Svalbard Quotes

“I think you're talking shit. You think we don't all feel like that? Like we're crazy, like we're not a real person, like we don't exist? Everyone feels that way sometimes. I can remember talking to you when you lost your bag. So what? You can't remember and that's not a bad thing. It doesn't make me better than you. I'm a stranger to you, but here's what I see:
I see a girl who has suffered a terrible damage to her brain. Someone who, it seems, is shut away by her parents to keep her safe. But inside there is a vibrant person, a traveler, and her memory of this boy Drake has propelled her into action. I think, Flora, that you came here not to find Drake but to find yourself. It wasn't Drake--he's an unlikely romantic hero, really--it was you. Didn't you come here, perhaps, because you heard him talking about the place he was going to, and it called to you?"
I don't know what to say. I don't say anything.
" Our come from Oslo, and Svalbard called me, even though I'm not really the rugged adventurous type. Like you, I had to come. Some of us are meant to be here. We need this place...We need to be small specks in wild nature, by the pole. The midnight sun. The midday darkness. The northern lights. It called to you, Flora, and you answered. You overcame everything, and you came here, alone. You are the bravest person I've ever met.”
― Emily Barr, The One Memory of Flora Banks

“Young people today...it ought not to be allowed... You can't get rich there," he cries at last, quite desperate.
"No, we can't get rich there," I agree.
"Yes, you will get rich," says the young Norwegian, but there is no suggestions of material gain in his gentle smile.”
― Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night

“Many Fujiyamas lie in a row along our coast to the south. As the distance increases, their sombre blackness seems to be lit up by a deep red light. They take on every shade from red to lilac, and all the colours have a glowing depth that is neved found in the landscape at home, or at most only in some exquisite flowers. In the holy stillness, everything is lit by a supernatural brightness. Two gulls fly low and silent close by the hut toward the fiord. They are lit up by the red rays of the bright sun. Their magnificent broad wings are a deep pink in the turquoise sky.”
― Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night

“There it was, the land under 80 degrees, a land of stern magnificence, where icebergs rear up almost to the very mountaintops, and mountain rises above mountain; there it was, inviolate, alive to the raucous voice of millions of birds, the continuous staccato bark of foxes, the castanet click as the hoofs of great herds of deer fell in a swinging trot; there it was, surrounded by waters whose surface was slashed and sprayed by schools of walrus and whales that had swum there before ever man was born.”
― Jeannette Mirsky, To the Arctic!: The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times

“This was the largest city on Svalbard, and the only one with skyscrapers. It was an old city, built over several hundreds of years. Aida had heard about the legendary skyscrapers on Svalbard ever since she was little. People talked about them with awe. The skyscrapers were just as tall as the ones in the ancient cities of New York, Toronto, and even the stunning ones in Dubai. Skilled engineers and architects had built the towering buildings to withstand the harsh winds of the Arctic Sea.”
― Margrét Helgadóttiradottir

“This was the largest city on Svalbard, and the only one with skyscrapers. It was an old city, built over several hundreds of years. Aida had heard about the legendary skyscrapers on Svalbard ever since she was little. People talked about them with awe. The skyscrapers were just as tall as the ones in the ancient cities of New York, Toronto, and even the stunning ones in Dubai. Skilled engineers and architects had built the towering buildings to withstand the harsh winds of the Arctic Sea.”
― Margrét Helgadóttir, The Stars Seem so Far Away

“The nights do not darken. Bare and craggy mountaintops jut out of the livid light of the water. A strange cool wind blows to me out of this primeval landscape. It might be the world in the last days of the Flood.”
― Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night

“I could stay by the warm stove in the hut, knit socks, paint from the window, read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content.”
― Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night