What to expect on a summer adventure to Svalbard

By 78º North latitude you enter an Arctic realm of icefloes and polar bears, of aurora borealis and midnight sun. The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is the gateway to high Arctic adventure.

In recent years Svalbard has built a reputation for sea-based cruises and the shapeshifting spectacle of northern lights. Yet I chose to visit during summer and stay on dry land in the archipelago’s only town, Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen Island. I wanted to get a feel for the small Norwegian community from where myriad day excursions depart. Staying ashore also offers a less expensive outlay than a cruise.

“It’s a totally different experience compared to staying on a ship,” said Tore Hoem, director of adventures of Hurtigruten Svalbard. “You have more time for the smaller details: the flowers, finding fossils, seeing land animals like reindeer, and breathtaking views from mountain treks”.

Seeing polar bears, however, are unlikely. “Due to their protected status, there are no safaris specifically seeking them,” said Håkon Daae Brensholm of Visit Svalbard. But distant chance sighting can be possible on boat excursions so take binoculars and long-lenses. It’s also currently not possible to visit Pyramiden, the renowned soviet coal mining town preserved in aspic because Svalbard tour operators are boycotting this Russian-owned outpost due to the situation in Ukraine.

There was more than enough to do, however, during Svalbard’s 24 hours of daylight. Here are my summer highlights.

Climate warming is impacting Svalbard. My first exposure to this came before an afternoon dogsledding, using summer sleds with wheels. “Sorry guys,” apologises Daniel Scopel, my potential musher, an Italian chef taking a career break from fine dining restaurants. “It’s unnaturally hot for the huskies so we must cancel”. I applauded welfare being the prime consideration yet was delighted when Daniel invited me to meet the team.

Their 240 huskies are flaked out around their kennels. Daniel is responsible for thirty dogs who run together in teams. “The trips in summer are short rides but really they prefer -30ºC snowy winters,” said Daniel. Typically, 12 harnessed dogs haul each sled. “As you prepare, they bark and jump to attract attention to be selected and when we rest them every kilometre, they howl with frustration to get running again”.

I needed no second invitation to meet the puppies and soon have a wriggling armful of playful little tearaways in my arms: Dopey, Hokus and Pokus, Punk, and Outlaw. Daniel explains they’re a cross between Alaskan and Greenlandic breeds. “Alaskans are thinner-furred and more agile while Greenlandic are closer to wolves with greater endurance”. It takes roughly three months to train them.

“There’s a beautiful silence in winter when you’re out with the dogs,” Daniel said. And polar bears, I wonder. “It’s unusual to see them although one of our mushers was sledding when a female reared-up alongside his sled. The bear ran away. I think she was more scared than our sled-driver”.

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Ulrich has never had any confrontations with polar bears, although he prepares his rifle before leading our small group hike. Around Longyearbyen’s perimeter are hazard signs warning those on foot not to proceed without deterrents to scare curious bears away. “I’ve never used the weapon,” said Ulrich. “We rarely see them”.

Unusually hot temperatures also affect our hike. We planned to walk to the Lars Glacier around Sarkofagen, looking for fossils in the moraine. “Because of the heat the glacial meltwater has made the river too dangerous to cross so instead we’ll hike up Mount Berget,” said Ulrich. He points skywards to the flat-topped mountain overlooking Longyearbyen.

It's a fascinating walk up. Passing edelweiss and purple saxifrage, refugia from the last Ice Age, and reaching vertical cliffs with nesting birds in their thousands. I love the busy little auks; their black-and-white plumage looks as if they’re dressed formally for dinner. “When they arrive to breed locals take this as a sign of spring arriving,” said Ulrich.  There’s also the rusting detritus of the old coal-mining industry. The final mine was due to close this year to switch to greener energy but because of European shortages the decision has been shelved until 2025.

There’s no sign of human influence whatsoever on the shattered rock plateau. Just airy views towards the immense Lars Glacier. Our guide produces hot-water flasks to moisten dehydrated meals. Hot pasta, auks buzzing past like wind-up toys, and the sweet hum of the Arctic breeze. Life couldn’t feel much better.

More information: Hurtigruten Svalbard

Walrus face challenges due to the melting sea ice intrinsic to their lifecycle. They spend winter at sea around the ice but during summertime haul out on land, the best time to see them. They can weigh 1500kg and reach 3.5metres long, explained our naturalist, Johannes Jensen. “We’re heading to Borebukta where sometimes forty are hauled-out,” said Johannes.

