Life at 78° North

Dear Svalbard, you are a world apart

We chose to meet you in the winter,
to experience,
in the most honest way,
what life feels like here.
And through the cold,
the wind and the blizzards,
I felt warmth.

Warmth

Longyearbyen — former mining town, northernmost settlement in the world.
At first glance, you seem almost severe, with your industrial lines, and  your rugged way of standing against the Arctic.
You don’t reveal your warmth right away.
And yet it’s there.
In the way we leave our shoes at the door before entering hotels and restaurants, as if every place belongs a little to everyone.
Beneath the rough exterior, you feel less like a remote outpost and more like a place built on the simple warmth of people learning how to live together at the edge of the world.

Whiteout

Driving our snowmobiles into white,
until sky and ground became one,
as if the world has erased its own edges.
and then the distant sight,
of the ones that call this place home. 

Raw

You still feel raw, almost untouched.
With barely any roads or streets,
the town ends quickly,
and the wilderness begins.
So much that a polar bear could roam not far away.
Most of the world has been shaped to ease our lives,
but here,
time seems to stand still…