Tell someone you’re traveling to Svalbard and prepare for a look of confusion. Who owns that country anyway? Greenland? Norway? Isn’t that where they filmed Game of Thrones?
The kingdom of Norway “governs” the constellation of islands six hundred miles south of the north pole—though according to the 1921 Svalbard Treaty, private property is outlawed. It’s also illegal to die, due to the difficulty of digging a grave and decomposing a body. Structures built before 1946 can’t be touched. In short, Svalbard exists as a difficult-to-access Arctic museum en plein air.
What better way to get there than by sailboat?
Touching down at midnight in Tromsø, the northernmost city in Norway, I asked my Uber driver in Norwegian to please take me to the “big harbor where the big sailboat called Linden exists.” (This a phrase I had been practicing over my two days of travel from my home in Alaska.)
The driver laughed as he removed his earpods.
“Bro,” he said in English. “This is a big fucking city. Lots
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