Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
dwelling) hunters and traders focused their attentions on Svalbard, hunting walruses,
moose, seals and belugas. From around 1795 Norwegians exploited the islands' wildlife re-
sources and began hunting both polar bears and Arctic foxes.
Polar Exploration
Longyearbyen is precisely 1338km from the North Pole, and in the late 19th and early
20th centuries a series of explorers used Svalbard to launch attempts on the North Pole us-
ing 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 on a res-
cue mission to find Nobile, who had disappeared on a similar expedition and was later res-
cued.
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's US owner, John Munroe Longyear. In 1916 ACC sold out to the Store Norske
Spitsbergen Kull Compani (SNSK). Over the next few years, two other Norwegian com-
panies 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.
Even so, the Nazis bombed Longyearbyen and the settlements of Barentsburg and
Sveagruva (Mine No 2, just east of Longyearbyen, was shelled and set alight and contin-
ued to burn for 14 years). When the Nazis surrendered in 1945, Norwegian civilians re-
turned, Longyearbyen was rebuilt and the Russians resettled and again mined in Pyram-
iden 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
these days is the Svea Nord coalfield, 60km southeast of Longyearbyen. It produces
around 3 million tonnes annually, extracting more in two days than Mine No 7 does in a
year. There are estimated reserves of over 30 million tonnes.
Geography & Climate
