list) but let's see first how the rest of the year will go.

The Hurtigruten indeed sounds awesome too, but yes, it would be a waste of money to do it in (northern) Norway in winter. You are lucky to have seen the northern lights Dover2Golf, it's something I haven't managed so far on my visits to Iceland/Norway in winter.

Romanianflyer

Part 5: The Russian mining town of Barentsburg

Our time in Barentsburg started at the local hotel, where a nice meal was served consisting out of mushroom soup, various small Russian-style appetisers and a hotpot with potatoes and meat. As drinks, we could take coffee, tea, water and kompot (homemade Russian-style fruit juice). It took quite some time to get out of our snowmobile suits before we could enter the dining room, but it was well worth it



After the meal we were accompanied by a second guide, this time a Russian native from Barentsburg (a girl in her mid 20s) who would give us the very interesting city tour. Barentsburg is not that big and you can basically walk from one end of town to the other end in 15 to 20 minutes.



The town has all kind of facilities which a community needs to sustain itself. Supplies are sent in a few times a year by ship from Russia and Germany, while the town itself basically has all services which you might need. There is a kindergarten and school, a shop, hotel, accommodation units for workers, doctor. The relationship between the two communities on the island seemed to be very warm and friendly, with our snowmobile guide from Longyearbyen and our city tour guide from Barentsburg sharing stories and trading barbs about a yearly sports tournament which is held between the two Svalbard towns.

Of course, Barentsburg still being an active coal mining town, there is also a dock in the fjord to where the coal is brought via underground mine galleries before being shipped away once every few months.



And the good news: the town even has its own brewery pub! Yay! Although the bad news is that it was closed and I would not have been able to sample some beers anyway as I still had to drive back to Longyearbyen. Booh! The aptly name of the brewery pub is by the way 'krasniy medved', which means 'red bear' in Russian.



The town also has its own hostel, the Pomor Hostel, located in an older wooden building.



The Arktikugol headquarters (Arktikugol literally means 'Arctic Coal') was located in a more modern building. This is the state-owned mining operation which basically owns the entire place. It was founded in communist times (1931) and has an awesome logo with a polar bear, which also features in the Barentsburg town logo.



The town has its own school building too, which seems a bit large considering the population and the fact that there are only three teachers.



Next to the school is the post office, which is run by the Norwegian Post with all post going via Longyearbyen and the Norwegian mainland. It is a nice building as there are is a small exhibit with old postal artefacts. It also doubles as a souvenir shop, and even though I'm normally not a souvenir-buying person (at least not when it comes to tourist kitsch) I couldn't resist buying a red t-shirt with the awesome polar bear logo of the town with the name Barentsburg written in Cyrillic letters. For those who might be wondering, despite it being a fully Russian town basically run by the Russian government, prices are still in Norwegian Crowns (NOK). It being Norway, even at this outpost of the world you can still pay with card.







Of course, most buildings in town are basically the flats to house the workers and their families. There are both older wooden buildings as well as more modern structures.







That statue you see on the last picture above in front of the flat? Take a guess! Yes, it's our old comrade Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. It's the second most northerly Lenin statue in the world, with the most northerly being located in the abandoned mining town of Pyramiden a bit further to the north on Svalbard.



It would make a nice travel quest to visit all weird Lenin statues in the world, I was thinking at that exact moment. The most northerly Lenin statue, the largest Lenin head in the world (in Ulan Ude)... although when I see where the most southerly Lenin statue in the world is located, I don't think I could ever complete such a quest... would be an epic challenge though!

Even though Barentsburg just missed out on the northernmost Lenin statue, it does have the northernmost diplomatic mission in the world as Russia has a consulate here (the modern building on the left on the picture below – if I remember correctly the older building in front was the old consulate building).



There is even a gym and swimming pool in a modern building for the locals to stay fit and have some R&R in the long, cold winter weather.



