Svalbard 2023
A photography expedition to the high arctic on the Polar Pioneer
In March 2023, I received a newsletter from a landscape photographer and YouTuber I’ve followed for many years, Thomas Heaton. In this email, he announced a two-week expedition to the High Arctic of Svalbard on an icebreaker called the Polar Pioneer. The objective of the expedition: Find polar bears and photograph them.
At the time, I didn’t have on my radar any sort of two-week, off-the-grid photography trip. But I thought about it for a few days and finally came to two realizations:
If I don’t go now, in 5 years, the Arctic might be a very different place than it is today.
My entire journey in landscape and travel photography has been directly inspired by Tom, so why would I not take advantage of the opportunity to explore and photograph one of the most beautiful places in the world with him and three other exceptionally talented guides (Jonas Purell, Neil Arturs, and Brendan van Son)?
In this photo journal series, I chronicle our Svalbard 2023 expedition.
Who is this journal for? I don’t know, but it’s mostly for me. It serves as a way for me to solidify the memories in my head and showcase my favorite images from the trip in a unique, long-form format. I hope you enjoy reading and viewing it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I’ve organized the series into daily photo journal posts, where I recount my favorite memories and images from each location below. I have also written a post-trip summary with the best images and discussion of things I learned.
Departing for the trip
Svalbard isn’t a place you can decide to visit overnight. It surprised me how much travel planning and gear is required.
First, you have the task of just getting to the main settlement on Svalbard, Longyearbyen, which is the northernmost inhabited place in the world with more than 1,000 inhabitants. Despite its relatively small size (population 2,500), it receives 1-2 daily flights operated by Norwegian and SAS. These flights make a stop in Trömso to pick up and drop off passengers and serve as the main lifeline between Svalbard and the mainland. Everything else comes by ship.
Departing from New York, I found it would take me two days and four flights to get to Longyearbyen. I started with an overnight Lufthansa flight, which connected in Frankfurt onward to Oslo. After arriving in Oslo, I had planned to spend the evening exploring the city, but a baggage delay required I stay near the airport to pick up my bag. I suppose on Sunday the Norwegians don’t do a baggage delivery service. I ended up staying the night at an inexpensive airport hotel in Oslo and spending the day there. The only highlight of the day was exceptional family-owned Indian restaurant in walking distance to the hotel. Their biryani was delicious and proved to be the most flavorful food I would have over the next two weeks.
Our flight to Longyearbyen with a “technical stop” in Trömso departed the next morning at 7:00 AM on Norwegian Airlines. Oslo Gardermoen airport is an exceptionally beautiful airport, but for photographers, airport security is a nightmare! They require you take every electronic device, camera, and even lenses to scan individually. At the gate, I found our aircraft was a unique sight: an unpainted Boeing 737-Max. I later found out from the flight attendants that the plane is unpainted due to the extremely high travel demand: Norwegian would rather fly the plane without a livery than cut back service during a highly profitable summer season just to paint its new planes.
We arrived in Longyearbyen in the early afternoon and took the bus service into town (a strange monopoly service that only costs a few dollars less than taking a taxi, it later turned out). The process of purchasing a ticket from the driver takes longer than the drive itself, and the town is also small enough that this is the only “public transportation” available on the island. It runs only to the airport and only a few times before the flights (again, only 1 or 2 maximum per day).
At this point, I started to meet other guests on the expedition - including Tom whom I finally met at the airport baggage claim. Eventually, though, we went our separate ways to eat and rest in our hotel rooms. We would have almost a day and a half to spend in Longyearbyen before boarding the expedition ship.
