Trykk i Sanntid 2024: Karbonpuls

Verkstedbiblioteket at Guttormsgaards arkiv was one of five print collectives participating in this year’s edition of Trykk i Sanntid (Print in Real Time), under the theme KARBONPULS (Carbon Pulse). The event, which takes place on summer solstice, brings together a number of print studios along the coast of Norway to participate in the simultaneous act of printing, using a common theme and format as point of departure. The process is shared through social media (@trykk.i.sann-tid), and as the sun “turns”, we toast and celebrate together across the country. The project and concept was initiated by Rita Marhaug, Åse Anda and Kjellaug Hatlen Lunde. Thank you for including me, Erika Reed and Suzannah Rehell Øistad in the fifth and last installment of this wonderful event!

The format of this year was large scale maps, and we kept printing until well into the night on our small Krause stamping press!

The results will be showcased in a group exhibition at Galleri Nord-Norge in Harstad, opening on 29 August.

Participating workshops 2024:
Bodø: Den Frie Presse
Ålesund: Aggregat atelierfellesskap
Bergen: Foreningen Trykkeriet
Stavanger: Tou Trykk
Blaker: Verkstedbiblioteket ved Guttormsgaards arkiv

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 13 (Final Week)

To kick off my last week in Svalbard, I was treated to this magnificent sight - four happy walruses basking in the midnight sun, not far from Longyearbyen. I never thought I would be able to see these amazing creatures up close! That being said, I have obviously zoomed in quite a bit, as I did not want to disturb their peaceful slumber. I know people come here mostly with the goal of seeing polar bears, but I will admit that walruses have stolen my heart completely.

For the final week of my Svalbard residency, I decided that I could not go home without visiting one of the Russian coal mining towns here in Svalbard. My initial intention was to visit the ghost town of Pyramiden, which can be reached by boat - however, as there has been an unusually large amount of sea ice this year, Pyramiden is still not reachable, and most likely will not be until well after my departure. In the end, I made the last minute call to instead make the boat trip to the more easily accessible Barentsburg, which is located approximately 60 km west of Longyearbyen. It is a town that is in many ways similar in style to Pyramiden, but that still has an operational mine, and a population of approximately 300 people - mostly Russians, but also some Ukrainians.

Under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, citizens of signatory countries have equal rights as Norwegians to exploit natural resources at Svalbard. As of now, Russia is the only nation exercising that right through their coal mining operations. Barentsburg, initially named after Dutch explorer William Barentsz when the Dutch company N.V. Nederlandsche Spitsbergen Compagnie purchased the area, was sold to the Soviets in 1932. It is the second largest settlement in Svalbard, although the population dwindled significantly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with many Ukrainians and oppositional Russians choosing to leave.

Approaching Barentsburg by boat

Going to Barentsburg or Pyramiden, in the current situation of the Russian-Ukrainian war, is something everyone has to decide for themselves whether feels right or not - especially as both settlements are owned by the Russian state company Trust Arktikugol. The joint tourism body of Visit Svalbard decided to remove all tours of Barentsburg and Pyramiden from their platforms, arguing that: The Russian tourism company Arctic Travel Company Grumant in Barentsburg is wholly owned by the state-owned mining company Trust Arcticugol and is hence an extended arm of the Russian state in Svalbard. Consequently, most of Longyearbyen’s tourism companies have decided that further cooperation and trade with the state-owned company is incompatible with the ethical and moral norms and standards our industry represents.

This decision has been much disputed however. The family owned company Henningsen (HTG) has insisted on continuing with their tours to Pyramiden and Barentsburg, arguing that people from multiple nations live closely together on Svalbard, and that they will therefore not be taking part in any form of sanctions or boycotts towards their neighbours. In their view, sanctions against Russian businesses will primarily have a negative effect on Svalbard and Barentsburg locally, rather than on the Russian administration in Moscow. They, and many others here, also argue that cutting ties to the Russian settlements is ignorant and ahistorical. Svalbard has, for decades, been one of the few - if not the only - arena where Western and Russian peoples have been able to meet and communicate face-to-face. Historically, throughout the whole duration of the Cold War, friendly sports tournaments, chess championships and other intercultural meetings between residents of Longyearbyen, Pyramiden and Barentsburg were regular occurrences. Up until 2022, residents and officials from Barentsburg always participated in the celebration of Norwegian Constitution Day in Longyearbyen. The Russian government is also represented in Barentsburg by a consulate, making this the northernmost diplomatic mission of any kind.

