On the first day of a three-day snowmobile expedition across Svalbard, I learned that operating the machine involves just throttling, braking, and being one with the snow.
Summer is on its way out. But back on the second day of May this year – at the very start of summer, if we’re being generous – I was having one of my final winter adventures for the season. I had flown from Tromsø to Svalbard for a snowmobile expedition from Longyearbyen, the main city on the Norwegian archipelago, to Isfjord Radio Adventure Hotel, an outpost with an electromagnetic history looking out over the Greenland Sea.
I was nervous about the journey as the one and only other time I’d ever snowmobiled was on Alaska’s North Slope. I’d had a heck of a time steering what felt like a thousand-pound beast in -20°F weather. But it turns out I had very little to fear. On that sunny May morning at 78°N, I found myself at the offices of Basecamp Adventures with six other would-be snowmobilers listening to a briefing by our guide extraordinaire, Charlotte, a young woman from Germany who had moved to Svalbard when she was only 19. After reviewing a Powerpoint presentation describing the journey that lay ahead, we put on long underwear, boots, balaclavas, enormous snowsuits, gloves, and helmets before heading outside to choose our snowmobiles. Temperatures were a balmy 32°F and the sun was shining high in the sky, as it would until late August. The polar day, or period of 24-hour sunlight, had commenced two weeks before in mid-April.
There were only a few controls to learn to drive a snowmobile: the starter control, the throttle, and the engine kill switch. I was also happy to discover that the handlebar grips were heated, which would prevent my eternally frigid fingers from freezing off.
With those basic skills under our belt, we headed west from Longyearbyen up the still-frozen Adventfjord to begin our 120-kilometer journey to the edge of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago. On our way out, we passed a dogsled team on the ice, which looked like a moving, barking mirage in the mist. A few minutes later, we passed the Norwegian coal mine, Gruve 7, whose soot was blackening the snow around it. (Gruve 7 was in its final day as it would cease all operations on June 30, marking the end of a century of Norwegian coal mining on Svalbard). Symbolizing the archipelago’s ever-changing economy, which started with whaling almost 500 years ago, above the coal mine were a few antennas associated with a small satellite ground station belonging to KSAT (their much larger facility is on the other side of Longyearbyen). Downlinking and sending out data from Earth observing-satellites now accounts for a significant proportion of Svalbard’s economic activity, which is increasingly shifting from the underground to outer space – at least for the Norwegians. The Russians, for their part, intend to keep mining coal, making the most of one of their many benefits as a signatory to the 1920 Svalbard Treaty.
Satellite antennas on a ridge above Gruve 7, the last active coal mine in Norway, which shut for good on 30 June 2025.
Not long after we started making our way through a valley, a snowcat came trundling towards us emblazoned with “Barentsburg – 100 years” on the side. I later asked my guide what she thought the vehicle, which would have snowmobiled quite a distance from the Russian coal mining outpost to Longyearbyen, was doing. “Maybe they’re doing some shopping,” she guessed. She had never before seen the steampunk snowcat, and she added that the Russians mainly use ships that sail from Murmansk to resupply. Their little joyride could have therefore been just to fetch some Norwegian goods at the incredibly well-stocked Co-Op grocery store in Longyearbyen, which has to be the most incredible grocery store in the High Arctic. (The megastore even sells its own branded baseball caps and tote bags, which were sold out when I tried to buy them. Eggs, too, are cheaper than in much of the U.S.)
As we ventured farther into the interior via snowmobile superhighways, the traffic petered out. But still, the cumulative effect of thousands of snowmobile journeys throughout the winter had carved deep and wide chasms into Svalbard’s glacial valleys. I was convinced they might be visible from space, but alas, when I got home and checked, they weren’t. It does’t seem that the tracks create enough contrast in the snow to be visible even in high-resolution satellite imagery.
At one point, the land opened up and we saw several reindeer on a ridge. Svalbard reindeer have the shortest legs of any reindeer species. Their stunted nature makes them well-suited for the archipelago’s sparse vegetation. Our guide warned us to try to not startle them, since any extra energy they have to burn leaves them with less of a reserve to make it through winter, even though the relative lushness of summer lay around the corner.
