Svalbard
Seventy-Eight Degrees North
A week in the world's northernmost town, where wooden cabins wait out the dark and spring arrives as light pouring back over the mountains.
- Location
- Longyearbyen, Svalbard
- Coordinates
- 78°13′N 15°38′E
- Published
- Reading time
- 3 min read
The plane drops toward a runway squeezed between a fjord and a wall of mountains, and the first thing you notice is the light. In late March the sun has only just returned to Longyearbyen. It travels low around the horizon all day, and the snow takes on the faint blue of skimmed milk.
For four months the town has lived through the polar night. When the first rays finally touch the steps of the old hospital in early March, people gather to watch, and the week that follows is a festival. By the time we arrived, the days were already longer than the nights, and getting longer by the hour.
The cabins in the valley
Drive out past the last streetlight and the road simply ends. Beyond it, by snowmobile, the valleys open into white plains where small wooden cabins sit in loose clusters, smoke curling from a chimney or two. Most belong to families from town, who come out at weekends to do very little: melt snow for coffee, read, watch the mountains change colour.
We spent two nights in one of them. There is no water but snow, no light after dark but a paraffin lamp, and no sound at all once the stove stops ticking. It is the quietest place we have ever slept.
Up here you do not fight the cold. You plan around it, and then you go outside anyway.
Polar bear country
The other thing you notice is the signs. Beyond the edge of town this is polar bear country, and nobody heads out without someone who knows how to keep a bear at a distance. Our guide checked the horizon every few minutes, as automatically as checking the time.
We never saw a bear. We did see Svalbard reindeer, short-legged and shaggy, scraping through the crust for lichen a few metres from the trail, and an Arctic fox that trotted alongside the sleds for a mile before losing interest.
What the light does
Spring here is a strange, generous season. The sun barely climbs, so golden hour lasts most of the afternoon, and every ridge throws a shadow a hundred metres long. We stopped checking the time altogether. Dinner happened when the light went pink, and bed when it finally went blue.
Field notes
When to go: March to May for sun on snow, sled trips and long, usable days. The midnight sun runs from late April to late August.
Getting there: Direct flights connect Longyearbyen with Oslo and Tromsø.
Getting around: Leaving town means going with a guide. Book snowmobile and dog-sled trips well ahead in spring.
Pack: Proper Arctic layers, goggles and a face buff. Early in the season, temperatures sit well below minus fifteen.
