Two-day dogsledding tour in Svalbard – day 1 Mar 8 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-03: Svalbard”.

Annika and I are sitting in a car. The sky is mostly blue at temperatures round -20 °C. The side windows are freezing. Longyearbyen lies behind us.

The story has begun in the end of January. I have just learned, that I will work in Longyearbyen / Spitsbergen / Svalbard for a week in March. Annika and I decide to be on vacation there for another week. I ask my colleague Y., who has lived and guided there for several years for tipps what to do. He almost commands us to make a dog sledding tour with Arctic Husky Travellers with an overnight stay at the cabin in the valley Tverrdalen. Oh! It is fantastic! It is soo beautiful there! You have to do it! Soon we booked the tour.

Now Adelheid, our tour guide for the next two days drives us to the dog yard. When we arrive there we go into the house and get an introduction. Adelheid will take one sledge, Annika and I the other. We will both stand on the sledge and work together – steering, braking and helping the dogs when we drive uphill.

Tommy, one of the owners arrives and we get properly dressed. We get huge insulated bibs and enormous anoraks, that Tommy imported from the US. You cannot buy this type of dogsledding equipment in Europe. Then we get a hat, working gloves and mittens that do not look especially warm, but they definitely are. We slip into the warm Kamik boots and then everything goes quite fast.

I have never seen so relaxed dogs like those on Tommy’s dog yard. It is incredible. They are calm, they run around by themselves and then come back. It’s we humans that are busy to prepare everything. No time for photos. We get a last instruction: Take the first descend standing on the left runner and brake with the right foot. That’s important. Now in the final minutes the dogs start howling and off we go!

I do not have time to be nervous or frightened. Annika and I manage the first obstacle, Tommy accompanies us by snowmobile for a short while. We make some stops to check if everything is ok – thumbs up – and get another dog from Adelheids team. Tommy returns and we others continue alone. 17 dogs, two sledges, 3 humans.

Annika and I soon get into the flow and I cannot find words to describe the feeling of sliding through the snow covered valley Bolterdalen with exceptional views on the sunlit Arctic mountains. Annika is standing in front of me, I’m standing in the back. On a straight passage I dare to make some snapshots with my smartphone.

We both have brakes to slow down the dogs when we go downhills. But now we go uphills. We are too heavy for the dogs so I have to push. As soon as I do that the sledge becomes lighter and the dogs faster and I have to run while pushing. Although the snow is not deep I’m really out of breath and have to take short breaks to catch breath again. Fortunately it is only some shorter passages that are steep.

I don’t have a feeling for how long our trip was. Time doesn’t seem to matter while sliding through Svalbard’s Arctic landscape. We arrive at two a clock. While Annika and Adelheid are giving the dogs a snack and put them on the stake out lines I finally have the opportunity to take some photos. From the cabin, the polar bear safe food storage, the dogs and the hazy mountains around. Beautiful and extraordinary.

Being in the Scandinavian mountains in wintertime is nothing new to me, but this is like being in another world. I am standing there, just gazing until I finally do my job: helping the others with the dogs. But finally the dogs are all taken care of and most of them have been fallen asleep with the nose under the tail, because the wind gusts from the mountains are bitter cold.

Now it’s time for us to go inside, take a snack and relax a bit. We still sit there with woollen cap and jacket. It will take hours until the wood fired oven and the gas oven warm up the spacious but cosy living room up to round 15 °C.

Outdoors the full moon has risen above the eastern mountains and illuminates the scenery: A snowy place, 17 dogs and a warm and cosy cabin.

Annika and I go in “tourist mode”. While Adelheid is moving some dogs to protect them from the cold wind and starts preparing dinner we fire the sauna. First we have our bulky jackets on, but the sauna oven is strong and soon the sauna is hot. Then dinner time at 19:00. Adelheid cooked reindeer stew with rice – delicious. And – believe it or not – we even get a glass of white wine.

Now the dogs have rested enough to get their well-deserved dinner. There are not enough bowls for them all, but that does not matter. Sled dogs can be fast eaters and while we portion the food the first ones already have finished their meal.

The dogs are dozing and we are chilling in the cabin. I am reading “Foxi – sledehunden ingen ville ha”, a book about one of Tommi’s dogs. First unwanted it became an outstanding lead dog in a Iditarod race and was at the North Pole, too.

Then it’s bedtime for us as well. It does not take long until I fell aslee…

z-z-z…

Adventdalen by snowmobile Mar 5 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-03: Svalbard”.

