Artica Writings

By Sergey Gushchin

On 9 February 2020 we mark the 100th anniversary of the Spitsbergen Treaty. This name for the archipelago, Spitsbergen, is fixed in the text and the title of the Treaty, so the Russian Federation prefers to adhere to the language of the Treaty by using this name.

By Daria Soldatova

At the start of the 20th century, there was a coal rush in Svalbard. Mining companies from many countries laid claim to large parts of Svalbard and started extracting coal. Norwegians, Englishmen, Americans and Swedes all took part in the rush.

By Sigri Sandberg

Day after day of sailing across vast oceans. Through cold winds, heading north, ever further north – and then finally something appears on the horizon: Mountains. Glaciers. Islands. Fjords. Land. Ice.

By Janike Kampevold Larsen

These days, when we get off a plane or a boat in Svalbard, we immediately get a powerful sense of the landscape – mountains, open sea, masses of sand, volumes of ice, and rock combine in a way that is unparalleled on the mainland.

By Kjetil Røed

I’m in Svalbard and on my way to see Oswaldo Maciá’s work of art A gift to Svalbard. After a half hour bus journey from Longyearbyen across a dark snowy plain, I detect the former mine at Vinkelstasjonen, where Maciá’s work of art is exhibited. Like an otherworldly stage or an exotic plant, it is weakly illuminated in reddish, pinkish hues against the dark blue Polar night.

By Vår Aunevik

I guess it all started at H&M in Tromsø.

Mum noticed that I was on my way, and maybe that’s the moment I developed my great interest in clothes and fashion. At H&M in Tromsø. Luckily I wasn’t born there; can you imagine if that had happened? Like: “Girl born in H&M”. No, that wouldn’t have been too popular, not with me, Mum, the customers or the employees.

By Professor Sven G. Holtsmark

After other foreign interests withdrew during the 1920s and 1930s, there were two states left with a big presence of businesses and citizens on Svalbard: Norway and Russia (the Soviet Union until 1991). That is still the case, although the Russian presence has become much smaller in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

By Geir Ulfstein, Professor of International Law

When the Svalbard Treaty was ceremoniously signed at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 9 February 1920, no-one could have imagined that it would be invoked in favour of the Latvian snow crab fishery in 2019. But the Norwegian Supreme Court’s judgement on that case, issued on 14 February this year, illustrates that the treaty remains both highly relevant – and at times controversial.

By Marit Anne Hauan and Tora Hultgreen

Why do we lose sight of people and culture in the overall narrative about Svalbard? Climate change and environmental challenges have helped to give the Arctic and Svalbard a place in the global consciousness.