‘It must be because of the long winter!’ some might have thought, ‘…that Lonyearbyen (Longyear City) got its name. Three months without daylight is a very long time.‘ But no, it was John Munroe Longyear from Boston, USA, who named the place after himself, when he started coal mining at Advent Bay in 1906.
Coal mining in Svalbard started with some people from Trøndelag, Norway, when ‘Kullkompagniet Trondhjem-Spitsbergen’ in 1900 mined coal at Isfjorden. ‘Trøndergruva’ was the very first coal mine when it opened on the west side of The Plateau Mountain in 1903. But the people of Trøndelag did not dare to go into mining wholeheartedly, and sold the business to the ‘Arctic Coal Company’ in 1905. Longyear was the main shareholder and chief executive of the company, which had its headquarters in Boston. Longyear moved the mine opening to the east side of The Plateau Mountain, and a town called ‘Longyear City’ grew up around where Svalbard Church is located today.
Mine 1(a), also called the American Mine, was located high up on the mountainside. The workers were mostly Norwegians or Swedes, while the leadership came from the United States or England, which resulted in culture crash and frequent strikes. The salary was high, but the conditions were harsh, with heavy work, scarcity of water and poor nutrition, especially in the spring before the first boat arrived.
‘What an intrusion into the lonely silence of this nature. These ugly workers’ barracks down there in the valley and power lines up the valley.’ Ref Fridtjof Nansen, after seeing the American Mine and Longyearbyen in 1912.
After 9 years of operation, the business was sold to the newly founded Norwegian company ‘Store Norske Spitsbergen Kullkompani’ in 1915. The population was barely 200 people, almost all men. The company was responsible not only for the mining operations, but all infrastructure, communications, housing policy and supplies.
On the night of January 3rd, 1920, there was a major coal dust explosion in Mine 1, killing 26 workers. The explosion was so powerful that half a horse was found on the other side of Longyear valley, where the Lia district is located today. The American mine was closed after the explosion (it was completely damaged), and production started up in Mine 2 instead in 1921, above Lia (exploitation had been ongoing since 1913). In 1939, Mine 1(b) was reopened in The Plateau Mountain, but with a new opening further up the valley, above what became the ‘Sverdrupbyen‘ district.
In memory of the water shortage and poor hygiene for the workers in the American Mine, a cold bath would be appropriate in Longyearbyen. We went down to the Sea Area (Sjøen), where a barbecue has been set up by the shore. The view couldn’t be better than this!
It was a splendid swim in the bright sun, but very shallow water. The Longyear River, together with all the rivers from Adventdalen, forms a large delta here at the bottom of Advent(ure) Bay. The name Advent has nothing to do with the pre-Christmas season, it is a simplification of the name of the English whaling ship ‘Adventure’, which sought port in Isfjorden in 1656.
We missed a floating dock to jump from, so we wouldn’t have to wade for kilometers to get wet. Why not realize Julie Lundeby Lerfald’s Master’s thesis from 2017? It is designed as an entire bathing complex with a floating dock, changing rooms, sauna and diving tower. And the location? By the barbecue area. That would have been something!
After the bath, you could go to the Polar Hotel Spitsbergen for something to warm you up again. The hotel was originally built as housing for the participants at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994. Then later moved to become a hotel in Longyearbyen.
