Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and belugas. From around 1795 Norwegians exploited the islands' wildlife resources and
began hunting both polar bears and Arctic foxes.
POLAR EXPLORATION
Longyearbyenisprecisely1338kmfromtheNorthPole,andinthelate19thandearly20th
centuries a series of explorers used Svalbard to launch attempts on the North Pole using
airships and balloons; most met with failure. Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile were
successful in 1926,but two years later Amundsen and his crew died while ona rescue mis-
sion to find Nobile, who had disappeared on a similar expedition and was later rescued.
COAL MINING
Perhaps as early as 1612 whalers had discovered coal at Ny Ålesund, but the first modern
mine wasn't opened until 1906, when the Arctic Coal Company (ACC) began extracting
coal from a rich seam. The settlement that grew up around this mine was named for the
ACC'sUSowner,JohnMunroeLongyear.In1916ACCsoldouttotheStoreNorskeSpits-
bergen Kull Compani (SNSK). Over the next few years, two other Norwegian companies
set up operations on the archipelago's southernmost island, Bjørnøya, and the Kings Bay
Kull Compani opened a mine at Ny Ålesund.
Mining was halted during WWII and on 3 September 1941 the islands were evacuated.
Evenso,theNazisbombedLongyearbyenandthesettlementsofBarentsburgandSveagru-
va (Mine No 2, just east of Longyearbyen, was shelled and set alight and continued to
burn for 14 years). When the Nazis surrendered in 1945, Norwegian civilians returned,
Longyearbyen was rebuilt and the Russians resettled and again mined in Pyramiden and
Barentsburg.
Mine No 7 has been in operation for nearly 40 years and nowadays is the only one
around Longyearbyen still producing; it yields around 70,000 tonnes per year. The big one
thesedaysistheSveaNordcoalfield,44kmsoutheastofLongyearbyen.Itproducesaround
3milliontonnesannually,extractingmoreintwodaysthanMineNo7doesinayear.There
are estimated reserves of over 30 million tonnes and the project will extend until at least
2013.
OTHER NATURAL RESOURCES
The most optimistic predictions of Svalbard's gold reserves beneath the Arctic soil put
them on a level with South Africa's. There are also indications of rich oil and gas deposits,
which will become more easily and economically accessible if global warming continues.