Further defending their decision, Henningsen stated: We are going to live and work together in Svalbard throughout these severely hard times, even after the acts of war in Ukraine is behind us. A boycott of Trust Arcticugol's tourist industry will neither hit the right target, nor create stability and good relations at present or for the future. Basing our stand on a human aspect, it is our wish that the people-to-people relationship between the Russian and Ukrainian people of Barentsburg and the local population in Longyearbyen will continue as normal as possible. Together we unite through meetings between people, nature, the return of the light, compassion and hope for the future.

The world’s second northernmost Lenin statue - after the one in Pyramiden.

In the end, after much consideration, I decided that for me, Svalbard’s unique position to facilitate individual human meetings will always be more significant and valuable than a boycott. It is so easy to create enemy pictures in today’s day and age, and it is important to once in a while remind ourselves that there are individuals on both sides of a conflict that have little to no power to change the current situation. I will not deny that some of the people living in Barentsburg do indeed support the Russian government. Then again, there are those that live there because it is their home and it provides an income, and it also means that they will not get drafted for the war. Can you criticise a people for following their government when they have little freedom to do otherwise, and at the same time choose to cut all ties and opportunities for meetings, conversations and differing opinions?

I will also stress that for me, there is a difference between visiting with an open, but also critical and inquisitive mind for the sake of gaining understanding, and visiting purely for fun and leaving lots of money in hotels and restaurants and souvenir shops without any awareness as to where those money are actually going. There are many strong arguments for and against visiting, but if they have been carefully considered, I think both views must be respected. Nothing is black and white in this world.

The boat towards Barentsburg departs twice a week. Sometimes the boat is full, but on this day, there were only four of us, with only three choosing to dock in Barentsburg. As the other two were mainly there to photograph Arctic foxes (of which there are plenty in Barentsburg), I was so privileged as to get a private guided tour around town. My guide was a young Russian woman about my age. She told me how she came to Barentsburg because she had always had a fascination for Norway and the Arctic. When tourists stopped coming to her hometown of St. Petersburg, and she was not able to practice or maintain her English, she came to Barentsburg in order to continue with her guiding there. She had lived in Barentsburg for a year, and really enjoyed the social unity and the remoteness of the town. I asked her how she travelled home to Russia, and how food was provided to such a remote location - unlike Longyearbyen, they have no airport. She told me food was shipped from Murmansk about once a month, and that they often ran out. In these instances, she would ask her friends from Longyearbyen to bring foodstuff on the boat. There once used to be greenhouses with imported soil in Barentsburg, but these were now dilapidated and unsafe - like many of the other buildings in town. I also learned that she could not get home by boat - in order to travel to Russia, she now had to fly from Longyearbyen to Oslo, and then to Russia via Turkey as a result of the sanctions.

Since I was alone with my guide, I was treated to a very unique inside view of the swimming pool and gymnastics hall. Like the rest of Barentsburg, it still carries the visual remnants of the Soviet era. A lot of Russian-Norwegian meetings have taken place here over the decades, in the form of chess tournaments and sports matches. Seeing the sign in Norwegian and Russian above the floor, with the message “Hilsen til Idrettsfolk” (Greetings athletes), made me very sad for the current situation - which I expressed to my guide. She dejectedly answered that such was life. Until the war is over - whenever that will be, it is what it is. When she moved to Svalbard, boycotts were already heavily implemented, and she had never experienced it the way it had once been.

In addition to the sports centre, Barentsburg has its own hospital, hotel, school, kindergarten, cultural arena, as well as a research station, which is connected to the Kola Science Centre and The Russian Academy of Sciences. While it is a great shame that intercultural meetings between Russians and Westerners have come to a halt here, what is equally concerning is that vital scientific discoveries made in Svalbard relating to climate research is no longer being shared between nations. This kind of research cannot simply be accessed through a phone call - in order to be of use, it needs to be shared, studied and reviewed through official platforms. In our quest for adhering to political principles, are we blinded to the bigger problems?

A boat with a flight engine - remnants of the Soviet Union.

