Longyearbyen, Svalbard 23-04-10

Heading back to Sweden this morning after a two week stay here in Svalbard. We were staying in Longyearbyen and talking to specialists either working or who’d worked in the field to the east of here on Edgeøya and Kong Karls Land about the denning habits of the polar bear

For 19 years Jason Roberts has been based here as an independent filmmaker working as field assistant and producer for a number of high profile BBC productions including Polar Bear Special and the Ice Worlds episode for the Planet Earth series with David Attenborough. He has specialized in the filming of polar bears and has had more experience than most in the observation of bear activities in and around dens. We recorded an interview with Jason and agreed to work together towards the development and realization of the Matrix project

Whilst in Longyearbyen we also spoke with Birger Amundsen, the editor from Svalbardposten who spent much time documenting dens in the ’eighties with the legendary Thor Larssen for the Norwegian Polar Research Institute in Trømso. In January this year, an article about our project appeared in Svalbardposten together with a drawing by Birger made on site during one such expedition, including detailed measurements of the various chambers and passages

Tors Punsvik from the Sysselmann (the Governor of Svalbard’s office) was helpful in giving us the background to human/polar bear encounters in the Archipelago and a clutch of new leads for our research

Thanks to all and those others that we met who made our stay so inspirational – and thanks to stunning Svalbard