Longyearbyen at noon (January)
If you are living in one of the most remote communities on the planet, I don’t blame you for taking every opportunity to make life a bit merrier.
Mind you, we are not talking Siberia here. Longyearbyen, Svalbard is a place people volunteer to go, where no one is supposed to be a permanent resident. I’m not sure the Norwegian governments would have kept it going if it wasn’t for the Cold War, nowadays it’s roughly one third coal mining, one third Arctic research and one third tourism. It’s not as if you’re stuck when the fjord freezes, either, there are daily flights from Oslo via Tromsø.
But even if it’s a place appealing to the adventurous, a winter night lasting for several months can be tough enough.
Well, it’s not winter yet. And it won’t be in September, either. But the range of entertainment on a given weekend probably tends to be limited. So a beer festival is probably just the thing.
So, for 1990 Norwegian kroner you get festival tickets, a cruise on the fjord and two nights with breakfast. No beer, presumably.
But look closer at the ad. Would you travel to the end of the world to drink Corona? On their web site, the organisers promise that During the three days of the festival you can taste beers from Norwegian and foreign breweries. Brand new types of beer will also be served..
I’ve been to Longyearbyen, and it is certainly worth a visit, it is as exotic as they come. There are two places in the world I’ve seen signs asking people to leave their hand guns in the reception, Sofia, Bulgaria was the other one. There was even a decent beer selection in the pub at Radisson Blu.
But I would not spend 1990 kroner for attending a beer festival there. At least not when the cheapest plane ticket would set me back another 3000,-.
Actually, Longyearbyen could be a great place to start a micro brewery. The Northernmost in the world. The locals and the tourists could buy the beers on tap, then they could ship out bottled extreme beers named after the great trappers, explorers and pioneers. Nansen Old Ale, Bering Imperial Porter, Nobile IPA, Amundsen Bock….
Don’t shoot Knut!
I’m guessing the sign in Sofia was not polar-bear-related. The only place I’ve seen gun-check facilities was at the Tinkoff brewpub in St Petersburg — another part of Europe’s Wild West. There was an airport-style metal detector and lockers where the armed bouncers would put your diamond-studded 9mm away for you while you drank.
And presumably give it back to you when you rolled out steaming…
I think there was a similar setup in Sofia. It was a night club, and I did not go in.
I just realised we have a picture of Knut (the bear) on our wall. The joys of having a 4-year-old.
Man, and I thought Kiruna was remote (definitely desolate), but I think that bar in Longyearbyen looks more appealing than the places I visited in Kiruna.
I’ve been thinking of an arrangement where I sign copies of photos of the other Knut. (Who, by the way, was very grumpy when we visited Berlin about a year ago!)
There are actually four decent bars in Longyearbyen as well as a duty free section in the supermarket specializing in limited editions of exlusive cognacs. The Svalbard treaty, which gives Norway juristiction over the islands, does not allow for any taxation except for running local government.