From a purely artistic and architecural aspect, I found it so interesting to observe how the aesthetics and town planning of Barentsburg could not have been more different to that Longyearbyen. It is clear that Longyearbyen was built as a company town, and the buildings erected here were never meant to last or to be aesthetically impressive - instead taking on a more modular, generic form that could easily be assembled and disassembled. Barentsburg on the other hand, although run down, was impressive in many ways. It is clear that the Soviet government always intended for this to be a family town as well as a prestige project, and that they had a clear vision for the town’s layout when erecting it. It caters to families and children with its big open spaces, its ice skating rink, beautiful mosaics and murals. Even the litter bins were highly decorated! It was a surreal experience finding such constructions in the High Arctic - for me, it felt as if I was back in Russia, in a normal Russian town along the Volga river. The only thing reminding me that I was, in fact, on Norwegian soil, was a sign for the Norwegian postal services and the fact that everything was in Norwegian krone (NOK). Besides, images of Bergen and the Nidaros Cathedral were painted onto the school’s façade - as a now very melancholy sign of a friendship that once was.

Look closely, and you will see the docks of Bergen and the Nidaros Cathedral painted on this school building.

In the end, I am thoroughly happy that I chose to visit Barentsburg, and I am grateful to Henningsen for the opportunity to do so. Staying in Svalbard for three months on a residency, and researching the archipelago and making art relating to the geopolitical situation in the north, it would be wrong (and a waste) to not visit a Russian settlement, and trying to understand and accept this aspect of Svalbard’s unique role in international relations.

If you look to the mountain towering over Barentsburg, you will see a five-pointed star and the Communist-era slogan Миру Мир/Miru Mir, or "Peace to the World". While apparently not a slogan that is bandied about in mainland Russia anymore, in Barentsburg they still print it on souvenir t-shirts. My guide buys them for all of her friends back home.

As my residency comes to an end, I want to express my deepest gratitude to ARTICA for a wonderful three-month residency. I also want to thank QSPA (Queen Sonja Print Award) for nominating me for this fantastic adventure, granting me an experience I had dreamed of for almost a decade. This residency has been beyond what I could have ever hoped and wished for - both in terms of productivity, and in terms of education, adventure and making new connections. I have travelled to many places, but few have been so beautiful and at the same time so complex as Svalbard. Thank you to all the fellow artists and writers I have met along the way, and not to mention all the many Svalbard long-term residents I have been so lucky to interact with and learn from. It has been truly inspiring getting to know you all.

Over the summer, I will continue printing and producing works relating to my experiences and observations at Svalbard, and will be showcasing my newest productions at Kunstverket Galleri in Oslo from 29 August. More information to come!

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 12

This Monday kicked off Sustainability Week in Longyearbyen, an extended ten-day week filled with free events and lectures related to sustainability and climate research on Svalbard.

Coming to Svalbard, the carbon footprint you are leaving through your mere physical presence is an ever present concern and source of self-reproach. This is an especially fragile part of the Earth, where climate change is most acutely and drastically felt. The Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the world, and in Svalbard up to seven times the global average. Under medium to high scenarios, the annual mean air temperature on Svalbard is expected to increase by 7 ºC to 10 ºC by the end of the century.

Past records and future climate predictions for Svalbard were presented during a lunch hour lecture with climatologist Inger Hanssen-Bauer at Longyearbyen folkebibliotek (Longyearbyen Library). She explained how researchers use numeric models in order to predict the climate a century from now, and also explained how the amplified numbers in the Arctic are largely due to the albedo effect. Light-coloured surfaces such as ice and snow reflect sunrays back in to the atmosphere, whereas dark surfaces absorb them, leading to warming. As more and more ice surfaces are transformed into dark open waters with every passing season, the heating of the Arctic is constantly being re-enforced and accellerated. The melting of polar ice has far-reaching impacts on global climate patterns, as ice helps maintain stable global temperatures by reflecting solar radiation back into the atmosphere and cooling down the waters that travel down towards the tropics.

Monday evening I joined a free field trip to Endalen (a valley approximately 5 km from Longyearbyen) with geologists Malte Jochmann from Store Norske and Maria Jensen from UNIS. Here we got to learn about the ongoing climate research which is being conducted through studying geological samples collected through decades of coal mining activity on Svalbard. What can be deducted from this material, and how does geology relate to climate research?

