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50 years later, the map has changed
Rescuer, mapper and mailman returns on less dramatic mission

Bjoern Kraby Svendsen takes a coffee break while touring the area he patrolled 50 years ago.

Fifty years after literally putting Svalbard on the map, Bjoern Kraby Svendsen says the landscape has changed.

Back in the day, photographing the Svalbard coastline was just a side occupation to evacuating miners who'd lost their legs and winter dwellers who'd lost their minds. There was also the mail run, air-dropping supplies to field researchers and occasional need to bail out when engine failure caused a crash at sea.

Now Svendsen, who turned 75 without a celebration during his return trip to Longyearbyen at the end of July, has a different fear - things may be too nice. He said he's concerned about the impact from the large number of tourists he encountered, even though "I think people should come here and see Mother Nature."

The 42-year military veteran, who now writes poetry in longhand at his isolated forest cottage in Jordet, said he has long wanted to return to the archipelago where he flew missions for the Royal Norwegian Air Force between 1957 and 1960. It took a personal misfortune to make the trip a reality.

"After my wife died the feeling got stronger because I spent so much of my air force career up here," he said.

Svendsen's primary duty, operating from stations on the northern mainland, was medical rescues ranging from two babies born early on Spitsbergen to mine workers involved in traumatic accidents.

"There weren't many, but some had lost their legs," he said.

It's still tough working the mines these days, but Svendsen said the situation is vastly improved.

"We talked to a couple of miners," he said. "I know the difference is very big - environmental laws, pay (and) they have nice houses to live in. I saw the houses were painted in different colors, which I thought was good. It was clean, and the people were very well behaved and giving us great service."

Flying to Longyearbyen for a prepackaged group tour was also drastically different than the old days, when there were constant problems because of the weather and primitive aviation facilities.

Flying into Longyearbyen, pictured above in 1958, was frequently a difficult task due in part to primitive aviation facilities which included "miners standing on the runway with their headlights on."

"It was always miners standing on the runway with their headlights on," Svendsen said.

That's assuming the plane got there, which wasn't necessarily a given.

"We had to ditch a couple of times," he said. Luckily, the aircraft was amphibious, making those ocean encounters more of a nuisance than a catastrophe.

Navigation wasn't any easier for those following maps of Svalbard that were incorrect at time. Svendsen said the coastal photography was to correct those errors. There was also the time he had to airdrop winter clothes to an ill-prepared expedition.

His modern-day tour stopped in Barentsburg where, Svendsen said, "it's so big a difference it's hard to point out one or two things."

But Randi Kirkerud, who was traveling with Svendsen after they met at a reunion, said the Russian settlement and the glaciers they saw were her favorite part of the trip.

"It's a little touristy I think, but I can see they need it," she said.

Svendsen, who spent much of subsequent military career as an army and air force officer, said he plans to return to Svalbard, although it won't be next year - he'll be revisiting another former duty site.

"I'm going to Iceland," he said, adding it has something to do with shadowing Russian submarines there.

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