We had a charter flight from Oslo to Longyearbyen which left at 9:45 AM. Lindblad was well organized getting us from the hotel to the airport. We self-selected one of four bus departures from the hotel to the airport where we picked up our luggage, which had been sorted by ship room number, and checked for our SAS flight. There were multiple staff members milling around to guide us through the process. We left the hotel at 7AM and by 8:30 had checked in and cleared both security and immigration.

We left on time for the 2h 40m flight to Longyearbyen which is 2,042km north of Oslo.  Once there we claimed our luggage which was loaded into a truck to be delivered to our staterooms on the ship. We, in turn, went into one of 4 buses with a local guide who took us on a brief “sightseeing” tour of the area, followed by lunch at a local hotel. When I put quotes around the word sightseeing it was meant to indicate that there is really not very much to see here.

The 2016 population of Svalbard was 2,667, of which 423 were Russian and Ukrainian, 10 Polish and 322 non-Norwegians living in Norwegian settlements. Longyearbyen has a population of 2,144, not a big city by any means. The next largest city in Svalbard has a population of about 300.  In the 17-18th centuries whaling was the main industry here, followed by coal mining in the 20th century. Now the main industries are tourism and research stations. Another name one often hears regarding this area is Spitsbergen. This is the name of the island where Longyearbyen is located.  Svalbard refers to all the islands in the archipelago.

The surrounding area is ringed by hills/mountains. I was surprised to see that the ground was snow free and the temperature was a balmy 40 degrees. The tops of the mountains still have snow but there are only a few patches of snow left in town. There are no trees or other visible vegetation. It is a barren landscape. We later learned this is Arctic tundra. There are remnants of abandoned coal mining equipment on the slopes of the hills.

The town is only several blocks long, lined with housing units used by the researchers who reside here. There is only one coal mining operation left in the area which now employs 20 people. We stopped at a local museum that housed paintings produced by a local artist, historical maps of the region, and historical pictures from the heyday of mining. Local artisans also had art and crafts for sale, ranging from clothing to soaps to jewelry and photographs. As we entered the museum we were told that it is tradition here to remove shoes when entering buildings (probably because of the snow/mud). We had the option of donning the blue booties or removing our shoes and going in with stocking feet.

We walked the Main Street where there is a post office, library, grocery store, coffee shop and several sporting goods stores. There are snowmobiles parked everywhere. Tommie, our local guide (a researcher, moonlighting as a guide) said there are twice as many snowmobiles than people here!

The rest of the tour was a brief stop at the only church in town which claims to be the “most northern church in the world”. It is truly ecumenical in that the Lutherans, Orthodox and Catholics all use the facility. Again we were asked to remove shoes but here they had dozens of “crocs” for people to use when in the church.

We passed the local cemetery which housed a few graves dating back to the early 1900s. Now you are no longer allowed to be buried in Svalbard because the prevalent permafrost here allows the bodies to gradually work their way to the surface and there is fear that diseases might be spread.

Another oddity of the area is that you are not allowed to house most dogs in town. Huskies, the predominant species, are barkers and can be annoying. They solved the problem by building a series of kennels right outside town where dogs are housed. You visit your dog at the kennel dog run.

Guns are a common sight and are required whenever you leave town (for protection against wildlife). There are even gun mounts on snowmobiles. There are signs on building entrances banning firearms when entering the building. This is obviously a “frontier” town.

Again the transfer of the people was well orchestrated by Lindblad. To avoid overwhelming the area the 4 buses were never in the same place at the same time. But by 4:15 we gradually all converged at our home for the next week, the famous National Geographic Explorer expedition ship, the “grand dame” of the National Geographic fleet.

We were greeted by the hotel manager as we boarded and assigned a staff person who took us directly to our stateroom and explained how things operated. Our luggage was already in our rooms. The rooms are spacious with a large picture window and tons of storage space. Steve’s room is even larger than ours because it is designed  to house three people.

Steve and I took the ladies around the ship to show them what it has to offer. The ship is in magnificent shape. Lindblad obviously has taken great care in keeping the 1980’s ship (which formerly was a ferry) in tip-top shape.

At 6PM there was a mandatory safety drill to convey the procedures for ship evacuation if needed. We were then introduced to the various department heads as part of the pre-dinner briefing. Dinner was served at 7:30 and was a buffet for this first night on board. Future dinners will be menu driven. As expected the food was extremely good. Wine flowed freely.

I was somewhat shocked to see how high in the sky the sun still was at 10 PM. Julie checked and said sunset here was theoretically at midnight and sunrise would be at 1AM! However, there is no difference in lighting; it is daylight all night long. Luckily the ship has heavy room darkening shades so hopefully sleep will not be an issue, although we did come prepared by bringing eye shades if we need them.