An extra day in Svea

Our flight to the town got cancelled so we need to stay an extra day in Svea. Prognoses for tomorrow are good, so hoping to get to home tomorrow.

Svea isn't a "normal" town but a big work place. People come here to work. Work days are long, but we don't need to be thinking for example food; That we get from the cantina without charge. Of course all work clothing is coming from the company, so there is no need use time for such the things like think in the mornings what I would like to wear today. There are also pretty good possibilities for different hobbies after work. For me evenings hobby is training. We have very good training facilities after training it's nice to have sauna.

But now I'm waiting to fly back to Longyearbyen and to see how my two and four legged companions are doing there.

"Askefast"

Norwegian has a word for to be "askefast" which means "a person who can't be travelling by airplane because of the volcanic ash in the air". That's a very practical word!

It looks like I'll be "askefast" in Svea on my first week. Volcanic ash from Grimsvötn, which started to erupt in Island on Saturday, has reached Svalbard. That means all the air traffic is cancelled, including the local flights. That caused that all the production in Svea got stopped, because if an accident happens, an injured person can't be taken to hospital without air traffic. At 12 pm we needed to stop all the machines and after that we were only able to do some light work. I should be flying back to Longyearbyen tomorrow, but let's see what happens.

But it was a beautiful day, so after work we had a little trip to Varden, a view point on the closest mountain. It was nice to get little bit out after staying far too much inside every day. If it happens that we get stuck here, then we just need to make some use out of it.

The first day in Svea

The flight to Svea is just so beautiful. We had perfect weather for flying with just a little wind and almost no clouds. I think I'll never get tired of those snowy mountains!

The work started fine. We also got a nice start for our new work when a polar bear passed by. It was nice to see the big animal walking past undisturbed by people.

Svea

I'll be working in Svea over summer. Svea is a mining town about 60 km south from Longyearbyen. There isn't any road between towns but transportation is with a little shuttle plane. I'll be working in one week shifts, meaning that I'll be in Svea a week and then having a week free in Longyearbyen. We do two weeks work in one weeks time in Svea and that gives us a week overtime free.

Pictures are from Svea couple of years ago.

National day

Yesterday we were celebrating Norwegian national day! We're having in Longyearbyen a parade and all kind of celebrations as everywhere else, but I wasn't joining them as I was working. But it was a beautiful day, so afterwards we had a good walk with dogs. I think that was nice enough way to celebrate the day!

Beauty of spring

Lately we have had really nice spring days. Temperature has been mostly staying in some minus-degrees, which is just good. I don't fancy too much wet and slushy ground - and dirty dogs.

A bearded seal enjoing his life on the ice.

Garden on my living room

Here we can't make a kitchen garden outside, so then we just need to have it in our living room. It's just a small one, but anyhow, it's fun to grow some green stuff.

In early April I sowed some herbs and salads. They were growing just in our windowsills behind the other plants.

You don't need to have any special green fingers for to grow some watercress or herbs. Behind watercress there are growing pumpkin seedlings. In early May we started to see again through the kitchen window when snow behind it started to melt. Now also plants in the kitchen can get some light.

When my seedlings were growing too big, I needed to make some place for them by the window. So it was time to move my "forest" on the other place. Anyhow, it's little bit too hot for them by the window when the sun is shining on them over night.

Actually we haven't seen out through the window for ages because there has been a thick vegetation on the way. Now we have to enjoy the view as long as it's lasting.

The first round of harvesting has already started. Herbs and salads are already eatable sizes and soon we're getting also radish.

I haven't tried pumpkin before. It will be exciting to see if they will produce some small pumpkins.  They aren't having any special big pots to grow in, but they are fertilized with horse muck.

Tomatoes need also a long period of growth before we can enjoy results.

Whatever this plant is, I don't think it's anyhow beautiful. But suddenly it started to flower, so it got a pardon to be thrown on a litter bin.

Ice cave

Even when there is a bad weather outside, it's always beautiful in an ice cave. Ice cave is a cave inside a glacier. There are also some caves in moraines in the front of the glaciers.

Spring came suddenly

After Easter we got suddenly spring. Lately we have been having some plus-celcigrades, almost totally calm wind and every now and then some rain. It starts to look like scooter season will be soon over. On my opinion that was couple of weeks too early...

Ecofriendly snowmobiles?

Who they are trying to cheat?

Is the use of the total army of scooters ecofriendly?

Walrus

Big boys were visiting our town.

Halo

Time for stargazing is over, but in midnight summer we can see some other heavenly happenings.

Barentsburg

Pyramiden is an abandoned Russian town, but Barentsburg is an active town. You can visit both towns by scooter in winter time or by boat in summers.

You can see from far away you're getting closer to the town.

Welcome to the town!

The chapel and the sport hall behind.

Pyramiden

When we were already in Vindodden, was a trip to Pyramiden pretty much shorter than from the town. Pyramiden is a Russian ghost town, abandoned in 1998.

The centre of the town.

How you can guess we're in a Russian town...

Nobody is playing here again.

He's growing up beside the big (but empty) town.

Nordenskiöldbreen - the glacier you can see from the town.

Easter

We left to Vindodden on Wednesday before Easter. We drove with scooters, our friend used a dogsledge. It was really nice to leave town behind and enjoy the life in the cabin!

Vindodden is an area with cabins by Sassenfjorden.

We were pretty lucky with the weather, even though it got suddenly really mild.

We got some nice weather and small outdoor activities.

And some snow... Dogs totally covered with snow.

We were having good and relaxing time :)

Four pawed dog

Our dog is having again four usable paws.

Before Easter we went back to the hospital. This time our dog got some sedatives and it was easier to put him to sleep. Then it was easy to have a good look on his paw. Paw looked otherwise fine but one of his claws was broken. Claw was on the place but it was feeling unstable and some tissues around it was partly damaged as well.  We called to the vet and he said that we need to take the claw totally away. So now he's lacking one of his claws...

He's not yet totally woken...

After treatment he got quickly better. He was going around over a week with his three paws and having pain in his damaged paw. When the damaged claw was taken away paw healed up quickly and he was able to use all of his paws again.

It's brilliant hospital is also helping fur coated creatures!