Yesterday it looked like sunny weather today so Annika and I looked for an activity today. We found and booked a three-hour tour with snowmobiles organised by Hurtigruten Svalbard. At 10:30 we were fetched by our tour guide by minibus that picks up tourists as us at their accommodations.

At the Hurtigruten Svalbard Expedition centre our group of nine got an introduction about how to drive a snowmobile. While others did it before it was Annika’s and my very first time to drive by ourselves. After that: dressing time!

When it’s -20 °C and you want to drive snowmobile you need to be properly dressed. What we needed by ourselves is woollen underwear, socks, a sweater and thin gloves. What we got from tour operator was bulky winter boots from Kamik, an insulated overall, thick mittens, a woollen balaclava and of course a helmet.

As soon as we were properly clad we fled the building because being dressed for a windchill of -30 °C is not very comfortable inside. TOO WARM! With the helmet and raised visor I look quite silly but safety first!

The author is fully dressed (Photo: Annika Kramer)

Then we went to the parked snowmobiles. These were quite special: they are electric. The range is quite limited but they do not produce as much noise as their more common fuel-powered cousins and more important: no stinking exhaust gases at all!

And then off we went into the large valley Adventdalen.

First impression: the snowmobile seems to follow the track. Steering hardly necessary. If it leaves the track then steering needs a bit of power. Second impression: the visor of the helmet is frosted within seconds and it is quite hard to see.

After ten minutes we took a first break. The guide asked us if everything was ok and then loaded her rifle. We were out of town and we could meet a polar bear. You may not shoot a polar bear, you have either to retreat or use a flare gun to shoo it away, but you need a rifle as a last resort.

Gruve 7 – the last active coal mine on Svalbard

We continued our tour through Adventdalen. We even saw the sun although it was much cloudier than forecasted. It will take three other days until it is visible again in town after more than four months of absence.

We took another stop. The guide spotted some reindeer. The Svalbard reindeer is an own subspecies that looks more compact than the reindeer on Scandinavias mainland. The photo is a cropped image, because we were quite far away to not to disturb the wildlife animals.

Next stop: coffee break. We decided to take the coffee and cake outside because the weather was cold but calm.

After the break we took the short way to the cabin anyhow to have a brief look. Here you can seek shelter if the elements are not as friendly as today. The cabin is private because tour operators are not allowed to use public ones. Understandable since there are a lot of tourist on Svalbard and this year a new peak is expected.

After that visit we headed back to Longyearbyen. This time Annika sat behind me to give another tourist the opportunity to drive alone. I cannot say that I felt completely confident on the snowmobile but at least I was more relaxed than in the beginning.

A nice beginner tour and a good opportunity to drive snowmobile and leave town. What I really liked was that the snowmobiles were electric. Great for shorter tours!

A first day in Longyearbyen Mar 4 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-03: Svalbard”.

Today Annika and I have the first full day in Longyearbyen. There’s a lot to see, even for us, for whom Northern Norway in general is nothing new.

House on mountain slope

We have seen houses, we have seen mountains, we have seen houses by and in mountains. But the mountains in Svalbard are really special and quite recognisable.

Arctic town

It is not only the mountains, that give Longyearbyen a very special character. It is amongst others the traces of the coal mining that is still present although there is no active mining in town any longer.

Avalanche fences

In December 2015 an avalanche buried ten houses in Longyearbyen. Two people died. Today some houses in Longyearbyen are abandoned because they lie in critical areas and the mountain Sukkertoppen (the sugar peak) is covered with avalanche fences.

Snowmobiles

In Northern Sweden snow mobiles are very popular, for work, transportation and for leisure. In Northern Norway there are much more restrictions and you do not see them as often. In Svalbard there are more snow mobiles than people. No wonder in a place with very long winters and hardly any road network.

Chilly temperatures

In Northern Sweden temperatures of -19.7 °C are not seldom in winter, but then it is mostly calm weather. Today in Longyearbyen it was pretty gusty and windy which made the temperature appear significantly lower.

Fjords

Yes, there are fjords in Tromsø. But there are roads and settlements, too. On Svalbard there are not many settlements at all and the fjords do not only look much more icy and arctic, but also untouched. The small dots on the right of the first image however tell another story: There is a lot of snowmobile traffic.

Northernmost church?