We cross the Ice Fjord to the glacial bay where a group of six on a brown sandy beach are spotted. Captain Lars, piloting the KvitbJørn, cuts the boat’s revs allowing its hybrid technology to switch to electric allowing us to sail closer in silence. Although had we arrived in jetfighters, I doubt they would’ve stirred.

They huddle together enjoying thigmotactic bodily touch, several are asleep on their backs with ivory-white tusks pointing skyward. They scratch feverishly, swishing huge mermaid tails and grumble in irritation with each other. “They’re too big to have any predators, even polar bears,” said Johannes. Nowadays that includes humans, who almost hunted them to extinction before it was outlawed in the 1950s. Their population has now recovered to around 5000.

Weatch them digesting, likely a large meal of saltwater mussels. “They can eat 70kg in one session,” Johannes said. “They have slow digestive systems so spend a lot of time lazing around”. Captain Lars turns the KvitbJørn around and we leave them to their gastric juices.

More information: Hurtigruten Svalbard

Rounding Kapp Thordsen our vessel enters Skansbukta, the most beautiful bay I have seen in the Arctic. This time I’m onboard the Bard, a catamaran with huge windows and hybrid electric engine. The bay’s cliffs are streaked with minerals, olive-green and maroon, and deeply incised by gullies. The sea colour is floury and spearmint through freshwater discharge from the Nordenskjold Glacier ahead. I see distant white reindeers and the abandoned huts of prospectors. Guillemots join puffins and fulmars swooping exposed bluffs, pungent with guano.

“Warm gulf stream currents meet the cold water to create upwellings of nutrients providing food for many whales,” said our Spanish marine biologist, Teresa Losada. She’s reeling off whale species, ‘belugas, blue whales, etc’, when up surface two pilot whales. With silent motors we watch them repeatedly arch out of the water. Teresa explains they are actually of the dolphin genus but can weigh in at five tonnes.

Shortly after, our barman, Ivan, appears as we pass Pyramiden, a former Russian coal-mining town not currently being visited by Svalbard operators. The Soviet Union started building it up from 1931 until operations ended when the communist empire collapsed in 1998. It’s backed by a 410-metre-high pyramidal mountain bearing a mine, from which a tramway once ferried coal down to the dock.

“It was at its peak between 1960-80, and 3000 people lived here,” said Ivan. “They had everything: school, hospital, Olympic-sized swimming pool, and greenhouses heated by coal. I think communism reached its ultimate goal here, something they never managed on the mainland”. 

More information: Hurtigruten Svalbard

I had ample time to explore the world’s most northerly town due to an unceasing light that prompted snow buntings to chirrup all night. Historically, Longyearbyen was founded as a coal town by its namesake, American John Munro Longyear. By 1906 he’d purchased mining rights under the guise of the Arctic Coal Company. Those rights were acquired by Store Norske in 1916 and Longyearbyen prospered as a company town. Today only Mine Seven is operational.

There’s a fine historical trail with interpretation panels around town. The industrial heritage is focused near the hillside church below the original Mine One. Wooden cableway pylons upright like Japanese torii gates are abandoned reminders of how they transferred coal to the docks via aerial cableway buckets. A memorial from 1916-2016 is dedicated to 124 miners who died working for Store Norske. There’s also a little museum dedicated to North Pole exploration with stories and artefacts of the great Norwegian polar heroes, Nansen and Amundsen.

The social scene is vibrant. Radisson Blu is a hub for arranging excursions and its Nansen Bar is an atmospheric place to try the most northerly brewed craft beer in the world. I start my day at the popular Freune Coffeeshop, which makes delicious confectionary chocolates. In Huskies’ café you can pet tame sled-dogs whilst enjoying a cappuccino. The food scene is surprisingly sophisticated. At Vinterhagen, diners eat inside a tropical glasshouse. Its trio of smoked whale, seal, and reindeer is eye-catching, although best not to support Norway’s whale-hunting activities.

The town’s Advent Fjord’s tidal reaches are too shallow for whales but a walk along the shoreline is alive with birds. One morning, strolling by a fog bank rolled like a cigar, I’m buzzed by feisty Arctic terns and watch protective barnacle geese herding their baby goslings.

All these species face uncertain futures as the Arctic warms. Yet Svalbard makes one of the most powerful statements of preparation for potential doomsday scenarios ahead. The Global Seed Vault has over one million seeds, mostly agricultural crops, stored in a vault dug 130 metres into a mountainside cooled at -18ºC by permafrost. You cannot enter but there are interpretation panels highlighting the significance of this project for global food security. Between 2015-19, Syria withdrew seeds deposited here to replace crops lost during their cataclysmic civil war. Just as Svalbard is the high Arctic’s adventure capital, it’s also a barometer for an everchanging world.

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