Longyearbyen has a real off-the-edge of civilization feel to it. The capital of Svalbard, a mountainous, remote and glacier-covered Norwegian archipelago situated halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Longyearbyen sees constant daylight in the summer and complete darkness in the winter. Snowmobiles, the main form of transport for much of the year, litter the town during the few snow-free months. The buildings and utility pipes are raised above the ground, to avoid damaging the permafrost below. And due to the risk of a polar bear attack, it is forbidden to leave the strict confines of town without a rifle for protection. The town has its origins in coal mining, starting in the early 1900s, but the last operating coal mine shut down in 2025. Tourism and scientific research now are the dominant industries.

We visited first Longyearbyen for a few days in 2018, flying in from Tromso where Dirona was moored. And we transited through briefly in 2023 on our first trip to the North Pole aboard the French icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot. Our second trip to the North Pole would be aboard the same ship and also would leave from Longyearbyen, but this time we decided to spend a couple of days there beforehand.

A three-hour flight from Oslo gave us some wonderful views to the dramatic glaciers and mountains of Svalbard. In decidedly colder-than-Oslo Longyearbyen, a large stuffed polar bear greets visitors at baggage claim. En route to our hotel, we passed the familiar sights of parked snowmobiles and raised pipes in town.

We stayed for two nights at the Svalbard Lodge, in a comfortable suite with a full kitchen. We cooked a breakfast in the room, and had lunches and dinners in town. And this trip we came prepared for Svalbard’s somewhat annoying tradition of removing shoes at building doors, and brought lightweight sandals to keep our socks clean when walking on the often dirty interior floors.

The following morning, we made a 5.5-hour loop hike up to Nordenskiöldtoppen, at 3,450 feet (1051 m) the tallest mountain in the vicinity of Longyearbyen. We normally hike on our own, but due to the rifle requirement for polar bear protection, we instead booked with Backyard Svalbard. Our guide, Daniel Husdal, did a great job and was good company. The scenery was fantastic, and we also got some great views to the Svalbard Satellite Station, the world’s largest ground station. The 100 antennas there are the only in the world that can see a low altitude polar orbiting satellite.

Svalbard is fairly barren, but we did see a surprising amount of flora.

And the area we were hiking through was full of impressive fossils.

We would board Le Commandant Charcot late in the afternoon the following day, and spent that morning touring Mine 3, that produced coal from 1971-1996. All the equipment was left in place when the mine closed down, and it felt a bit like stepping back in time to when the mine was still in operation. Sporting helmets with headlamps, we walked quite a distance into the mine. Due to the narrowness of the seams, the miners dug tunnels only about 3 feet high, and crawled in and out to do their work. Not a job for the claustrophobic.

Deep inside Mine 3 also is the original Seed Chamber, created in 1984 to preserve the Nordic seed collection. Those specimens were transferred in 2008 to the newly-opened Svalbard Global Seed Vault, whose vaulted cement entrance we passed en route to the mine, where seeds from all over the world are preserved. Mine 3 also contains the Arctic World Archive, opened in 2017, where historical and cultural data from several countries are preserved.

Between our adventures, we had some great meals in town, particularly at Restaurant Nansen, in the Radisson Blu Polar Hotel, with its giant stuffed polar bear in the lobby, and at the wonderful light-filled sunroom of Vinterhagen in Mary-Ann’s Polarrigg hotel.