I forgot what the purpose was of the old wooden building below, but it looked spooky and had some cool murals. One has a Russian poem written next to a bearded sailor with lipstick – or at least that is how the man looks like. Nobody in town actually knows who the portrayed man is!









Barentsburg also has a small church. In a bit of airline history: it was built as a memorial to those 130 passengers (plus 11 crew members) of Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 which crashed in 1996 into a Svalbard mountain on its final approach from Moscow Vnukovo to Longyearbyen due to pilot error and loss of situation awareness. As the passengers were all on their way to the Barentsburg and Pyramiden mining towns, it had a huge impact on the Russian community. It is to day still the biggest air disaster in the history of Norway.



After the city tour we had some 20 to 30 minutes to walk a bit around on our own, buy souvenirs, or to warm up with a drink in the hotel. I snapped a last few pictures of the town before going back to the hotel to put on my snowmobile suit for the ride back to Longyearbyen.





Next up: More snowmobile fun!

rdurlabhji

Awesome trip. Subscribed.

mad_atta

The snowmobile excursion looks amazing. I've had a bit of a play on one in Colorado and I know what you mean about them taking a while to get used to... but so much fun!

Romanianflyer

Thanks rdurlabhji!

It was an amazing day out in the snow, mad_atta! It is indeed lots of fun and I would love to go on a ride again somewhere else and get a bit more experience.

Romanianflyer

Part 6: On the snowmobile back to Longyearbyen

After we were all fully dressed up it was time for the 3 to 4 hours trip back to Longyearbyen. We would take a slightly different route on the way back through some different valleys, only to end up again on the same pass from which we would descend back into Longyearbyen. The first few miles were however the same as the outbound journey, driving along a beautiful fjord while the sun was slowly setting.







From the base of the fjord we would however take a different turn into some inland valleys. At this time, the sun was already so low on the horizon that the skies started to colour purple. These colours are typical of the so-called 'pastel winter' in the months of March and April where you have sunset colours for multiple hours as the sun sets super slowly.





We made a few stops in the valley for pictures and at one instance for our guide to scout the best route ahead. Especially at this point I really had the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.







The colours were simply amazing and even somehow managed to get even better as we went on.





At one point we hit a big plain where we could again see the giant Isfjorden in the far distance. This was the location of the abandoned Russian coaling town of Grumant. Being short on time, we however did not go all the way to Grumant on the coast but headed back inland towards the mountain pass.



The last bit of the ride was definitely the trickiest as my concentration started to go down – which is not what you need if you are driving on a snowy mountain pass where you need to make sharp turns. I even nearly tipped over the snowmobile when I accidentally hit the throttle lever and the vehicle did shoot straight up the side of the hill instead of making a turn – only thanks to some last ditch manoeuvre and some luck did I manage not to crash.





Once at the top of the pass, the views down over Longyearbyen were fantastic.



About 30 to 40 minutes later we were again in Longyearbyen and drove along the main road towards the snowmobile parking spot. After helping our guide refill every snowmobile with petrol and parking them, it was back into the minivan to the HQ of the tour outfit where we could finally get out of the snowmobile clothes.





Being completely exhausted from the long day I had a quick burger somewhere only to retreat back to the comfort of my hotel room to drink the bottle of wine I bought at OSL duty free.



In short: Excursions on the island of Svalbard aren't cheap – and this especially counts for a full-day snowmobile trip (which was almost more expensive than my flight tickets). Yet it is a must-do when you visit the place in winter (you can ride a snowmobile until May what I heard) and I had tons of fun doing so. It's not as easy as you might think it is – but at the same time I believe everyone who is fit enough can easily learn it and embark on such a full-day excursion. I can highly recommend Spitzbergen Adventures for it!

Next up: A look around in the town of Longyearbyen

lhrpete

Absolutely brilliant Romanianflyer. Those pictures of the sun setting on the snowy mountains are stunning. I must get to see it for real.

What do you judge to be 'fit enough' for the snowmobile journey?