Because Svalbard has been a coal mining site for over a century, prospect drilling has taken place all across the land to an unusually thorough extent. While sampling the mountains for coal and other minerals was initially driven by economic and capitalistic interests, we are now recognising the enormous scientific value of these core drilling samples. Here in Endalen, thousands of meters of carefully recorded rock samples, dating back to boreholes drilled in the 1970s, are now being carefully and chronologically stored.

Why are these samples so valuable to us? Svalbard is a unique haven for geologists for several reasons. Nowhere else in Northern Europe can you trace sediments from so many of Earth’s geological epochs conserved in rock, and nowhere is this so unimpeded by vegetation and human settlements. The exposed rock can therefore be studied across long interrupted sections, representing a cross section of most of Earth’s history. As there is such a vast array of rock core samples from all over the archipelago, geologists can obtain a very complete picture of what the landscape looked like here millions of year ago. You can tell by the colours of the rock sediments whether or not they contain remnants of vegetation, animals, plankton, pollen etc., which may be characteristic of certain climatic zones, or wet or dry landscapes. The geology of Svalbard reveals that the climate here was once much warmer here than it is now. Studies and reconstruction on past changes in the environment can therefore help provide vital information as to what Svalbard’s weather and ecosystem will look like in the future as global warming continues. This area of research is called Palaeoclimatology - meaning the scientific study of climates predating the invention of meteorological instruments.

Non-scientific communities in Svalbard are also taking part in Sustainability Week, highlighting the many ways in which various disciplines contribute to the joint effort of spurring direct action on climate and environmental issues. While the scientists in Svalbard (and across the world) conduct enormously important research, scientific reports is something that can be difficult for the regular lay person to understand or access. In the art world, we are not only seeing a large number of contemporary artists working with climate-related themes - we are also witnessing more and more direct collaborations between scientists and creatives, with research teams often offering up one of their field trip spaces to an artist or a writer. Can science be made more accessible to the public through the means of art? How can artists document and distill scientific facts and numbers into something that is tangible and emotionally relatable?

As an Arctic residency programme, Artica Svalbard is making continuous efforts towards a greater awareness of sustainable practices. Artica is a founding member of NAARCA - The Nordic Alliance of Artists’ Residencies on Climate Action. As part of this month’s edition of First Friday Coffee Club, Artica presented a film and an online exhibition featuring the works of Rikke Luther and Nikhil Vettukattil. Rikke Luther and Nikhil Vettukattil’s art projects are part of NAARCA’s commissions aimed at fostering new knowledge and practices related to climate action in the Nordic-Scottish region. Both artists completed residencies at Artica, as well as at other locations within the NAARCA network, to prepare for their contributions to this exhibition.

Being here on a printmaking residency, I know I am making myself part of the problem - especially as my motivation for coming here has not been climate related, but learning about how local life is entrenched in international geopolitics. While I have truly enjoyed creating art in such a beautiful, interesting and multifaceted environment, I have also felt a tinge of guilt, knowing it would be hypocritical of me to attempt promote climate action through my art when I, as a traditional printmaker, am so reliant on potentially hazardous chemicals and specialised tools in order to be able to conduct my craft. These are things that all need to be shipped up for very specific purposes, and although we make sure we are disposing of everything safely and responsibly, I very much believe that the medium is part of the message - and that in this instance, there is too great a conflict and paradox. However, being in a place like Svalbard definitely makes me read climatic issues into my own work - aware of how geopolitics is ultimately linked to climate. For example - how will the eco system be affected as the polar ice melts and more and more ships are able to traverse the Northeast and Northwest passages?

The term “Sustainability Week” ultimately raises many questions. With the Arctic currently being the most vulnerable place on Earth, should there even be people on Svalbard in the first place? The local coal mining industry is closing down this year to await “The Green Shift” which is still decades away, and in the meantime our power source is now (very expensive) imported diesel from the mainland. To replace the coal mining industry and justify continued human presence in Longyearbyen, Svalbard is now investing heavily in tourism and branding itself as a “Sustainable Destination”. But what is that? Visit Svalbard says the following:

How can Svalbard be a sustainable destination when its energy comes from coal mining, most consumer goods are imported to the island, there are daily flights to and from the mainland and in the summertime large cruise ships arrive with thousands of guests on board? We often hear this as arguments for why we are not a sustainable destination. However, this is what we must deal with in the current situation. Despite the environmental paradox in Svalbard, we are working continuously to improve the conditions in this setting.

