Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2016, Qupperneq 60

BOOK YOUR FLIGHT OR
DAY TOUR AT AIRICELAND.IS
ÍSAFJÖRÐUR
ICELAND’S WESTFJORDS
ARE ONLY 40 MINUTES AWAY
Let’s fly
ÞÓRSHÖFN
VOPNAFJÖRÐUR
GRÍMSEY
ÍSAFJÖRÐUR
AKUREYRI
EGILSSTAÐIR
REYKJAVÍK
is
le
ns
ka
/s
ia
.is
F
LU
7
32
63
0
3/
15

The very first written mention of
the group of islands known as Sval-
bard, meaning “cold coast” or “cold
edge,” comes from a 12th century
Icelandic Saga. “Svalbard fundinn,”
it reads in Old Icelandic, meaning,
in English: “Svalbard found.” After
the Vikings came, discovered, and
went again, the islands were left to
the polar bears until the 16th cen-
tury, when some explorers arrived.
Next came whalers, and Norwegian
and Russian trappers, and then coal
miners. Then came the tourist ya-
hoos and, eventually, Tamara and I.
Tamara (a Canadian based out
of Denmark) and me (an Ameri-
can living out of a backpack) had a
tough time explaining to friends
why we’d chosen to take our vaca-
tion on this treeless, frozen island
where you need to take a gun with
you to walk out of the town centre.
Human population: about 2,642.
Polar bear population: more than
3,000. Depending on who we talked
to, our plans were considered either
an otherworldly adventure, or some
kind of masochistic spring break.
The northernmost city
We arrived at midnight in Long-
yearbyen, the northernmost city in
the world, and the lone city on the
island of Spitsbergen within the
Svalbard archipelago. After sleep-
ing in the airport, we walked into
the town under a sky beaming at
least five shades of blue around the
glowing orb of the sun. Deeper into
the fjord, surrounded by rolling
white mountains, our eyes widened
with awe under the midnight sun.
“This is what death must look like,”
Tamara said dreamily. “Walking
into a soft, white glow.”
After wandering the nameless
roads of Longyearbyen and vis-
iting the Svalbard Museum, the
northernmost cemetery in the
world, the northernmost art gal-
lery in the world, and the north-
ernmost ATM in the world, we de-
cided to hike into the mountains.
Having no experience with guns
or polar bears, we logged into the
Tinder dating app, explicitly hop-
ing that a local would show up to
our date armed to the teeth and
ready to trek into the unknown.
Sure enough, a local university
student swiped right. He was soon
valiantly leading our hike up the
mountainside to watch the sun kiss
the horizon before ascending once
again. We ate cookies and drank
blueberry juice. It was the best
(northernmost) date in the world.
Mines and caves
The next day, we hopped on a boat
to the coal mining settlement
of Barentsburg, built during the
Soviet era. We stopped along the
way to for a picnic of grilled min-
ke whale at the foot of a glacier.
Barentsburg has just two main
streets, and feels eerily held in a
bygone time. During the Soviet
era, the town’s 1000 occupants
received free food at the cultural
centre, and exchanged coupons
for libations at the canteen. To-
day, Barenstburg’s population is
roughly 500 people, most of whom
are Ukrainian coal miners who
still use a sort of ration card.
The surreal experience of an
84-year-old coal-mining town in
the Arctic could only be topped by
venturing deep beneath the ice,
so the next morning, following
two Italian guides, we headed to a
glacial ice cave. The entrance was
a simple hole on top of the glacier,
about the size of a manhole cover.
We dropped in dressed in cram-
pons, helmets and headlamps,
and headed into the icy labyrinth
beneath chandeliers of glassy, fro-
zen spires.
We rappelled down frozen wa-
terfalls and shimmied through
tiny crawl spaces until we hit the
bottom, apparently only been
reached by 25 people previously.
In the light of our headlamps, the
dark blue, plum purple, turquoise
and white leapt from the ice. The
silence was stupefying, and being
human suddenly felt beautifully
insignificant.
Using ice axes to climb back
up the waterfalls, we emerged
once more, hardly able to recon-
cile what we’d seen with the more
earthly surface. We would never
have imagined such a world ex-
isted beneath our feet.
Whisked away
On our last day, we decided to
forgo Longyearbyen’s ubiquitous
snowmobiles, instead opting for a
dogsled ride with a local operator.
In no time at all we’d bolted off in
a six-sleigh procession pulled by
Alaskan huskies, flying over the
snow at a rate that felt much faster
than our actual 12kph.
Tamara and I took turns driv-
ing, one at the helm and the other
on the lookout for reindeer and
arctic foxes. Cocooned in the seat,
surrounded by snow-covered
mountains and a wild, untouched
landscape, I grinned like a slice
of watermelon. Finally, sliding
through this treeless, otherworld-
ly landscape, we felt a little like
those early explorers ourselves.
SHARE: gpv.is/svalb
60 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 6 — 2016TRAVEL
Barenstburg trip :
Henningsen Transport & Guiding
Dog sledding :
Svalbard HuskySvalbard
Springtime
In Svalbard
Ice caves, dog sledding
and Tinder in the
Arctic Circle.

Words by
ALEX BAUMHARDT
Pictures by
TAMARA DINTER