So what do you do until January 29 when the sun starts popping up again?
Well, they don't call it the High Arctic for Nothing.
From The Independent, February 21, 2017:
Northern Lights and heavy drinking: What it's like to spend 100 days without sunlight in Svalbard
With a brutal winter that sees no sunshine for four months, no wonder the residents of Svalbard drink more booze than anywhere else in Norway
“Men used to get so crazy in the darkness they would play Russian roulette with loaded rifles,” says the barmaid, Anne, as she pours me another pint of strong, auburn pale ale – a heady tipple from Spitsbergen island’s own brewery. “Before the first commercial flights began coming here in the mid-1970s, the sea ice would freeze the boats in the bay, cutting us off from the rest of the world. No way in. No way out. Just an unrelenting night that would go on for more than 100 days.”....MORE
Little wonder, then, that the only permanently populated island in Svalbard – a far-flung archipelago that sits between Norway and the North Pole – should produce its own beer. By the end of October each year, the sun has cast its last rays upon these Arctic islands, heralding its fifth season – “dark winter”. For four months, the sun forgets this isolated frontier. By moonlight, the icy fjords and vast glaciers that surround the capital of Longyearbyen – population 2,144 – are illuminated by a bluish, ethereal glow. But during periods of snow and rain, the sky falls remorselessly black.
How does this ceaseless darkness affect the locals? I’d only been in Longyearbyen a few hours, but the lack of light had already started playing tricks with my body clock. It was just 4pm and I was on my fourth pint. I’m not a teetotaller by any stretch of the imagination, but heavy afternoon drinking, in an empty pub, in the Arctic? Anne sought to reassure me. “People here drink so much more in winter. The lack of sunlight makes it feel like the end of the day much earlier.”
I also found the alcohol had a much-needed warming effect. Temperatures here in winter hover between -25C and -30C, and the Arctic wind can cause frostbite on exposed skin within seconds. It came as no surprise that the majority of Svalbard’s 2,600 permanent residents spend so much time inside – just removing a glove to fumble with my phone resulted in agonising pain in my fingertips.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the This is Svalbard study conducted each year by Statistics Norway has consistently found that more alcohol is consumed per person on Svalbard than in any other region of the country. And it turns out a culture of heavy drinking goes all the way back to the archipelago’s coal mining industry in the early 1900s. “The mines were grim and dangerous places where death and serious injury were common,” my guide, Jim, told me as we explored the now decommissioned Coal Mine 3, deep below Svalbard’s Arctic surface. “Heavy drinking became part of the Wild West-like culture that once existed here – especially during dark winter.” ....
