We are continuing our voyage north. This morning we stopped in Kongsfjorden to visit the most northerly permanent settlement on the planet -- Ny-Ålesund! This is not a regular town, like Longyearbyen, this is a special scientific research village!
Ny-Ålesund actually started as a coal mining town in 1917. Because this is the closet town to the North Pole (only 765 miles away) several Arctic explorers came here to start their expeditions to become the first person to reach the North Pole! The coal mining ended in 1963 and the first scientific research station opened in 1967.
Now Ny-Ålesund is a busy scientific research village and an international center for Arctic research. It is home to 11 research stations run by ten countries. Scientists from over 20 institutions and countries from all over the world visit here each year. The town has is own electric power generating station, airport, rocket launching pads, harbor, gift shop, cafeteria, cafe, bar, gym, museum and post office.
Research in Ny-Ålesund is in four main studies: atmospheric research, marine studies, terrestrial research and investigations of snow and ice.
We are docked at the town pier. This will be the last time MS Expedition will be docked until we return to Longyearbyen. On all our future stops we will either be staying on the ship or going out exploring on our Zodiacs®!
We get off our ship and have the morning to explore town. We will only be able to leave town if we carry a rifle with us because polar bears roam around here, too! (One of the scientists told us that two days ago a mother polar bear and her two cubs came through the town!)
From the dock it was just a short walk down a dirt/gravel road to get to the center of town. As we explored town we stopped at the gift shop. There we bought reindeer fur shoe inserts that fit in bottom of our shoes to keep our feet warm! With warm feet we visited the museum to learn more about Ny-Ålesund!
In the museum we learned all about Ny-Ålesund. We learned that famous Norwegian polar explorer, Roald Amundsen, came here to become the first person to reach the North Pole. He first tried to fly there by plane from here in 1925, but he was not successful. He returned in 1926 to try to fly over the Pole in a huge Italian blimp! On that attempt he was successful and he finally reached the North Pole on May 12, 1926!
We also learned that summer is the busy season in Ny-Ålesund because the weather is not as cold and the sun never goes down. In the summer there are 180 people that work here. When summer is over most people leave and only 35 are here during the winter!
As we walked around town we discovered that summer visitors include not just people...We found a large flocks of barnacle geese all around town that come here every summer. They give the scientists here something else to study! These are probably the best studied barnacle geese in the world!
We returned to the ship and as we were leaving the dock we spotted something just past the end of the airport runway -- a polar bear! Our first polar bear sighting of our expedition!
Captain Sergei stopped the ship so everyone could see. The polar bear was sleeping high up on a plateau near the fjord. As we looked more closely with our binoculars we could see that it not just a single polar bear...it was a mother polar bear with her cub! We could see the the mother polar bear had on a radio tracking collar around her neck. (Only female polar bears have collars because the neck on a male polar bear is bigger than its head so the collars always fall off!)
The mother polar bear and her cub are both taking a nap and not looking for food so maybe they recently ate. Down below them on the rocky beach we see a dead walrus! As we said yesterday polar bears don't attack walrus because of their long sharp tusks. This walrus probably died on the beach and the polar bear and her cub found it. Since the walrus was dead they were able to munch on it without a problem.
After spending some time watching the sleeping bears we see the mother wake up and watch us. We don't want to disturb the mom and cub so Capt. Sergei slowly cruises away from the naping pair and to our afternoon destination.
Day 4 AM 
