Night falls in Svalbard. Image courtesy of Jonathan Philippe Levy/Insvalbard.com

The word Svalbard may not mean very much to you, but to a very special explorer named Jonathan Philippe Levy, it has acquired a meaning all its own. Located in the Arctic Ocean between Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard is an archipelago of three islands that are populated by approximately 2,300 souls. First discovered by the vikings in the early 1100s, Svalbard now forms part of the Kingdom of Norway and is home to the world’s largest seed bank (of the botanical kind, that is). In fact, Norway has been storing thousands of the world’s various crop seeds within a tunnel carved into the rock, with the aim of preventing current crops from becoming extinct as a result of a natural or artificial calamity.

In his quest to live within a little known and isolated artistic residence (the Svalbard Gallery) for a while, Jonathan is discovering a corner of the globe that is all this and more. Armed with his camera, he is documenting his incredible journey on his blog where his inspiring snapshots capture the breathtaking beauty of nature in its purest of forms. He is currently based in Longyear, the capital and largest city of the three islands, where he arrived exactly a week ago and intends to stay for a month. Here is an excerpt from his diary published online:

“First day and first impressions.

The arrival at the airport was impressive to say the least. The last minutes of the flight resembled a lunar landing (or rather, a mooring).

For the entire flight, the sky was filled with white clouds as far as the eye could see. The plane flew very low, perhaps because of the type of plane (a Boeing 737-800A), however the layer of cloud was quickly crossed. Not being an expert in meteorology, I will not be able to provide technical names of the clouds which I encountered, so I will limit myself to describe them: very lengthened, predominantly white with some splatters of milky grey clouds… Long, several hundreds of meters, perhaps even kilometers, they were very dense and formed and dissipated extremely quickly. There was something in them so ghostly that you couldn’t help but notice their presence.

Longyear is caught between two mountains, one in the east, the other in the west…The airport was wrapped in utter calmness. A few hundred metres from there, one could distinguish a chimney spitting grey smoke, the factory used to produce the energy feeding Longyear.

Lightly dressed, integration starts early. I find that fewer people smile than those at my arrival in Oslo, and Isoon understood by the temperatures outside that this was not a choice but a need. The cold is choking. To articulate a word with a smile requires twice the effort. My neighbour in line, however, dressed in a sweater, jeans and tennis shoes, is able to speak on his mobile, smoke a cigarette, laugh and take a hundred steps, all at the same time. People like him, so accustomed to the icy temperatures, were soon to become my heroes…”