Longyearbyen | Adventure Blog

This is Kono, the video editor. There is one album I found about 20 years ago at a CD shop listening station, and I bought it.

It’s the debut album of Röyksopp, from Tromsø, Norway.

Svalbard Islands · Spitsbergen Island (photo taken from a plane with my smartphone)

I’m not someone who usually enjoys music recommended by others, so I don’t often recommend things to people. However, if someone were to ask me why I went to Norway, I’d have to admit that it was because of this CD.

I learned about the land of Svalbard later, but I discovered that it was relatively easy to travel there from Tromsø via a local LCC, so I decided to visit.

Surprisingly, it is not covered in snow all year round, but when I visited in early November, it was already a snow-covered landscape.

Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town, is a very small settlement, and it seems that it has only recently started shifting from being a coal mining town to a tourist destination.

Like mainland Norway, Svalbard is a cashless society. If you visit a supermarket in the center of town, you can find everything you need. It’s an advanced, efficient, and comfortable environment that could be compared to a space colony set up on another planet.

That said, it’s the Arctic, and the harsh natural environment of the polar region imposes certain limitations on people’s behavior. A notable feature is that you cannot venture into the suburbs without a rifle due to the danger of encountering polar bears. Since solo travel is difficult, there are plenty of guided tours that allow travelers to safely enjoy the area.

When it came to shooting, the tours didn’t offer enough time, and I didn’t have the budget to hire a personal guide, so I decided to walk around the town with my equipment within a manageable range.

Though it was walkable, there were both mountains and the sea.

At this time of year, the region beyond the extreme latitudes enters a “polar night,” and daylight is very limited. Dawn and dusk are condensed into a 2–3 hour window around noon, and the rest of the time is mostly darkness. During the long nights, if the weather is clear, you might be able to see the starry sky or the Northern Lights.

Although the conditions for filming were challenging, I have been very interested in the phenomenon of the polar night for a long time. This interest was influenced by the book of explorer Yusuke Kakuhata.

I stayed for three days, but I really wanted to spend more time there, and it’s a place I definitely want to visit again.

I hope I can convey even a small part of my experience through the video I’m sharing today.