Page 20 - 2003 SVALBARD, NORWAY

We toured the Art Gallery (where we bought our souvenir picture-

-a wonderful polar bear drawing) and the local Svalbard Museum.
Both were small but very interesting for lots of different reasons:

curiosity about the history of the town and its mining heritage,
about the Nazi German activities here, about what the people do
to entertain themselves in this bleak and dark environment when

winter comes. As they say up here, day lasts from about June to
August and night takes the rest of the calendar to pass. We were

also taken to the little downtown area where there were a couple
of shops, a bakery, and a grocery store. Then the highlight of the

town tour was a visit to the polar dog kennels and a little further
on down the same road (there aren’t many here) we saw the

town’s only road sign--though it was meant for all of Svalbard,
The sign warned about polar bear crossings on the roads and
anywhere else they wanted to be. They are protected and have

been since l972.