There is a church in Longyearbyen lying on a small hill. It looks cosy and if you go in you realise, it is. It is the northernmost Lutheran church in the world, only topped by an Eastern Orthodox church in the Russian Franz Josef Land. (Source: wikipedia)

Mukluks

Of course people in Longyearbyen have warm clothes. When it comes to boots Mukluks are quite popular. The origin of these shoes lies in the Inuit culture of the North American Arctic and there are great for dry and cold weather. You hardly see them in mainland Scandinavia.

Impressive mountains

Did I mention the impressive mountains? I did? Well, anyhow – they are impressive!

Surprises

This solitary house goes by the name Huset – the house. The name is as pragmatic as the architecture. But it contains a surprise. The restaurant Huset does not only have quite high-priced dinner, but also a “Saturday beef” on Saturdays 15-18. By chance we passed the house at 14:45 and it is Saturday today. So we decided to eat there. A good choice because the food was very delicious and costed only 190 crowns – a bargain in Norway!

Polar bears

One of the very special things about Svalbard: there are more polar bears than human beings on this Archipelago. While the town Longyearbyen is protected the surroundings aren’t. If you leave town you have to carry a rifle and a flare gun and must know how to handle incidents with polar bears. Signs warn you when you leave the safe space.

Neither Annika nor I can and may handle a rifle so we stay within town beside of guided tours.

Treacherous weather

When we left the restaurant Huset, weather had changed. It was as windy as before but now it was snowing and the wind gusts blew snow everywhere. Into the face and into the pockets of my parka. It was however less than a kilometre walk until we reached our accommodation Coal Miner’s Cabin.

Tromsø – waiting for the sun Jan 29 2023

This winter polar night in Tromsø was from 26/27 November till 15 January. While the sun has been above the horizon at noon since 16 January it took some additional days until it could rise above the mountains to be seen in Tromsø. That day was last Saturday, the 21 January. It is called soldagen (the sun day). On this day it is tradition to eat “Berliner” doughnuts called solbolle (sun bun). When I went shopping in the afternoon only a few were left in the shop. But I already ate one in the cantina in advance the day before.

Saturday, 21 January

It is soldagen today. I walk to the bay Telegrafbukta at noon. Other people have gathered waiting for the sun. Some of them are barbecuing. But it is too cloudy to see the low sun itself. So: no sun.

Sunday, 22 January

Weather has changed. It has been raining at temperatures up to +7.6 °C. All the ways are icy. A misery!

I take a walk in the afternoon. Sunset has been one hour ago but through the thick rain clouds still comes a purple-violet shade of light. It looks very dramatic. But no sun.

Tuesday, 24 January

While I’m working some heavy snow showers move over the city. The large cruise ship that moored in the centre is almost hidden from my view through the windows of Framsenteret. Definitively no sun today.

Thursday, 26 January

It has become slightly colder and 15-20 cm of snow have fallen since last night. I walk home early, the first time not in darkness. It’s bright, but – no sun.

27 January

Warmer again. And today it really rains a lot. While I’m out at 15:00 it just pours down and large and deep puddles are everywhere. And wet ice. A real misery! And of course: no sun even today.

28 January

I take a long walk by the coast of Kvaløya. Temperature has dropped to +1 °C and it snows a lot. The snow is wet and sticky. Later it clears a bit but still no sun.

28 January: the wet snow is pretty sticky

29 January – today

Will the sun ever come out? Even today it snows and it is quite cloudy. Since I can see some small blue patches between the clouds and want to get some fresh air anyhow I again walk to Telegrafbukta as eight days ago. There are a lot of clouds and there’s a ship in the distance.

A ship? If I have time I always check which ship it is using the app VesselFinder. OK, let’s see … . What!? I’m really surprised: It is the Kronprins Haakon, the very ship I’ve been on at my polar expedition last year. I didn’t know that it arrives in Tromsø today. I directly get a strong longing to be on that ship cruising to the high Arctic again. (Spoiler alert: I may, later this year.)

29 January: Kronprins Haakon arriving in Tromsø I

29 January: Kronprins Haakon arriving in Tromsø II

But I can see something else. While I take photos of the bright spots between the dark clouds I spot a bright orb through my telephoto lens. The sun, the sun! Can it be true?

I check the photos at home. Although the orb is not visible on the photos (too bright) the altitude fits. So now I’m sure I saw the sun today, at least for some seconds through my camera.

