Polargospel

Read Time:4 Minute, 33 Second

Last month the company finished shutting down almost everything and laying off almost everyone. This month – and next – the company is the cause of much celebrating.

The coal company’s 100th birthday is Nov. 30 and it’s safe to say the mood isn’t quite what many in Longyearbyen would have liked or expected before a coal price crash sent the company into an economic tailspin and near bankruptcy. But young and old alike are offering a variety of tributes to the company that until the crash was the town’s economic cornerstone.

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