- Where
- Arctic Ocean, between mainland
Norway and the North Pole - Coordinates
- 78.22° N
15.65° E (Longyearbyen) - Biome
- High Arctic tundra and glacier;
roughly 60 per cent ice - Population
- About 2,900 people across
the whole archipelago - Status
- Svalbard Treaty signed 1920,
in force 1925; 46 parties - Best visited
- Mar–May for light and snow;
Jun–Aug for ships and thaw
Northernmost point of me so far, and I have underlined it twice. The light here refuses to behave: it goes round and round instead of up and down, and will not leave, so I have stopped consulting my pocket about the hour and started asking my stomach. Wore every layer I own at once. Was outclassed immediately by a fox wearing only itself.
The short answer
Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, roughly midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, spanning about 74 to 81 degrees north. Around 2,900 people live there, most of them in Longyearbyen at 78 degrees north, a former coal town named for the American businessman John Munroe Longyear, who opened the first mine in 1906. Sovereignty is Norwegian but the terms are unusual: the Svalbard Treaty, signed in Paris on 9 February 1920 and in force from 14 August 1925, gives every party's citizens equal rights of residence and commerce, and there are now forty-six parties. Inside a mountain outside the town, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds more than 1.3 million seed samples as the backup for the world's crop genebanks.
Why it's worth knowing
Svalbard is the rare place where the geography and the paperwork are equally strange. Physically it is High Arctic: about three-fifths glacier, treeless, with a winter in which the sun does not clear the horizon from late October until the middle of February, and a summer in which it does not set for four months. Legally it is something almost nowhere else is — a territory under a single country's sovereignty where the nationals of dozens of others hold a treaty right to arrive, work and stay, without visa or quota. The result is a settlement of two and a half thousand people holding passports from more than fifty countries, on an island with no road to anywhere.
That combination of stability, cold and remoteness is exactly why the seeds are there. The Global Seed Vault, opened in February 2008 and run jointly by Norway's Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Nordic Genetic Resource Center and the Crop Trust, sits roughly 120 metres inside a sandstone mountain, held at minus eighteen degrees, with permafrost as the fallback if the refrigeration ever fails. It is not a doomsday ark and does not pretend to be; it is a backup drive. Genebanks around the world deposit duplicates, keep ownership of them, and can ask for them back — which is precisely what happened.
The field notes
A town that is not built for every stage of life
The most-repeated fact about Longyearbyen is that it is illegal to die there. It is not. What is true is narrower and stranger: coffin burials in the town cemetery effectively stopped around eighty years ago, because permafrost slows decomposition and freeze–thaw movement disturbs graves — a point made vivid when researchers recovered traces of the 1918 influenza virus from bodies buried there. Urn burial can still be possible for residents. The wider truth behind the myth is about services rather than law: serious illness and end-of-life care are generally handled on the mainland, usually in Tromsø, and expectant mothers travel south weeks before their due date because the local hospital does not handle complex births. It is a working settlement with a hospital, not a place with a full cradle-to-grave infrastructure.
One hundred and twenty-eight crates
In September 2015 the Seed Vault made its first withdrawal since opening. The depositor was ICARDA, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, whose genebank sat outside Aleppo and held the largest collection of crop diversity from the Fertile Crescent — barley, durum wheat, faba bean, chickpea, lentil, much of it bred for heat and drought. As Syria's war closed in, ICARDA had shipped duplicates north. When Aleppo became impossible, they asked for them back. Norway's agriculture ministry recorded the shipment precisely: 128 crates, some 38,000 seed samples, lifted off the shelves and carted out through the tunnel, bound for new stations in Lebanon and Morocco. The seeds were grown, multiplied, and in part sent back to Svalbard to restock the shelves they had come from. The system worked exactly once, and worked.
Pick your light, not your month
Svalbard is usually described as having three seasons rather than four, and choosing between them matters more than any other decision. Polar night, from late October to mid-February, is genuinely dark — not dim, dark — and is the aurora and indoor-culture season. The stretch from roughly March to May is the one most visitors underestimate: full snow cover, returning sun, long blue and gold light, and the best conditions for snowmobile and dog-sled travel. Summer, from June through August, brings the midnight sun, ships, seabird colonies and thawing brown valleys, which photograph far less well than people expect. Go for the light you want; the temperature is a detail by comparison.
- Be outside at the hour the light finally leaves for the winter, and say something suitable to it.
- Wear absolutely everything at once and still lose, comprehensively, to a fox.