Though the sun sat high and motionless, the colors of the sky kept changing as the clouds swirled in and out of the valleys. Snowmobiling was that kind of zen activity, I found, that forces you to concentrate on where you are going and how the terrain feels below you, clearing all stray thoughts from your mind. At the same time, in narrower valleys when we’d ride up on the banks, riding in a chain of seven snowmobilers, I felt like I was in Mario Kart on winter mode (fortunately, without any penguins to dodge, this being the Arctic rather than Sherbert Land).
We stopped for lunch in a wide open plateau, pouring boiling hot water into Turmat – Norway’s dehydrated meal of choice for outdoor enthusiasts. For those in the U.S., think Mountain House, but Nordic style. They even make a rather delicious dehydrated bacalao meal – as if the dried, salted cod with a storied history in the Arctic couldn’t get any drier.
After our meal break, we eventually made it to the Green Fjord, whose verdant waters lapped a black shoreline. Seeing everyone venture out in their black snowsuits onto an alien landscape of onyx sand, ivory snow, and viridescent water made it feel like we were on another planet. In the distance, we might as well have been staring at an alternative universe. Off to the right of the fjord lay Barentsburg: the still-active Russian coal mining town home to 400 people, which was belching black smoke into the pristine air. It was here where that snowcat we saw at the start of our journey had originated.
Our guide, rifle at the ready in case of polar bear, looking out over the Green Fjord.
We snapped a few photos of the forbidden land and then headed into the mountains, gradually approaching our destination. As I wove up and down the dramatic terrain, it felt a little bit like being on a rollercoaster – only I had to maintain control rather than rely entirely on the machine to keep me safe.
In the last valley before the Isfjord Radio Hotel, we were the first to plough through it after a heavy snowfall the day before. This meant we were carving fresh tracks into the powder. Every skier knows how exciting this sensation is. The feeling is just as fun on a snowmobile.
At the end of the valley, the weather suddenly deteriorated. Snow swirled in the air and the wind blew hard. A herd of reindeer grazed on the meager bits of vegetation that remained this late in the winter. We peered down at the Isfjord Radio Hotel, ready for warmth after being outside for eight hours, our cheeks singed with that kind of hot-cold sensation that blustery bluebird days bring.
Upon our arrival, the hotel manager greeted us first with warm blackcurrant juice around a fire. Then, before dinner, she toasted our journey with a bottle of champagne, for it turned out that we were the last snowmobile expedition of the season. Within a week, snow would disappear and rain would start falling. Puddles would freeze when temperatures dropped, resulting in a hazardous ice-scape for snowmobiles. We raised our glasses to a successful arrival before tucking into a four-course meal, which included meat sourced by Svalbard’s famous (and allegedly last traditional) hunter, Tommy Sandal, about whom an entire gorgeously photographed book has been written. This was quite literally my first taste of Arctic luxury tourism, which I was only able to afford thanks to the devaluation of the Norwegian krone. Over dinner, guests shared stories of traveling to places like Antarctica. I guess once you’ve seen a lot of the world, the edges call.
One other guest – a middle-aged solo female traveler from Germany who at all times wore bright red lipstick – and I were staying in the cabin adjacent to the main lodge. Though it was only about 50 feet away, we required a guide to walk us over, such was the threat of polar bear attacks. One hotel employee showed us photos on her phone from just the other day, when she had been sitting on the front steps of her cabin nursing a beer. Out of nowhere, a polar bear appeared, and she had to immediately head inside.
We tried to get some rest in the cabin but there were two older Norwegian men who had decided to stay up late to party and play card games. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Californication’ blared on the speakers, which I think they put on only for my benefit upon discovering where I was from. The midnight sun streamed through the windows in the living room, and a polar bear skin hung on the wall. All those wretched souls who had overwintered on Svalbard centuries prior in horrible conditions would be rolling in their graves at the heated cushiness of contemporary Arctic travel.
One of the two men’s daughters was working at the hotel, which prompted their visit. They’d made the journey from Longyearbyen in only about two hours by snowmobiling at speeds I could only dream of with my little low-powered machine. But at least I had arrived in one piece, with all my extremities intact, ready for another day of snowmobiling. I might have been slow, but learning a new way to travel across the Arctic was still thrilling – even if I had many creature comforts to facilitate the journey.
Arrival at last. The old whalebones are a sign of what formed Svalbard’s dominant industry for centuries.
