POLAR BEAR, CUB AT HIORTHHAMN: Governor reponds to late Saturday night visit at cabin area across from Longyearbyen
By Mark Sabbatini on August 1, 2020
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A polar bear with a cub is in the cabin area of Hiorthhamn across the channel from Longyearbyen, The Governor of Svalbard stated in an alert at about 11 p.m. Saturday.
A helicopter used by the governor of Svalbard hovers in the midnight sun high above the shore of a cabin area at Hiorthhamn where a polar bear with a cub was spotted late Saturday night. Photo by Mark Sabbatini / Icepeople.
“The governor’s personnel are on their way and urge people to keep away from the bears,” the alert stated.
One of the governor’s two rescue helicopters hovered high over the cabins shortly before midnight as officials tracked the bear, but the aircraft departed after several minutes.
The area, often in high use by cabin owners during the summer, is frequently visited by bears during late summer and early fall, with one female in particular – sometimes with cubs – seemingly making it part of her annual migration track around Svalbard for many years, according to Norwegian Polar Institute experts.
While some of the visits have resulted in ransacked cabins and campsites, no attacks on humans have been reported in modern times.
I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation.
Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads.
But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation.
Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads.
But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
Icepeople is again facing an immediate existential crisis due (of course) to hardships largely inflected by the pandemic. In short, 1) the website needs $22 U.S. (190 NOK) to stay online for another month and 2) the editor needs any and all help possible to avoid homelessness in the middle of polar winter (not that it’s legal here any other time of the year).
So if you appreciate Icepeople for its unique stories about Svalbard and/or critical news during these critical times, as well as its features about the more colorful aspects of life here (today’s feature about the upcoming Polarjazz festival is for the event that first drew our editor’s attention to Svalbard way back in 2008) please do whatever you can during what are admittedly incredibly harsh times for many.
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