- Look at the door in the mountain from the outside, and be glad it stays shut.
- Learn the correct manners for a country where somebody else is much larger than me.
- Come back for the other light. (Item added while completing the first item. This is becoming a pattern.)
One hundred and twenty-eight crates, going the wrong way up the tunnel. Every other consignment ever carried into the Svalbard Global Seed Vault went in to be kept; in September 2015 these came out, at the request of a genebank whose home outside Aleppo had become unreachable, carrying roughly thirty-eight thousand samples of wheat, barley, lentil and chickpea bred over decades for dry country. They were flown south, sown in Lebanon and Morocco, multiplied, and some of their descendants were sent back up the mountain to take their old places on the shelf.
Tally, in the marginA hundred and twenty-eight boxes that went out to rescue a harvest and then came home again — I have never been so moved by a shelf.
Getting there
Svalbard Airport at Longyearbyen is served by scheduled flights from Oslo and Tromsø, roughly three hours from Oslo, and that is essentially the only way in short of an expedition ship. Despite being Norwegian territory, Svalbard sits outside the Schengen area, so bring a passport even on a domestic-looking flight from the mainland, and check current entry requirements: the treaty right of residence is not the same thing as the right to transit mainland Norway to get there. There are no roads between settlements. Anything beyond Longyearbyen's small road network is reached by snowmobile, boat, dog sled or ship, in season, and almost always with an operator.
The Global Seed Vault cannot be entered by the public — it is a working facility, not a museum, and the visit is to the striking concrete-and-steel wedge protruding from the hillside above the airport road. Longyearbyen itself repays a day: the Svalbard Museum, the shops where you check firearms at the door, the northernmost of a great many things. Book guided trips well ahead in the March-to-May window, which is short and popular, and treat weather cancellation as part of the plan rather than an insult to it.
Common questions
Is it illegal to die in Svalbard?
No - dying in Longyearbyen is not illegal, and the claim is a persistent myth. What is true is that coffin burials in the Longyearbyen cemetery effectively ceased around eighty years ago because permafrost slows decomposition and ground movement disturbs graves; urn burial may still be possible for residents. Serious illness and end-of-life care are generally handled on mainland Norway, usually in Tromsø.
Do you have to carry a rifle in Svalbard?
Norwegian regulation requires anyone travelling outside Svalbard's settlements to carry suitable means of scaring off polar bears, and the Governor of Svalbard recommends carrying a firearm as well - which is not the same as a blanket legal duty on every visitor to carry a rifle. Visitors on guided trips are covered by their operator, and carrying a loaded firearm inside Longyearbyen is forbidden.
Are there more polar bears than people in Svalbard?
The often-quoted figure of about 3,000 polar bears describes the Barents Sea subpopulation, which Svalbard shares with the Russian archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, rather than the number of bears within Svalbard itself - so the familiar comparison with roughly 2,900 residents is not a like-for-like one. Polar bears are protected in Norway, and killing one is lawful only in genuine self-defence as a last resort.
What is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault?
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a backup facility for the world's crop genebanks, built about 120 metres inside a sandstone mountain outside Longyearbyen and holding more than 1.3 million seed samples at minus eighteen degrees Celsius. It opened in February 2008 and is run jointly by Norway's Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Nordic Genetic Resource Center and the Crop Trust; depositing genebanks retain ownership of their seeds and can withdraw them.
Have seeds ever been taken out of the Svalbard vault?
Yes. In September 2015 ICARDA, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, made the first withdrawal after losing access to its genebank near Aleppo during the Syrian civil war. Norway's Ministry of Agriculture and Food recorded the shipment as 128 crates holding about 38,000 seed samples, which were sent to new stations in Lebanon and Morocco, multiplied, and partly redeposited in Svalbard.
Do you need a visa for Svalbard?
Svalbard has no visa requirement of its own: the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, now with 46 parties, gives their citizens equal rights of residence and commerce in the archipelago. The practical complication is the journey, because Svalbard lies outside the Schengen area while flights normally route through mainland Norway, so travellers should carry a passport and check the entry rules for their transit as well as their destination.
When is the polar night and midnight sun in Longyearbyen?
In Longyearbyen the sun stays below the horizon from late October until the middle of February, and remains above it continuously through roughly late April to late August. Svalbard is usually described as having three seasons rather than four, with the March to May window - full snow cover plus returning daylight - regarded by many visitors as the best combination for travel by snowmobile and dog sled.