During my Arctic Nature Guide education, I worked as an apprentice snowmobile guide, to get drilled in driving the snowmobile, learning the routes, guiding the guests in a safe manner, and getting familiar with packing and using the emergency and avalanche equipment, signal pistol, rifle, satellite phone, GPS, and more. I learned a lot about group management, communicating with the other guides, and focusing on quite some technical snowmobile driving with a sledge. After my practice period of 150 hours, I got hired as a freelance guide during the rest of the season.

I mostly guided three trips out of Longyearbyen: a 200 km tour to Mohnbukta at Spitsbergen’s east coast; a shorter tour on the sea ice of Tempelfjorden, with the mighty Tuna/von Post glacier as a backdrop: and a 150 km tour westwards to the Russian settlement of Barentsburg.

Svalbard is located in the Kingdom of the polar bear, and Spitsbergen’s east coast is his home. At Mohnbukta, we mainly saw ice and water in a variety of states and shapes: snow, cornices, ice caps, glaciers, icebergs, and sea ice. My strongest nature experience, however, was a sunbathing lazy polar bear at just 200 meters, only topped by meeting his gaze through binoculars. It felt like I was part of a BBC documentary. It gave me a surreal, grateful, and overwhelming feeling to see this 4-6-year-old male polar bear on the sea ice, in front of this enormous Hayes Glacier, while eating a seal.

Although the drive to Barentsburg is less spectacular, visiting this Russian settlement was always interesting, and to the guests very special. The history of Russian presence and mining on Svalbard, combined with the odd architecture, and very hospitable welcome at each visit, made these trips memorable.

60% of Svalbard is covered by ice and glaciers on Spitsbergen form a large network of majestic ice tongue that fills valleys and fjords. Blue ice calving in Tempelfjorden from the Tuna and Von Post glaciers have fascinated Norwegians and other visitors for decades. The trip from Longyearbyen through the wide valleys of Advent and Sassen and on the sea ice on the Tempelfjord is an experience in itself. The enormous glacier front made me simultaneously feel like the mightiest and most insignificant person on the planet.