Two women on Svalbard

Svalbard has always been a man´s place, of natural reasons. Mining, trapping and exploring have traditionally been a man´s thing, and those activities are of course still dominated by men (although it´s slowly changing, nowadays quite a few women are exploring, doing science, trapping and hunting on Svalbard, and many women are directly involved with the mining). Most of the myths and stories from Svalbard have been told by men too, and they tend to be glorifying existence here, and dwelling on the heroic and tough side of life.

But some women have written books from here as well - and I´ve read a couple, that give a slightly different view on life in the arctic.

"Kvinne i polarnatten" (1938) (Woman in the polar night - or: Eine Frau erlebt die Polarnacht) - is written by the Austrian painter Christiane Ritter, who overwintered on Svalbard between 1933 and 1934. She lived with her husband Hermann and a Norwegian trapper at Gråhuken, close to the northern tip of Spitzbergen. Here´s an image of the Ritters, nicked from here

- and one of her paintings, stolen from here.


Christiane came to Svalbard because of her husband, who had already made several trips to Svalbard. She describes her ambivalence at leaving her civilized Central European life, to keep house in the far north for her husband and his hunting and trapping buddies. But after a cold and foggy start, she comes to love the arctic, and her depiction of raw nature and isolated beauty is wonderful.

I enjoyed the "down-to-earth" descriptions of everyday life in the cabin, how they while away the long winter-days in their different ways, and how they arrange themselves to make it as comfortable as possible. They have no yeast with them, and despair because they won´t be able to make proper bread - until they find a old dried-up lump in the cabin. They care and nurture this into a swelling dough, and rejoice because they´ll be able to make sour-bread for the rest of the winter. Basic needs indeed!

But as with many such stories from earlier days, I sometimes miss a glimpse of how personal hygiene is maintained under such extreme conditions. It´s not mentioned at all. Maybe they just couldn´t be bothered, and gave up on sanitariness (oh - I know this is none of my business - it´s just my crude, modern curiosity).

A small detail that puzzled me, and schocked me a little (being a mother), is the sudden revelation well into the book that they actually had a little daughter left behind in Austria. She is only referred to twice, I think. I assume that she is taken care of by some relative, but it´s strange how they both live happily far away from her, without a chance to communicate with the world through the long winter. But things (and parenthood) were different 70 years ago, it seems.

Christiane Ritter went back to Austria in the summer of 1934, but her husband stayed on in the arctic for some years. He died in 1968, Christiane in 2000.



"Nord for det øde hav" (1955) (North of the desolate sea) is written by Liv Balstad, the wife of the Sysselmann (governor) Håkon Balstad. They lived 9 years in Longyearbyen, from 1946 to 1955. Balstad is a good storyteller - her writing style is simple, but endearing. She describes happy times and troubled times, and you´re left with a good idea of how life was in Longyearbyen just after the war.

Housing conditions take up a big part of the book: when she arrives, there are plans of a new house for the Sysselmann, a house worthy a governor. But it takes several years, and a lot of frustration, before the new house is actually built. In the meantime, they have to make do with a crowded barrack with flimsy walls. Guests arrive and expect to be housed and fed, all official matters have to be conducted in the cramped living-room, and at night rats run across the floors - during all this, Liv Balstad is expected to function as secretary, receptionist, cook and in all matters be the hostess. Without pay, naturally. She is, after all, the Sysselmann´s wife.

But she takes it all in her stride, and learns to love Svalbard as much as Christiane did. She shoots and flays a polarbear, she´s almost pulled under when the jeep she´s in goes through the ice, and she gives birth to a baby. Tough lady.

Come to think of it, we don´t learn much about the sanitary conditions in this book. either.

Living the comfortable life today, with air planes coming and going almost every day, excellent restaurants, fresh fruit and vegetable in the shop, running water in the tap, and warm houses, it´s hard to imagine how it must have been here all those years ago, in the dark season - and in the muddy season, but it´s interesting to learn about.

Also, having read these two books about the primitive beginning on Svalbard, it occurs to me that there should be written biographies that cover the later years - 1960 and onwards or so. I hear people who have lived here for 30-40 years talk about how it was when the plane came only once a week (and thus post came only once a week) - when all you got in the shop were big boxes of provisions, and all TV-programs were taped on the mainland, sent up and broadcasted in Longyearbyen - several days delayed. All that is past now, and will be forgotten within a few years.

But as I can´t write those stories, I just hope another woman will.