Welcome summer!

We have got some really summerly days here in Svalbard. Amounts of snow has been just disappearing! When the weather got suddenly warm (up to +10 degrees Celcius) and same time came lot of rain, the risk of the avalanches got also high. Luckily no human life has been lost but some roads needed to be closed for a while when avalanches tumbled over and also one cabin got totally damaged.

But we're happy that summer is coming. It will be great to be having some trips to the mountains without skies. And I really like that brown colour we're getting on the mountains in summer time. When I was still living in the mainland I didn't like so much brown as a colour. Now I think that variable brown colour mountains are having is really nice. In the same time I'm waiting forward to have little bit holiday in the mainland. I can almost feel the smell of grass when I'm just thinking about it.

Lunckefjellet - The new coal mine

Store Norske is planning to open a new coal mine in autumn. We'll be still based in Svea, but the way to work for miners will be just longer. Those, who will be working in Lunckefjellet, need first to drive through the old mine (that's about 10 km) and then over the glacier (about 3 km) before they reach the new mine.

This is an opening to the old mine on Skollfjellet beside Marthabreen.

People are working hard to get everything ready for autumn.

Lunckefjellet is on the other side of the glacier, Marthabreen. Opening to the new mine is getting to be ready.

These are our new storage halls. We'll see if we'll be working there after a while.

The blue building is called cathedral. It's huge as a cathedral. Actually it's a silo for coal which will be transported by conveyor belt through the old mine to Svea.

Symphony for Arctic light

I was supposed to go to work on Thursday morning, but weather was bad again. There weren't any local flights until Saturday fornoon. That was actually just fine for me, because Nordnorsk Opera og Symfoniorkester had a concert here on Friday evening. I'm not any big fan of opera, but Tchaikovsky is just fantastic and Grieg is something great as well. I guess that a trip to Longyearbyen was an experience for those who were playing in the orchestrer, but for us, who is living in Longyearbyen, it was an experience to listen that kind of great music.