Entering the Arctic Circle - 2016

© 2016, R. Ono

With a 4am drive to San Francisco Airport, we were off on a new adventure taking us into the Arctic
Circle. The first leg of our flight itinerary took us to Dallas Fort Worth to London to Oslo. An overnight room at the Park Inn Hotel, at Oslo Airport, provided a respite before our final flight to Longyearbyen, located in Svalbard, an archipelago of Norway.

This trip started a little different from our previous ones as I had a relatively minor medical issue that resulted in several lab visits and a recommended antibiotic regimen just before we started. Nothing like a little uncertainty just before travel to a remote part of the world - one with somewhat inconvenient access to medical care.

© 2016, R. Ono

Longyearbyen is home to about 2,000 residents. This area was originally used for early polar exploration, whaling, fur trapping and coal mining. It is now used for some mining and as a starting point for expedition and research ships traveling into the Arctic Circle. Thus, the small town has an airport. taxi services and contains several museums, shops, small hotels, a combination grocery-department store and restaurants.There are also several adventure outings available depending on the time of year of your visit, including glacier hikes and snowmobile trips.

© 2016, R. Ono

Walking around the town to see the sites doesn't take too long. Visitors are cautioned in reading material not to stray far from the edge of town due to possibility of coming across a polar bear. We were reminded several times that polar bears view humans as just another dining option - particularly one that doesn't run very fast. That said, we were also told that the bears generally stay away from the town due to unfamiliar noises and vehicles.

A couple of notable sites to see in Longyearbyen include the Svalbard Museum and North Pole Expedition Museum. The Svalbard Museum provides exhibits and photographs that tell the story of how the Svalbard evolved to its present day environment. The North Pole Expedition Museum focuses on the early pioneer Svalbard explorers, their achievements, their mishaps and the competitive nature of exploration..

During our only evening in Longyearbyen, we had dinner reservations at Gruvelageret. This restaurant opened in 2015 and is located in a cultural heritage building that served a variety of purposes, including a mining office, mining storeroom and stable. Our five course dinner was well prepared and delicious. The menu included an amuse bouche consisting of cured whale on a flatbread, smoked halilbut with a mango-pepper-coriander salsa with wasabi mayonaise, a cauliflower or pumpkin soup, grilled lamb with polenta or fried potatos and a coffee cream dessert served with dark and white chocolate and crumbled digestive biscuits or an alternative strawberry sorbet dessert with fresh fruit and pumpkin sauce. This meal was a wonderful start to our adventure.

© 2016, R. Ono

© 2016, R. Ono

We soon join an expedition ship to explore Svalbard in greater detail over several days. Thus, Internet accessibility and posting updates will be infrequent.