Johan Jacobus Kootte

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The world’s northernmost town, one of about ten places on Earth with no COVID-19 cases, had its first death directly linked to the pandemic on Friday. But it wasn’t due to illness – it was a fatal attack by a polar bear on the manager of the local campsite as he lay in his tent, who because of extreme ban on all non-residents this spring was unable to come up and build an electric warning fence around the site that likely would have saved his life.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

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.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

http://icepeople.net

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Read Time:6 Minute, 35 Second

Photo by Jan Jacops

The man killed by a polar bear at Longyearbyen Camping just before 4 a.m. Friday has been identified as Johan (“Job”) Jacobus Kootte, 38, of The Netherlands, an employee at the campsite, officials announced Friday afternoon.

“He was lying in his tent when he was attacked by the bear,” a statement by The Governor of Svalbard notes. “Relatives have been notified.”