Svalbard | A Sailing Expedition along the Northwest Coast

Svalbard always felt like a distant name on the map to me. A vast and seemingly empty place of coal and ice. In 2025 we chartered a sailing ship and invited a handful of like-minded friends on an expedition. And suddenly Svalbard became very real. Now it was just us, a small sailboat moving quietly through the Arctic. Our expedition starts in Longyearbyen. We board the schooner Ocean Sherpa. A beautiful glassy schooner with a thick steel hull built for the ice up here. We get familiar with the ship, meet the crew and soon we are heading straight out into the fjords. Our goal for today lies at the far end of Eastfjorden, a branch called Templefjorden. As we sail deeper into the fjord a sense of scale slowly grows. Gentle brownish mountains rise around us. Their shapes soften like clouds and distance. Small pieces of ice begin to fill the water. Remnants of the glacier Tunabri at the end of the fjord. As darkness falls we find shelter in a small bay near to the entrance of the fjord. We drop anchor and call it a day. Although we are here in the very last days of the midnight sun, the days already feel quite dark when the weather is like this. A thick layer of fog steals the daylight, turning everything into a muted almost monochrome world. We sail out towards the western end of Eastfjorden. Slowly the clouds begin to lift. Just in time to pick up our expedition leader André, whose flight had been, let's say, delayed. Who are you? With everyone now on board we continue along the southern coastline. Shapes start to appear in the fog. Houses, structures and the remains of another time. Krumant, a former Soviet mining town established in 1912 and abandoned in 1965. Because Krumant lagged in a suitable harbor, cold space served as its port, once connected by a railway. We go ashore in this ghost town and an eerie feeling settles in. Scattered houses die in the bay, slowly being reclaimed by nature. Arctic terns make it very clear that they are now the main residence here. Some houses are in better condition than others. Only one building seems to be looked after. With a Russian flag waving in the wind. It is strange to imagine that the population peaked at over 1,100 inhabitants in 1955. In the evening we set sail across the fjord to Umerbukta. We drop anchor in front of Esmakreen. The last light of the day paints the clouds above this massive glacier outlet in soft tones. We went here. Oh, was it over there where the fulmars invested in the mine? Yes. The alarm rings early and soon after getting up we are already in the zodiac, heading for shore. One special thing about Esmakreen is that you can walk along the shoreline, right next to the glacier's terminal face. A high towering wall of ice rises above us. Sharp rising blocks of ice break the monotony of the wall, standing several meters taller than the rest. Between them, a shy arctic fox follows our footprint on the black shore, curious about what we are doing here. For us, it is time to move on, further north along the west coast. After some time sailing in open water, we approach Polegunden. A low stretch of coastline littered with driftwood and in its point a small colony of walrus. A surreal feeling to see these huge bodies resting on the beach. With darkness falling and bad weather on the way, we turn east towards a sheltered bay in front of Dalbreen. A deep jagged glacier, full of crevasses. From the air, the true scale of this place becomes visible. A labyrinth of cracks, pillars and deep blue holes. It is a mesmerizing, almost abstract landscape of ice. We decide to explore Dalbreen even more. Despite heavy rain, we set out for a landing at the nearby glacier Lagoon. The place turns out to be almost impossible to capture in photos or video. The scale, the depth of the sound, the way icebergs grind and crack against each other, it's all hard to grasp. Completely soaked, we return to the ship. Everyone is cold, but the wind is finally in our favor to set more sail. Soon the cold is forgotten as we howl on the ropes and watch the ship come alive, turning even more beautiful as she moves through a dark, rough sea. Entering Kongsfjorden, the waves calm down and the first chunks of ice appear again. We sail towards the terminal face of Klumstrandbreen, where we drop anchor and end the day. Here we reach 79 degrees north, the furthest north I've ever been. Throughout the night, drifting ice keeps hitting the hull, breaking our sleep. When we step on deck in the morning, we find ourselves in a foggy landscape. The fjord is full of sound, crackling and popping noises from thousand-year-old air bubbles bursting, as the ice melts at the surface. Here fresh water from the glacier mixes with muddy water coming down from the mountains, creating fascinating colors and patterns in the sea. From high up in the masts, these shapes become clearly visible, swirls of blue and brown broken by white ice. After some time we spot a first sign of civilization on the horizon, the port of Ny-Ålesund. Ny-Ålesund, the world's northernmost permanent settlement and an international hub for Arctic scientific research. Originally founded as a coal mining town in 1916, its main focus shifted to science in the late 60s. The settlement played a key role in the early polar exploration. It was the starting point for several attempts to reach the North Pole. We wander through the settlement and visit a small museum, a strange and fascinating place full of stories about life and research at the edge of the Arctic. Back on the ship we head out into the open water again and are greeted by a good swell. With steady wind in our favor and the clouds beginning to clear, our captain gives the order to hoist all sails. We hang on the ropes as the sails fill with air. In time for the golden light we finish the last sail and our ship sails forward towards Prinz Karlshorland into the wild. We wake up to blue skies at Saarstangen, a sandy headland that reaches more than three kilometers out into the sea. The perfect living conditions for walruses. Walruses have lived in Svalbard for centuries, but their population declined heavily due to intense hunting. Since they were protected in 1952, their numbers have been slowly recovering. They are social large arctic marine mammals. Adult males can grow up to three and a half meters long and weight around 1500 kilograms. Females are slightly smaller, up to about two and a half meters and 900 kilograms. Both males and females grow tusks that can reach around one meter in length. They use them to haul themselves onto ice or land, to defend against predators and to establish social status within the crew. Their sensitive whiskers help them feel and find food like clams and other shellfish on the seabed. It took around 20 million years of evolution for them to develop from sea-like ancestors to the walrus we see today. We spend several hours quietly observing the colony before heading back to the ship. From here we sail towards St. John's Fjord. As we enter the fjord, we pass massive glacier fronts, where the water becomes increasingly calm, almost mirror-like. Approaching Osbornebrenn at the end of the fjord, the ice grows denser. Sediments in the water become visible, and from the drone an unreal view opens up. Blue glacial water mixing with red-brown meltwater from the mountains, with ice chunks scattered everywhere between. Before sunset we hike up onto the ridge of Valentinsrücken above our anchorage, to get a better view of Osbornebrenn. With every step the panorama opens up more. Our small ship at anchor below us, glaciers in the distance, and endless layers of mountains fading into the horizon. One last time we make our way back down to the shore, and out to the Ocean Sherpa, the ship that has become our home over the last few days. A small familiar world floating in the middle of all this wild open space. On our last morning the anchor comes up once more, and we begin our journey back towards Longyearbyen. Out here it's easy to feel small. The ship, the crew, all of us, just a tiny moving dot between mountains, glaciers and the open ocean. By the time Longyearbyen appears again on the horizon, I feel both grateful and a little bit melancholic. Grateful for the calm days and the rough ones, for the wildlife we were allowed to see, and for the people who shared this ship and this week. Journeys like this always feel too short. Svalbard will probably stay a distant name on the map for most people. For me it has become a place of memories.