Having this label does not mean that our destination is sustainable. However, it’s an important tool for improving the situation and committing us to a continuous process of seeing how we can reduce our environmental footprint. We implement local measures, make wise environmental choices and not least increase awareness of sustainability among the tourism industry, the local population and our guests.

Svalbard is on the cusp of an identity crisis in many ways. What is our place in the Arctic? Saturday night I attended Store Norske Mandskor’s (Store Norske Men’s Choir’s) spring concert here in Longyearbyen. Store Norske owns all of Longyearbyen’s coal mining sites, and are now involved in the town’s transition into green energy. While not everyone in the choir are necessarily coal miners, many are long time residents of Svalbard, and witnesses to the many changes that are happening - both to society and to the nature around them. I think this added an extra level of emotion to what was already a beautiful concert - it was a glimpse of old Svalbard, and a glimpse into the collective memory of a chapter about to be closed.

Ultimately, I have concluded that in order to protect the Arctic and its eco-system, Svalbard needs some people. Perhaps not people like me, but I do believe that some human presence will prevent too much human presence. This archipelago was once a free for all no man’s land where whales and polar bears were almost hunted into extinction, and anyone from anywhere could claim land and extract its resources for economic gains - including Norway. Humans will never leave the Arctic alone unless someone puts strict measures into place. Norway has now turned a lot of Svalbard into national park, and are putting restrictions on the growth of Longyearbyen. While this can be read as a way of enforcing power and authority and restricing the rights of other Svalbard Treaty signatories - it is also ultimately an important step to protect Svalbard. Humans are loud, and humans are everywhere. Protect the remaining uninhibited areas at all costs.

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 11

This week we entered June, meaning that I am on the last stretch of my residency. In some ways I cannot believe that it is almost over. In other ways I feel as if I have been here forever. The strange cold planet that I landed on in March, covered in ice and snow and a play of pink and blue pastel colours, has now made way to a drastically different world that is currently rather brown, rainy and bleak - albeit still stunning in its own way. I guess this is what Arctic summers are like? It is strange to think that when I left Oslo in mid-March, I was dragging my luggage through a snow storm. Now I will be returning to a city filled with lush green parks and find that all of my summer clothes are stacked away and my Christmas lights are still up - probably to the chagrin of some of the neighbours.

I initially wanted to write a long insightful essay about the Norwegian Minister of Justice and Public Security’s visit to Svalbard this week, but I find that I want to talk about residency life.

My brain experienced a bit of a shut down at the end of last week. I was feeling dizzy, I was unable to sleep and my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. While I am sure printmaking chemicals do little to mitigate this, I realised I had been pushing my head, body and creative capacity to the limit. Whenever I was not in the studio, I was sketching, writing or reading relevant research. When trying to fall asleep, I was running through the steps and tasks for the next weeks and even months ahead. The only time I took a few hours off was when I needed to cook or do housework.

Being on a sponsored long-term residency such as this one, it is easy to chastise yourself unless you work all day, every day. While ARTICA encourages slow thinking and reflection and never puts pressure on us to perform, we as artists often do. After all, when will we ever find the space and time to be this productive at home? Back in Oslo, I rush between work, meetings, projects and different studios, while at the same time also trying to uphold a large social circle. Hours each week are spent commuting in tightly packed underground carriages. It is such a rare opportunity to be granted three whole months to work in a large beautiful space with all the necessary equipment at the ready, and where your commute consists of a pleasant ten minute walk past beautiful mountains and a coffee shop. All you can think about is how you want to make the most of it. A residency is definitely a relaxing escape from your life and obligations at home, but paradoxically it can also be a period where you are placing an immense amount of expectation on yourself to be productive. It is easy to forget that just like in “real life”, you need to strike a balance if you are going to be able to hang in there for the long haul.

