Salt & Pepper Bear Cubs

These two guys live in Polar Zoo in Troms in Northern Norway. Salt & Pepper are 10 weeks old. Visited them yesterday, you can follow them on THIS live stream.

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 :-)

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.

Weekend in Havnnes

Havnnes is an old merchant place where fishermen have been delivering fish for centuries. Archeological findings proves this to be a dwelling place as old as 6000 years. Havnnes is situated on the island of Uløya and you need to take a short ferry ride to get there. The total number of inhabitants is about 55. This a fantastic place to retreat. You can rent a house for about 100 Euro that sleeps 6. When we arrived it was even lit up in the fire place and we could start relaxing immediately. You can also rent a boat if you like to tempt your luck with the fishing rod or you can go the easy way of buying a dried, tasty fish at the grocery store. This is a great place that will never become over-crowded - it's you, the locals, maybe a few Czech fishing enthusiasts, clean air, magnificent views and the occasional sea eagle.

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.

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).

TIFF '07

Tromsø International Film Festival (tiff.no) is going on and it's peak season for cultural events in Tromsø. The Film Festival is the most influental Film Festival in Norway and it is a very inclusive event where northerners like myself can make "travels" to exotic places and cultures in the cinematic darkness. Close to 45.000 tickets are sold during the six days of the festival and between viewings it seems like everybody is drawn to the local waterholes to zip a wine or a caffe latte. Social life is booming and it's just a very nice and social atmosphere in the city. My personal favourites of what I've seen is the Mexican 'El Violin' directed by Francisco Vargas Quevedo and Tommy Lee Jones' 'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'. They both had a setting in Mexico - I think I have to go there some day...