Svalbard

Svalbard is a place that's interested me a lot recently. It's an archipelago (this is a group of islands) that lies far north of Norway, about halfway to the North Pole.

Quick History:

One note is that most houses are company owned

It is generally said to be first discovered in the 1500's however some say Vikings discovered it as early as the 12th century. It wasn't until 1619; when the Dutch settlement of Smeerenburg, that more activity started occurring however. Over the next 200 years, Russians, Norwegians, French, British, Danish and Dutch explorers, fisherman and whalers all came and left, drawn generally by the seasonal fishing and whaling.

It wasn't until the late 1800's and early 1900's that a permanent, year round source of work arose, which was because of the discovery of coal reserves. Since by this time no country had actually claimed full sovereignty over this cluster of islands, Svalbard remained contested over, which resolved over the end of the first World War, resulting in the signing of the Spitsbergen Treaty in 1920. 

The Treaty:

This treaty granted full sovereignty to Norway, thus making the Islands a 'part' of Norway, however what is interesting is that the signers of this treaty grant the citizens of this country the same rights to land, living and work as a citizen of Norway. In other words, anyone whose home country has signed the treaty can go to live and work in Svalbard without any of the usual documentation you would require.

The population is only about 3000 people in the whole area, so despite anyone being able to live there, seems not many are drawn to the cold, harsh winters (-16 degrees, not including the wind chill!). The good thing about Svalbard is that it doesn't pay the same taxes as Norway does (since even Norway doesn't really have full control over the area) but the pay rates are about the same, meaning you can earn a lot of money there if you found a job.

While before, most employment was from Coal mining, this has dropped off in recent times, with the economy relying also on tourism, fishing, research (marine biology, arctic biology etc.). The average income is said to be about 20% higher than the average on mainland Norway (and considering Norway already has one of the highest average incomes in the world, this is fairly considerable).

The relationship between Svalbard, Spitsbergen and Longyearbyen:

Despite being so north, Svalbard has a fairly mild climate

This confuses some since the names are all long, and Norwegian. Svalbard is generally referring to the entire cluster of islands. Spitsbergen is the largest of all the islands, and Longyearbyen in the largest town, which resides on the largest island, Spitsbergen.

Some other interesting facts:

-The most common languages are Norwegian and Russian, however since anyone can move there, the area has many other smaller language groups as well.
-Svalbard is home to the Global Seed Vault

-Unlike on mainland Norway, where snowmobiles can only be ridden on marked tracks, in Svalbard snowmobiles can be ridden anywhere, and are considered the main way of transport during winter.
-It is illegal to leave the home without a rifle
-On that note, it is estimated there is as many as 6000 polar bears on the Islands (almost 3 times the population of humans) though others have estimated less, at 3000 bears.
-Longyearbyen is considered the worlds northernmost town. 



I recently read of someone who was applying for a work visa in Norway, but it was declined, and to reapply you cannot be in the EU/EEA area for 3 months, so he considered staying in Svalbard for the three months. Some would find this difficult, do you think you could live in a place like Svalbard?

Simple. Useful sentences

As always it's been a while, I'm pretty slack with posting.

This post will be giving some examples of questions that would be useful in Norway (mostly from a tourist point of view, rather than actually making conversation)

Below are 2 choices, A or B, one is where is, and one is How do I get to; the numbers following are words you can then fit in to both of these to complete the sentence. 

A. Where is...? - Hvor er...? (Vor ahr)

B. How do I get to...? Hvordan kommer jeg til...? (Vawr-dahn kohm-er yai till)

1. the toilet? - toalettet? (Too-ah-let-et)
2. a bus station? - en busstasjon? (ehn boos-stah-shawn)
3. the bus station? - busstasjonen?
4. a train station? - en togstasjon? (ehn tawg-stash-ohn)
5. the train station? - togstasjonen?
6. an airport?* - en flyplass? (ehn flea-plass)
7. the airport? - flyplassen?
8. a cafe? - en kafé? (pronounced the same as cafe in English) 
9. the hospital? - sykehuset? (suhk-eh-hoos-et)
10. this hotel? - dette hotellet** (deh-teh hoh-tell-et)

Karl Johans Gate is a busy street (Gate = street) in Oslo;
the university, parliament and royal palace are nearby.
"Hvordan kommer jeg til Karl Johans Gate?"

*since most places in Norway are only going to have one airport, you probably wouldn't say this very often, I included it mainly to show how 'en' remains the same whether it is 'an' or 'a' in English.
**regarding different dialects, I have also heard 'dette hotel' however in most cases we hope you know the name of your hotel, and can instead say "Hvor er [name of the hotel]?"

Other useful phrases:

Help! - Hjelpe! (yel-peh!)
Can you help me? - Kan du hjelpe meg? (Can doo yel-peh mai?)
I don't speak Norwegian - Jeg snakker ikke Norsk (Yai snak-er ik-keh Nor-shk)
I am from... - Jeg er fra... (Yai ar fra...)

When given directions:

Right - Høyre (Hoigh-rah)
Left - Venstre (Ven-strah)
Straight ahead - Rett fram
U-turn - U-sving (ooh-sving)

These sort of simple phrases are both good for the vocabulary, but also useful for tourists if something goes wrong, you can ask for help, ask for a hospital, or tell someone you aren't local and find someone who speaks English well (which won't be difficult). When traveling and asking for directions, it helps if you know the locations of some famous or popular building. In oslo, buildings like the National Theatre, Opera House, Royal Palace, University and Parliament House are all fairly well known and popular buildings. Unfortunately for getting directions, most of these except the Opera House are along Karl Johans Gate.

Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliament building.

Anyway, more next time (who knows when that might be)
Ha det!

Houses in Norway

It's probably the houses you see around Norway that often remind you you're in a different country.

Since Norway usually has a very cold temperature, houses must be built to certain "guidelines" in many places, so that they can handle the temperature changes, the snow, the rain and so on.

Usually, housing in Norway is considered a little expensive (That linked house is about 2.1 million kroner, 360k USD, which here isn't so bad, but some countries are a lot cheaper), and the high quality of building is the reason why. Houses almost everywhere must have double glazed windows and insulation as a bare minimum, otherwise the occupants would freeze in the winter!

One thing you will definitely notice in Norway is the lack of brick and stone buildings. They exist, but there isn't very many in most places. This is because the change in temperature from below freezing to more 'average' temperatures (anywhere from 10-30 degrees Celsius is common) results in the expansion and contraction of most stone, especially if it is wet from rain, thus the stone cracks and breaks apart, not lasting very long. In a way, this is a similar concept to how some parts of the Fjords formed.

Many houses are A-framed and have small windows, which were usually the ones made a little while ago. There are many modern houses in Norway with large double glazed windows (to keep the heat inside) and a more square frame and rooftop, like the one to the side. Houses are also commonly brightly painted, in White, Red, Yellow or Black (Hvit, Rødt, Gul eller Svart) though other colors are also seen.

Some of the black houses are actually painted in tar.


From a long time ago, houses were fairly simple, but got the job done. The grass is on the roof as a type of natural insulation, which was very common during Viking times.

Nowadays, like most countries you can find a mix of old and new, and here is a new Norwegian building, very modern, in it's design and shape, lots of large glass windows, but the common material is still there - wood.

One of my favorite buildings however,
is the Stal Tre Hus (Steel tree house)

On another quick note, the image of the first black house above is taken by another blogger here on blogspot. He has lots of photos up from around Stavanger in Norway, so if you like to see photos of Norway and Stavanger (a very pretty town, too) you might be interested in following his blog.