Today, 11 countries, including China and India, have a presence in Ny-Aalesund. But the town has only about 35 year-round residents.
Daily life centers around the town’s diversions – a sauna, a sled dog yard, and a weekly nighttime gathering called “Strikk og Drikk,” or “Knit and Sip,” during which residents stitch sweaters over a glass of wine.
In summer, Ny-Aalesund’s population swells to more than 100 as scientists fly in from across the world. They gather in the glass-fronted canteen overlooking Kongsfjord, where a taxidermied polar bear presides over meals.
“One of the special things about this place is there are a lot of different scientists. I’m a chemist. There are biologists, geologists,” said visiting researcher Francois Burgay of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. “It’s one of the few places in the world where these kinds of exchanges are so informal and so spontaneous.”
That cross-disciplinary collaboration is important for climate research. Svalbard is warming faster than almost anywhere else in the Arctic and cooperation can be critical for understanding how climate impacts will ripple through the polar ecosystem, from ocean to atmosphere, plants to animals.
But even Ny-Aalesund itself is unstable. Last year, Kings Bay AS, the state-owned company that manages the town, closed a laboratory where scientists processed samples from fish, snow and ice. Thawing permafrost had cracked its foundation.
Four buildings damaged by thawing permafrost have seen repairs over the past decade, Kings Bay AS operations manager Espen Blix told Reuters, including the town store, which contractors are fixing this year on a budget of 6.9 million crowns ($658,000 US). Another five are in need of repairs.
Still intact are the town’s sauna and jacuzzi, giving residents a chance to relax.
“The dark season is really nice,” said town safety instructor Christer Amundsen, who has lived in Ny-Aalesund full-time since 2019, referring to the October to February period when the sun never crests the horizon, bright stars fill the sky and blue-green auroras shimmer over the settlement.