This year will be a bit special. If everything works out Annika and I will see the sun coming back again in five, six weeks. In March work in Longyearbyen on Svalbard for a week and before that Annika and I stay there as tourists for about a week. One of the events I’m looking forward to is the 8 March: A quote from visitsvalbard.com:

[…] Marking the sun’s return is a long-standing traditional for the residents of Svalbard. When the sun returns on 8 March, we gather on the old hospital steps to celebrate the ‘sun’s return’. The saying here goes that ‘the sun is declared back in Longyearbyen when its rays reach the steps’. […]

Addendum: 30 January at lunchtime

30 January: finally a sunny day (taken from the canteen)

Break at work I – island hopping Dec 13 2022

The Baltic Sea at Obbola has hardly a tidal range. When we get high water or low water it’s mostly due to the wind. Today we had gusty wind from north that let the air temperature of -12 °C feel much colder and to a sea water level of 70 cm below normal, that’s really rare.

Today I took a break at work to enjoy my beloved winter weather. Today’s plan: island hopping to Lillskär, a skerry less than 250 metres away.

Along the small bay I walked to the sea. A lot of rocks that normally are underwater were visible now, some of them wore rings of ice.

The skerry was even nearer than usual when I took this photo because I already stood on the ice. You see parts of the skerry in the right.

I had a decision to make: Shall I try to cross the ice or just wade through the icy water? I decided to wade, because you can get bruises when you go through the ice, even in my thick neoprene survival overall.

So I waded through the water which was less than hip deep. On the islet I had to wade through some thigh deep snow drifts, then I arrived at the outer shore of the islet.

Oh, I love winter when it’s a bit rough and I enjoyed being out. But not for long. Soon I went more or less the same way back …

… and home. After I had changed clothes I had five more minutes until the 10 o’clock meeting. Good timing.

Scotland: wetness Oct 31 2022

This article is part of the series “2022-10: Autumn in Scotland”.

You cannot deny, that Scotland can be a pretty wet land. There are however different kinds of wetnesses.

Bathing in the sea

This kind of wetness I love: bathing in the sea. Finally Annika and I managed to find a sandy beach that looked very promising for taking a bath. And it was perfect. No stones, no currents, no sharp-edged shells, no waves as high as a house. The water was warmer than expected and it hardly rained.

Rain and muddy trails

We continued our road trip through the region of Assynt and parked our car by the Stoer Lighthouse. From there we took a circular hike to the Old Man of Stoer, a 60 metre high sea stack. It rained and the trail was soaking wet and partially quite muddy. I managed to keep my rubber boots dry but Annika’s hiking boots were soaking wet after our hike. Her dancing experience helped her to change to dry shoes.

Adventurous roads

As the days before it was Annika that drove the rental cars. You don’t want to fall asleep while driving in Scotland. Beside the single file tracks with its many meeting points sometimes the roads are blocked by sheep. The road sign warning of a 25% steep hill however looked much more dramatic than the road was.

Ardvreck Castle

We have passed Ardvreck Castle several times the last days. Now it was time to stop and have a look.

The lake Loch Assynt was flooded and so was the path to the castle. I like hiking in rubber boots which is a bit overdressed sometimes. In Scotland however I think it’s perfect footwear. Here they helped me to wade to the castle to take some more photos, while Annika waited ashore.

Sea monsters

I almost forgot to tell: At the beach of Clashnessie I observed sea monsters! Carefully I sneaked up to one of them and I managed to take a photo as a proof. There are sea monsters in Scotland!

10 cm high sea monsters.

10 cm high sea monsters buried in the sand.

10 cm high sea monsters buried in the sand looking suspiciously like seaweed.

Thursday paddling – from dusk to darkness Sep 30 2022

It is 29 September and it is Thursday. Time for torsdagspaddlingen – Thursday paddling – with the Tromsø Sea Kayakers Club.

As usual we meet between 5 and 6 o’clock pm to prepare the kayaks, put on our drysuits and life vests and listen to the tour leaders about the plans for today. For several weeks there has been another thing to think of: attach lights to the kayaks and the life vests to be seen. September equinox has been one week ago and it starts getting dark quite soon. Today we are lucky: It is high tide and we don’t have to carry the kayaks more than a few metres.

Preparing the kayaks and dry suits at high tide

We are 23 people. 7 will follow the shore to the beach of Telegrafbukta, the others including me want to paddle to Lilje Grindøya that lies behind Grindøya. I’ve never been there. Round 18:00 we sit in our kayaks. As soon as all are on the water we start our tour.

Before we reach the island Grindøya one of the tour leaders lifts the paddle vertically in to the air. That’s the sign for gathering.

Plans are changed. Lilje Grindøya is quite far away and the waves on the sound we crossed were a bit higher than expected. So we head for Grindøya instead.

