Like a lot of people who are into adventure, I grew up on stories of Amundsen’s exploits. As a Brit, I’d been taught about the doomed romance of Captain Scott’s South Pole expedition at an early age, but I’d always been more interested in the Norwegian who’d beaten him to it. On both that mission and his first successful navigation of the Northwest passage, another goal that had eluded the Royal Navy for hundreds of years, what seemed to have made the difference was Amundsen’s willingness to learn from indigenous people in the polar regions – as opposed to relying on a combination of imperial arrogance and a stiff upper lip.

Despite my childhood interest, however, I’d never made it to Amundsen’s stomping grounds myself. So when I was offered the chance to come further north than I’d ever been, and join a North Face ski touring expedition on a ship around Svalbard, I jumped at the chance.

“This exact line? No, probably not”

Of course, this being the 21st Century, we’re not facing anything like the same challenges as the polar explorers of old. But in our own, small way we are venturing into uncharted territory. Svalbard Ski & Sail, the company organising the expedition’s logistics, specialises in guiding skiers on virgin slopes. As we peel off our climbing skins at the top of a ridge on our first day, I ask Thomas Hukkelås, our guide and the company’s co-founder, if anyone’s ever skied it before? “This exact line? No, probably not.”

Days onboard begin with the voice of Ski & Sail co-founder and expedition leader Hilde Falun Strøm crackling over the public address system. The stairs are too steep, and the gangways too narrow to have everyone putting their ski boots on at once, so groups are called in turn, before loading into the Zodiac inflatables that ferry us to the shore, crunching through icebergs as they go.

Once you’re ashore, the ski touring – or in my case, splitboarding – is much the same in Svalbard as it would be anywhere else. There are, however, a few significant differences. For starters, there are a lot of guns. 

“Polar bears are… everywhere on Svalbard – and bear attack is an ever-present risk”

As the much-photographed signs warn, polar bears are “Gjelder hele Svalbard” – everywhere on Svalbard – and bear attack is an ever-present risk. The islands famously hit the headlines in the UK when a pupil from Eton was mauled to death by a bear in 2011, and any group venturing into the backcountry is obliged to carry a weapon.

Every morning the first boat to land takes two guides armed with bolt action rifles, who stand watch as the rest of us disembark. The last person to leave each day is also armed. More often than not, this is Hilde herself, who carries her own .357 Magnum in a holster made of seal skin – the product of a previous hunt.

Famously there are more of these massive predators on the archipelago than people. Yet, despite that, Svalbard isn’t completely devoid of human habitation. Ny-Ålesund, with its permanent population of just 30, hardly counts, but before we board the ship we get the chance to spend a day in Longyearbyen. The largest settlement on the islands, it’s home to all but a few hundred of their inhabitants. Hendrik Sanio, our guide on what’s rather grandly billed as a ‘city tour’, shows us the ‘sights’ – the school, hospital, airport, and, from a distance, the post-apocalyptic Global Seed Vault. Perhaps more interestingly, he also sheds some light on what makes this remarkable community tick.

“You could start touring at five in the afternoon here, and still easily enjoy a full day”

The territory is technically part of Norway, but since 1925 has been governed by a unique international treaty which gives all signatory countries equal rights, while simultaneously banning any military presence. The upshot of this is that anyone, of any nationality, can live and work here visa-free. For most of the past 100 years, when coal mining was the only industry in town, there were just a handful of hardy Norwegians and Russians. But as tourism grew steadily from the mid-90s onwards, a truly international community began to emerge in this least likely of locations. 

“I think we have 52 different nationalities living here now,” says Hilde, who arrived from the Norwegian mainland in 1995. Hendrik, originally from Germany, tells us proudly that there are locals who hail from as far away as Uganda, and that the third largest national group “with 142 and a half people,” is Thai. “The half,” he jokes, “is my son”. 

Because of where they are, cooperation is the key to survival on Svalbard. “I think you build stronger connections because you need them,” is how Hilde explains it. “In this environment, I think we get kinder as humans – to each other, but also to nature, to the wildlife and even to ourselves. Being exposed to nature does that to people.” 

This impressively egalitarian community, and the pristine landscape that supports it, are now under threat as never before, however. Global warming is more pronounced the further north you travel, so a two degree warming at the equator amounts to four degrees at the poles, and the impact of the climate crisis up here has been severe.

You May Also Like

Yukon | Hiking On The Frontline Of Climate Change

The First Time I Went… | Snowboarding