I am very glad that I had a visit from two good friends this week, which forced me to take some much needed days off. I found immense pleasure taking them on a guided tour of Longyearbyen in a rare spell of beautiful sunshine. My spirits rose immensely, and I regained my motivation. Going forward, I will remember to maintain a better work-life balance, and also make sure I do not forget to soak in the beauties of Svalbard in between studio-sessions. Perhaps even make use of that yoga mat that I always seem to bring with me, but never touch.

Mentally I am now slowly emerging from my residency bubble, preparing my mind for my return home in a couple of weeks. At some point you realise that you need to start facing your taxes, e-mails and bills again, because unfortunately, life at home continues even though you have temporarily abandoned it.

While I spent the first few weeks of my residency throwing myself over any new research and info on Svalbard that I could possibly lay my hands on, I am now attempting to wrap up the projects I have started and instead focus on reflection. I am beginning to think about my future. What aspects of life in Longyearbyen do I like and wish to take back with me? Are there things back home that I am currently dissatisfied with and wish to change upon my return? I cannot quite pinpoint how yet, but I know I want to make some changes to the way that I structure my timetable, ensuring that less of my precious studio time is eaten away by daily chores, random errands and phone distractions, and instead find ways of slowing down and go into longer continous stretches of deep focus. I also want to continue this new and more playful approach to art that I have adapted through this residency, learning to actively engage with and utilise my direct surroundings for artistic inspiration rather than always being so introspective. Last, but not least, I want to feel closer to my local community and seek out the trails and activities that my immediate surroundings have to offer - the way that I do here.

I had a lovely farewell lunch with a fellow artist the other day, as she too will soon be leaving Svalbard after several weeks of travelling around the archipelago. Our emotions consist of immense gratitude, mixed with a tinge of melancholy. One of the things we talked about is how life changing a residency can be, and how we are both scared of the feelings we may or may not have to confront once we get home. How will we feel about living in a big city after Longyearbyen? Will urban society feel alienating, and can we make it less so? Will we, as young female artists, ever manage to balance a seemingly restless artist life with potentially settling down in the future?

I do not think you can spend weeks in a place like Svalbard and not feel altered in some ways. My fear is that the human talent for adapting will make me just forget everything I experienced up here and go back to life exactly the way it was. How to make sure this will not just feel like a distant dream?

To round things up on a positive note: I am very excited to finally announce that I have an upcoming solo show in Oslo opening on the 29th August at Kunstverket Galleri, and there I will be showcasing a large portion of the works produced during my residency.

ARTICA Svalbard Residency | Week 10

Between the 14th and 16th centuries, it became a widely established truth that the North Pole consisted of a black magnetic rock, which would account for why compasses always pointed north. Surrounding the Pole was a giant whirlpool sucking the ocean into the bowels of the earth like a funnel. Enclosing the whirlpool were four masses of land, each divided by narrow channels through which inward currents would flow.

Humanity’s idea of the North Pole was largely formed by the map Septentrionalium Terrarum by Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594). First published as part of a larger world map in 1569, a larger stand-alone map of the Arctic was published posthumously in 1595. Although it looks funny to our contemporary eyes, with the map even suggesting the presence of Pygmies just south of the North Pole, Mercator based this vision of the Arctic on the most credible accounts available to him at the time. The most influential, called Inventio Fortunata [Fortunate Discoveries] was a 14th century travelogue written by an unknown source. In Mercator’s words, it traced the travels of “an English minor friar of who traveled to Norway and then “pushed on further by magical arts.” Another source came from two explorers, Martin Frobisher and James Davis, who had travelled as far as what is now northern Canada. They described powerful currents with massive ice bergs being carried away as if weightless - which would account for the idea of the whirlpool close to the pole. There is one thing worth noting to Mercator’s credit. He was, and rightly so, convinced that the magnetic pole was separate from the geographic pole. His map therefore features an extra magnetic rock on the upper right section to account for the noticeable deviation of compasses.

Septentrionalium Terrarum by Gerardus Mercator, first printed posthumously in 1595. This is an example of a later edition published by Jodocus Hondius, which also includes Spitsbergen (now Svalbard), after it was discovered in 1597.

The suggestion that there must be a large mountain of lodestone at the North Pole to account for the earth’s magnetism goes back to at least the 13th century, not long after the invention of the compass. The vision of the North Pole as a black rock surrounded by four landmasses is also present in Johannes Ruysch’s canonical shaped world map, published as early as 1507-8.

