Happy Nice Mall

Fascinated, I would lean for hours alone against the railing at the front of the ship. For 10 days, no moment was the same. The Arctic world was constantly shifting and changing around me as we slowly made our way through the ice and open sea, passing whales, walruses, birds and bears.

Clocks didn’t matter, except to keep track of mealtimes; In summer, this far north of the Arctic Circle, the sun never goes anywhere near the horizon.

Yet Svalbard, while seemingly timeless, is perhaps the closest thing we have to an hour.

I visited Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in 2017. M/S Stockholm, a classic ship built in 1953 and refitted in 1998 entirely by chance. (A last-minute cancellation and a chance encounter with a South African dentist somehow got me a cabinet the size of a closet.) Excited but without any expectations, I stepped aboard.

With a population of approximately 2,400 people, Longyearbyen is the archipelago’s largest settlement. Definitely a strange place. Named after an American mine owner, John Munro Longyear, the town is home to a mostly dismantled coal mining industry, a university campus, a global seed bank, and a small but thriving tourism industry focused almost exclusively on Svalbard’s natural beauty.

Seen from the sea, Svalbard seemed the epitome of wilderness: a vast expanse of largely pristine water, ice, and islands, free of human habitation and infrastructure, along with the occasional passing boat. Of course, that was the reason why I couldn’t separate myself from the deck, eat and sleep as little as possible.

I’ve always been drawn to open spaces – deserts, mountains, grasslands. The sea is categorically different, it moves around us even when we try to stay still. Watching the ice rush through the thick mist, the waterfalls gushing down from the edges of the giant glaciers, or the sky perfectly reflected in the suddenly still water, it was hard to shake the feeling that it was somehow both ethereal and eternal.

Unfortunately, climate change almost guarantees the eventual (and possibly quite imminent) collapse of an ecosystem that is actually extremely fragile. Covering two-thirds of the Svalbard archipelago, 29 national parks and other protected areas can protect their wild inhabitants from hunting and pollution, but not from rising water and air temperatures. Each year brings us new news about ever-shrinking glaciers and shrinking ice cover. 3,000 polar bears living in the Svalbard archipelago and the Barents Sea depends on their survival.

“The map was completely redrawn during my time here,” said Fredrik Granath. writer, photographer and expedition leader He has 20 years of experience in Svalbard. “The routes we traveled on foot or by snowmobile 10 years ago can now only be reached by boat. It gets worse every year.”

Tourism, as it often does, finds itself both part of the problem and part of the solution at the same time. On the one hand, air travel is a significant contribution to climate changeaccounts for about 2.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. (The travel industry as a whole has an estimated footprint of 8 to 11 percent of total greenhouse gases. World Travel and Tourism Council.) Choosing to fly less is undoubtedly important, especially global aircraft carbon dioxide emissions. expected to triple by 2050.

On the other hand, tourism can be an invaluable conservation asset. In many parts of the world, wild places remain largely wild because of tourism’s ability to generate jobs and income, allowing conservation to compete financially with farming, mining, and logging. While far from perfect, a subset of the travel industry can and does fund research, anti-poaching patrols, and community development. It also means that there are people – locals, visitors, journalists – who can witness, raise awareness, raise funds and sometimes dedicate their lives to a cause that touches them.

“You cannot describe the brutality of what happened with images or words alone,” says Mr. Granath. “Svalbard is at a tipping point. Some people have to experience it first hand, or this incredibly important story will unfold before it’s seen.”

All of this crossed my mind as M/S Stockholm continued its journey across the Arctic Ocean. Moments of overwhelming beauty short of breath would be followed by others, woefully incited at the prospect of the disappearance of a future where healthy polar bear populations and thriving Arctic ecosystems are only memories.

For better or worse, the future of Svalbard will not be determined locally. Yet, with persistence and luck, constant gazes into the Arctic world – either through our own experiences or those of others – will continue to tear apart the resistance to properly protect the remaining wilderness of this planet.