The skiing is perfect - silkeføre

These are condition we call silkeføre. Silkeføre is soft, easy, really fantastic snow conditions. In Norway the expression is used in many other contexts - when something is really good.

Kicksled

A perfectly functional vehicle in Tromsø in wintertime. In Norwegian its name is Spark.

The Thing - Mats Gustavsson

The jazz-café; Circa in Tromsø is hosting concerts, often on weekdays and Sundays. Yesterday The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, and Paal Nilssen-Love) visited. Being one of the hardest playing trios on the Scandinavian contemporary jazz scene they made a blasting Sunday evening for everyone in place. Below you see Mats Gustavsson who is also known for his projects with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. The homepage of Smalltown Superjazzz says: Mats Gustafsson is currently Sweden's and perhaps Europe's most well-known artist within free improvised music.

1949

The year my father was born. Tromsø had about 10000 inhabitants. A 60 years old iron gate.

A Roald Amundsen day in Tromsø

Today, we had typical Tromsø winter weather. Snow dumped down in mild temperatures. This makes most people wet and miserable (unless you are a skier, or a long gone legendary polar explorer in bronze).

What the future brings the Polar Bears?

An important meeting with the signatory parties of the Polar Bear Agreement is taking place in Tromsø between 17th and 19th March 2009.

In 1973 the countries with a polar bear population (Russia, Denmark/Greenland, Norway, USA and Canada) managed to agree on the protection regime for polar bears. Only traditional hunting would be allowed. In Spitsbergen the polar bears are not hunted at all by indigenous peoples - hence the local population is functioning as a reference.

However, the Norwegian Minister of Environment, Erik Solheim is pointing at excessive tourism as a potential threat towards this population (in addition to sea ice reduction and long-transported pollutants that bio-magnify in the food-web and ends up in high concentrations in top-predators). He is off course right, excessive and irresponsible tourism is a threat - but not the only.

Over the years, I have conducted about 60 sea-born expeditions with tourists to the areas of Svalbard with the highest concentrations of polar bears - the eastern parts of the archipelago. Once, I have flown with helicopter over some of the same areas.

Obvious to me; My one helicopter ride caused more stressed polar bears than all my 60 expeditions combined (by far).

Tourism flights with helicopters are prohibited in Svalbard. Tourism and conservation in Polar Regions are highly compatible and should be used for what it's worth to advocate the polar bear cause.

The pictures below are calm and easy going polar bears, on the east side of Svalbard.

Skiing; somewhere 20 minutes from Tromsø

This was a couple of weekends ago, at the darkest of polar night... My best outdoor experience so far this year :-)

Nisse

You can notice it from the little nisse-men ducking up from nowhere - x-mas is close. Here is the nisse-man aboard MS Lofoten, a beautiful vintage vessel sailing along the coast of Norway.

Fast ferry to Harstad

I took Hurtigruten from Harstad to Tromsø on friday. On our way we met the fast ferry going in the opposite direction in fantastic winter light.

Raudtind in Tromsø

Dark season skiing in Tromsø is great. Not too much light, but enough to have a great time on the mountain.

Polar Bear Stuff

Tromsø is the un-disputed polar bear capital of Norway. No, they are not roaming the streets like in the old days, when trappers brought with them live cubs from Svalbard. Some of the trappers handled them like dogs, walked them in a leach and tied them up outside bars and shops. Anyhow, today, it's the capital of stuffed polar bears, and I have a goal of documenting as many as possible of them. This is the first, from the hall of Norwegian Polar Institute.

Hiking on a beach near Tromsø

I spent the first of May hiking along a beach for four hours. The weather was variable and the sky was changing all the time. This season is great for big backcountry skiing trips followed by some layed-back life on the beach, a bonfire and good food.

Evening light in Tromsø

The light yesterday evening was so nice that I had to mount my long lens and go out on my veranda to shoot this picture. I thank the fisherman that conveniently came sailing in from Sunday overtime.

Reindeer racing

The yearly Norwegian Reindeer Racing Championship on sprint distance took place in Tromsø today. This event is mainly driven by Sami people who have large stocks of tame reindeer to choose from. One of the outsiders was a team from Tromsø that competed with an animal that is bred at the University in Tromsø for recearch in Arctic biology. This is a niche sport, but never the less spectacular. The sprint distance is 201 meters or 660 feet. The fastest equipages (one reindeer and a skier holding two lines on skis behind) cover the distance in about 15 seconds. This is about 25% faster than Michael Johnson at his fastest on the similar distance. The longer distance is 1000 meters, there is another championship for this. At the present the 18 year old woman Ánne Risten Sara and her reindeer Ena II is the world record holders, but they did not compete today because of a new import rule for reindeers (Ena II is imported from Finland).

Tromsdalstinden, Sálasoaivi

Conditions for skiing is better now when the sun is back in Tromsø. Today my dog, Pinga, and I went into the backcountry and we experienced being alone on the mountain. That is strange because more than 50.000 people live within a short drive or walk from this area. Pinga and I don't mind being alone in the backcountry and we had a really nice time seeing the landscape being partially lit up by the sun (because of some overcast) and the sun set creating beautiful pink skies and a blue snowscape. We were out a few hours but didn't get very far. Instead of covering distance we consentrated on having a good time and taking some pictures. On the first picture you see Tromsdalstinden, here also mentioned with its Sami name. The mountain is 1.238 meters high and is regarded a Holy Mountain for the Sami (indigenous people, also called Lapplanders).