Oct. 17th, Blomstrand halvøya, Krossfjorden

In 1910 Ernest Mansfield was convinced that this was going to be the site of the greatest marble quarry in the world, so he set up the Northern Exploration Company to cut all the stone out.  He named the spot New London.  Some of his machines remain right on the rails, having never even been used. The whole project fell apart, there was nothing worth taking.

The more we experience this distance the place, the less it seems it's a wilderness. Spitsbergen is the warmest place in the Arctic, because it's the end of the gulf stream, so much of the sea surrounding remains ice-free most of the year.  Already by 1700 the Dutch had killed all the whales here, and after that came trappers, hunters, miners, still trying to extract something useful out of the landscape.  What might remain most useful today is strategy-a few years ago a cable was laid all the way from Norway under the sea, bringing fast communication to the outside world.  There are now hundreds of scientists stationed up here keeping track of what will happen to a warming world.

The mining sputters on, the locals still hang onto it with pride.  Greenpeace was up here just before we arrived demanding that the coal mines just down.  Of course they are wasteful, hopeless, destined to fail like the quarry at Blomstrand.  Coal mining has no place in the Arctic, no place anywhere.  If we work hard enough we'll soon find better sources of energy: from the sun, the wind, the waves.

Is that a workable dream?  Spitsbergen is full of the graves of dreams that failed.  The beauty of the place is a success, it cannot be tamed.  Or is that only because we cannot see deep into history?