Svalbard: A Paradise of Ice Faces a Creeping Thaw
Five minutes past midnight in Svalbard: The wild world is awake and clattering. At the edge of a sheltered estuary in the Adventdalen, a valley on a cluster of islands halfway between Norway and the North Pole, a flock of arctic terns soar and wheel in the perpetual daylight.
It's a typical summer night in Svalbard, an entirely atypical refuge in the high Arctic that abounds with an extraordinary array of wildlife. I had the amazing opportunity to visit this high northern refuge last summer for National Geographic, which recently published a few of my words alongside Paul Nicklen's spectacular photographs--stunning shots in the best of the Geographic tradition. (That's his Svalbard reindeer in motion.)
What's it like in Svalbard? Bright. 24-hours-a-day bright during the time I was there (August), which was highly amusing and mildly disorienting. I went for sunshiney hikes at 2am, though not outside of the town limits, because those who do so run the risk of being eaten by polar bears. Here's a shot of your faithful correspondent tanning in the midnight hours. The biggest surprise? The locals' love of winter, which brings 24-hour darkness. "It's the best in winter," one of them told me, "because it is just us, just the local people, and everyone meets at the sports center for volleyball games and has parties, and snowmobiles gives you free reign of the island."