It it warm and calm. 16 kayaks lie by the beach. We sit our stand around. One paddler passes around homemade cake, another one lights a cosy fire on the sandy beach. Hyggelig!

While we are eating, chatting or taking pictures it is getting darker and darker. The kayaks are hardly visible anymore and in the distance there are the lights of Tromsøya and Kvaløya.

After half an hour it is time to set off and paddle back to shore.

While crossing the sea again I didn’t take photos for three reasons. All of them were related to the darkness.

First: we want to stick together to be seen and to know we are all there. There may be ships crossing and then you do not want to have a stray paddler around. So I cannot just let the others go to take photos.

Then: my waterproof camera is – well – waterproof but it hardly can take photos in the dark. Even with a better camera it is difficult. Did you ever try to make long exposure photos while sitting in a kayak?

Finally: the waves! The kayak I use is stable as a truck and on our way to Grindøya I didn’t care about the waves a lot. Now it is quite different. I can see the waves because of the reflections of the city lights. But I cannot see how broad, how steep or how high they are. So I have to react by instinct which I don’t yet have. It’s a first time experience and a slightly weird one.

While we are approaching main land the other paddlers come into view. Or better said, their lights. Two of the other kayaks are not illuminated and completely invisible. We take a long turn to the left and follow them. Some of us almost collide with one of the jetties. Everything that isn’t illuminated comes into view at the last moment.

I’m a bit sad because this is the last Thursday paddling this year. Probably we won’t start with it again before end of April. Hopefully there will more kayak opportunities in daytime over the winter.

At 20:15 I come ashore. Again I want to say to all fellow paddlers: takk for turen! Thanks for the tour!

Takk for turen – Thursday paddling – 8 september Sep 8 2022

Oh, what a wonderful kayak tour! And oh, what wonderful weather!

We were 31 kayakers from the Tromsø Sea Kayakers Club today and split into two groups. 19 paddled to Telegrafbukta, where I’ve been last week, 12 paddled to Grindøya, where I’ve been in June. I joined the Grindøya group and was very glad that I got some training this year. Not because of the waves that we had on the way there but because the group was experienced and quite fast. But I managed to follow and could take some snapshots on the tour.

Now it starts getting dark quite soon and we must have lighting at our life vests and the stern of the kayak. I had only some make-shift light and have to buy some equipment for next Thursday.

But now it’s getting late, so no more words, just some photos. To all today’s fellow paddlers: takk for turen – thanks for the tour.

12 kayaks lying at the beach of Grindøya

17 May aboard the ship Hermes II May 17 2022

Today it is 17 May, the Norwegian National Day. People say “Gratulerer med dagen!” (Happy Birthday!) to each other to celebrate Norway’s Birthday in the year 1814. The rest of the history I won’t tell here, you can read it better in the net, for example on Wikipedia.

While I was in Sweden last year I am in Tromsø today and so I was able to join the celebrations. Last week I got an ad for joining the boat parade on the wooden boat Hermes II, build 1917. That sounded fun and I directly bought one of the extraordinary cheap tickets. Would be nice to be outside on the water this day. And so it was, even in snowfall and sleet and temperatures round 1–2 °C.

Hermes II lies in the very center of Tromsø. I’ve passed it many times, today I entered it at 10 o’clock. Slowly the boat filled up. Some women were clad in bunad. These traditional clothes are very beautiful but I doubt that they provide the best weather protection. Check the video linked below. Other people choose more pragmatic clothes to stay warm and dry. At 10:30 we departed, headed north and met other boats there. In a group of fifteen boats – Hermes II, some SAR boats, the rest private ones – we then headed back to the center. Nothing extreme, just a especially nice way to be outside.

Some photos from today:

Other boats waiting for the parade to start

Also on board was NRK, the Norwegian TV. I can recommend the video, even when you do not speak Norwegian.

Watch it here: 17. mai-feiring på båt i Tromsø (2:44, Norwegian).

Mai snow in Tromsø May 4 2022

2 May – shall it be spring soon?

With melting snow, slush and strawberries (from the Netherlands)?

Yesterday, 3 May – no.

Today, 4 May – definitely no!

8 cm of fresh snow fell over night. Beside the roads there’s even a layer of crusty, old snow.

If the weather forecast is right, a lot of rain will wash the snow away, but not before the weekend. Let’s see, how long you have to read those “still snow”articles, but when there’s snow, I’ll post about snow.