adventures in *

The midnight sun, hiding behind the clouds

I took the 9:55a flight to Longyearbyen, arriving around 2pm. I ran into Mirjam and her friend on the plane, she was seated in the row in front of me, funny coincidence.

Checked into the Radission SAS, the world’s northern most 5 star hotel. I don’t think it’s worth $300 USD a night, but I keep telling myself Norway is expensive. It did have a nice view of the surrounding mountains and shore.

Longyearbyen is an interesting town, definitely has that arctic outpost feeling. Population is 2000, mostly in the service industry. Cruise ships transit through here before heading around the island. Before tourism took hold, it was a mining town and still is today. Old coal mines dot the mountainsides and towards the airport, a new clean coal burning plant is built next to the old one. I was able to walk freely around Longyearbyen’s main source of power, there was no security.

After a small lunch of a Clif bar and oatmeal raisin cookie, I headed out for a walk. I saw remnants of a coal mine on one of the hills and headed towards it. I was only planning a short walk, but ended up hiking a couple miles to the peak of the western mountain overlooking the city. It was cold and blustery up top, but I stayed up there for a few hours shooting.

Returning to the hotel, I went to the adjoining pub for a well deserved steak, fries, and beer. I headed out after a bit of digesting, it was midnight and the sun was hanging over the northern horizon. It’s bizarre walking around in broad daylight but there was not a soul to be seen. I got back to the hotel and crashed at around 2a.