Universalior Cogniti Orbis Tabula, Ex recentibus confecta observationibus [A more universal map of the known world, constructed by means of recent observations] by Johannes Ruysch, published 1507-1508.

In the Age of Exploration, which saw increasing trade with the East, the Western world hoped that through the open channels surrounding the North Pole, they could reach the other side of the globe in a fraction of the time that it took to sail around Cape of Good Hope in order to reach the ports of India and China. The immense forces and crushing powers of the arctic drift ice soon proved this to be impossible however, and many a fatal expedition stood testimony to this. By the mid 1600s, the view of the North Pole as an economical and time saving maritime highway to the East had become obsolete - explorers who had just barely made it home reporting that the polar region seemed to consist of nothing but inhospitable, impenetrable ice. The Arctic thus became “the Silk Road that never was”.

The illustrations below depict the perils that the crew of Willem Barentsz’ third and final expedition had to face in their attempt to discover a northern sea route to Asia:

While long discarded as an unrealistic dream, climate change and rapidly melting polar ice is turning what was once a Renaissance utopia of profitable sailing routes into a very imminent contemporary reality. The Ship Yard Blog has a very interesting article on this, describing how in 2017, the Russian tanker Christophe de Margerie made the first journey from Norway to South Korea without being escorted by an icebreaker. Not only did this fuel hopes of establishing a direct maritime link between the giant Yamal gas field in Russia and the markets in East Asia. The Arctic might, according to experts, also hold 22% of the world’s undiscovered hydrocarbons which may soon be up for grabs.

With these developments, a whole set of geopolitical questions in the north are arising - something which we Norwegians are noticing both in northern mainland Norway and on Svalbard. Together with Russia, Canada, Denmark and the United States, Norway has submitted claims for the right to explore the continental shelf of the Arctic Ocean. In addition to this, China has defined itself as a "near-Arctic state" for the past decade, and thus plans to play a growing role in the region.

For the past couple of weeks, there have been lots of talks and debates regarding the sale of a large property on Svalbard near the Recherche Fjord. Currently on sale for over 300 million Euro, the land measures 60 square kilometres (roughly the size of Manhattan) and boasts mountains, glaciers and a five kilometre coastline. It is, by all accounts, the last privately owned land in Svalbard, and the last private land in the world’s High Arctic. In the sales prospect, it has been promoted as a property of unprecedented geopolitical and strategic importance. The owners, Kuldspids AS, welcome all bidders - individuals, companies and governments alike - from countries who have signed the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, and are thus entitled to exploit the region’s natural resources on a similar level to Norway. One of the signatories, Russia, has for several decades maintained a coal mining community on Svalbard, via the state-run company Trust Arktikugol. The Chinese are now, naturally, sought out as highly potential and interested buyers.

Private land for sale Sore Fagerfjord, near the Recherche Fjord. Photo credit: CC/Gary Bembridge

Keen to protect its sovereignty and control over Svalbard, Norway is becoming increasingly concerned by the prospect of a Chinese sale, fearing that it might prove yet another a security risk in addition to that of the looming Russian presence. Norway's Attorney General has ordered the owners to call off the planned sale, and government ministers are proclaiming that the land cannot be sold without the approval of Norwegian authorities due to old clauses dating back to 1919. Per Kyllingstad, the attorney representing the sellers, claims that these clauses have expired. There is also a lot of discussion as to how valuable an investment the land actually is. The Norwegian government has enforced strict environmental laws on Svalbard, making any practical use of the area near impossible. The land might therefore be of minimal value, besides a symbol of prestige. However, many countries might also regard this land as a long term investment, as there is no knowing what the political landscape of Svalbard will look like in 50-100 years.

Inspired by the current news articles and debates, I have created my own map of the North Pole to reflect how centuries of technological advancement and human desires are now unfolding on a whole new scale due to climate change in the Arctic. Basing my vision of the North Pole on Mercator’s map, and juxtaposing illustrations from a variety of antique polar maps together with my own contemporary drawings of modern ships and machinery, I liken the scramble of the Arctic to a never-ending game of chess or Snake and Ladders, where we are placing ourselves as strategic pawn pieces on a global game board, where some succumb and others thrive.