Here we are, in Spitsbergen, some 600 miles from the North Pole. Our home away from home: MS Nordstjernen, one of the older members of the Hurtigruten fleet.
Longyearbyen, the capital of Spitsbergen, where the cruise began - and ended. A town of about 3,000 inhabitants, it had a few hotels, and a good many skis and kick sleds.
First stop: Barentsburg, a Russian settlement which was once the poster child of communisn in the north. It looked abandoned. Had everyone left town? Not so. Russian mine workers entertained us with a folklore show.
Now it's just lots of ice, snow, mountains...
glaciers...
and an occasional polar bear.
Polar bears are popular in these parts, but also feared.
"Don't leave town without something to shoot with." Notice our gun-toting blond guide.
At 10PM, on July 18th, we crossed the 80th parallel. Everybody gathered on aft deck, and champagne corks popped.
It was 1 AM, and the light was magical.
The next day, tender boats took us to the vicinity of the Lilliehöök glacier...
for a look at birds and ice monsters.
Magdelenefjord.
Three Crowns, three mountains, named after Scandinavian royalties.
Ny Ålesund, once a thriving mining community, now a research center. Next to the harbor, a rusty locomotive and a few railroad cars, and, in the village center, a bust of Roald Amundsen, the arctic explorer who, in 1926, left Ny Ålesund for a successful flight in a dirigible to the North Pole.
Just before returning to Longyearbyen, we visited "New London," a marble quarry set up by an Englishman named Mansfield about a century ago. Unfortunately, the marble found crumbled. Now a Svalbard historic site, Camp Mansifield is also known as the "Mansfield Folly."
A typical meal in MS Nordstjernen.
Finally, from the flight back, an aerial view of the Svalbard archipelago, as well as...
