A friend who is a priest worked for a few weeks as substitute priest in the church on Longyearbyen, Svalbard. He gave me this rather sweet story: The church on Longyearbyen, the main township, always keeps its doors open. Visitors can come in and sit in the church and meditate or take pictures. Filming is allowed. And coffee and cookies are always laid out as the climate is arctic and it is a normal part of arctic life to offer any guest a cup of warm coffee. One day, a hungry bear walked in and helped himself to the cookies and left. There is only one story like that. The bears do not make a habit of dropping in at church and emptying the cookie plate.
The name Svalbard may ring a bell because it is home to the famous global seed vault, an underground bunker built to survive a nuclear disaster, which will act as a backup system in the event of a global catastrophe.
Svalbard is an archipelago situated north of mainland Europe. It is said to be about 1000 kilometers from the North Pole. The Dutch name Spitsbergen will appear in old maps and has its own history. It apparently means ‘jagged mountains.’ It is an apt name as the mountains have jagged edges which look very dramatic. There are no trees on Svalbard. The only vegetation that appears in the brief summer months is a short grass found in swamplands. Arctic flowers bloom in summer and the flora is limited to the mountainous areas. Yet, a number of seabirds, and animals such as polar bears, reindeer, the Arctic fox and other marine mammals are found here. One marine mammal, the walrus, is now a protected species of animal in the North. It has seen many centuries of being hunted for its blubber and tusks.
Hunting of whales and walruses and seals reflect the history of Svalbard as the group of islands which comprise the archipelago were first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1596, the Dutchman Willem Barentsz saw the coast of Spitsbergen and he put it down in his map as ‘The new Land.’ Barentsburg, named after him is the only permanent Russian settlement owned by the Russian mining company, Arktikugol. An earlier Russian township called Pyramiden, saw a thriving life for many years. It was a company town with its own school, library, and community centre. The township was so successful that they were able to grow their own food and keep cattle to supply them with milk and milk products. However, Pyramiden was abandoned in 1998. Rumour has it that the upkeep became too expensive. It is now reduced to a ghost town providing grist for books and articles. Tourists can take the boat to the township and get a guided tour of the abandoned settlement and see the half-finished school work left behind by the children who studied in the primary school. One tourist wrote a horror piece about encountering a polar bear and having for a guide, a seven-foot tall, grizzly Russian who lived in the ghost town with two other workers in order to maintain Russian ownership over the place.
Although Russia owns Pyramiden and Barentsburg, the Svalbard treaty in 1925 established Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago. The treaty was made to introduce regulations on mineral resources and solve conflicts, among other things. A total of 43 countries are party to the Treaty including China and India. The Treaty states that, ‘Citizens and companies from all treaty nations enjoy the same right of access to and residence in Svalbard.’
While Norway is obligated to protect Svalbard’s natural environment, it also has to make sure no military or naval bases are established on Svalbard. The present mayor of Longyearbyen, the main administrative Center, is a woman. The mayor is the Chief of Police, and her office consists of an Environmental Department, a Police Department, an Administrative Department and a staff section. The mayor’s office is also responsible for collecting objects called ‘cultural memories.’ These include items found at excavation sites or abandoned camp sites of Arctic explorers.
There is a University Centre in Longyearbyen where students can pursue studies in courses like Arctic Biology research, Arctic geology research, Arctic Geophysics and Artic technology research. Workers at the University museum have a considerable collection of physical objects, in the category called cultural memories. There are items from gravesites and various places of former human settlement. These are preserved in the temperature-controlled storage spaces of the museum. They provide valuable data for study and research. Amongst the objects are human remains. Touristy websites on Svalbard make much of the fact that people were not allowed to die on Svalbard. The truth is that burial was not encouraged after it was discovered that the permafrost prevented decomposition. In the early days, sick people were sent away to the mainland feeding the belief that it was illegal to die on Svalbard. Nowadays, funerals are conducted and the cremation of the dead is the normal procedure followed.
Mining is becoming a thing of the archipelago’s past. There is only one mine in operation and plans are underfoot to stop all mining activity in two years’ time. Most people who live on Svalbard are employed in connection to Mining, Tourism or Research.
It is a good thing that mining will stop in the near future. Even a brief visit would convince one that this is a part of the earth that should not be subjected to exploitation by man any more. There are reminders everywhere for humans to avoid disturbing the ecology and persevere to be sensitive to the environment. If we were to abide by that, not only on Svalbard but all over the planet, there would still be hope for successful human survival.
