Yang Jing and the others stayed in Alette for more than a week, counting the time taken when they came up, more than 20 days have passed since this trip.
At the end of July, the Arctic Ocean has completely entered the warmest time of the year, when the ice in the coastal areas of the Arctic Ocean has melted, and a large number of glaciers have collapsed from Greenland and entered the Arctic Ocean to become icebergs.
Because the ice melts relatively quickly, the Blue Whale has been sailing at a speed of ten knots at a distance of seven or eight kilometers from the coastline.
When you bypass the northern part of Greenland and enter the Greenland Sea, there is almost no ice on the surface of the sea due to the influence of the North Atlantic Current.
Here, Captain André can safely and boldly increase the speed of the ship to its normal cruising speed, and then make a beeline for Longyearbyen, the capital of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway.
By the time the Blue Whale arrived at Longyearbyen, it had been three days after leaving Alett.
Located at 78 degrees 13 minutes north latitude, Longyearbyen is the capital of Svalbard and is claimed to be the northernmost city on the planet.
In fact, the title of "the world's northernmost city" is still in the midst of controversy.
Unlike Ushuaia, Argentina, which is recognized as the "southernmost city in the world", the title of the northernmost city on Earth has been debated.
The most troublesome are two cities not far from each other on the northern island of Norway, Hammerfest and Honningschweig.
As early as 200 years ago, Hammerfest declared itself the "northernmost city in the world", and built many monumental buildings intended to prove its status, such as the "northernmost symbol" and "northernmost hotel", and also issued related tourist souvenirs, printed materials and stamps, and seized the "public opinion guidance" of many books and magazines.
The title of "the northernmost city in the world" has brought many benefits to this small city of less than 10,000 people, not only by tourists, but also by many of the government's "tilt policies".
For example, the world's first electric street lamp was installed in the city first, because everyone agreed that there is a three-month polar night in winter, and it is the place where street lights are most needed.
But their neighbour, Honningschweig in North Point, was apparently unconvinced.
Your Hammerfest latitude is 70 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, but we are 71 degrees north latitude, how can we say that we should be "the northernmost part of the world"!
According to Norwegian law, only 5,000 people can be called a "city", and Honningschweig has a total of 3,300 people, so it can only be called a small town, and it is useless to go north.
Hammerfest's argument upset the Honningschweig people, so in 1996 the Honningschweig people declared themselves "municipalities", but six months later the Norwegian government declared them invalid.
In desperation, the city council played the Huairou card, and Hammerfest had already made a fortune because of oil processing, so he should be generous and give some of the benefits of the "northernmost part" to his good neighbors.
Today, Honningschweig is home to the world's northernmost bar and the "world's first place to see the Northern Lights".
Every summer, 2.08 million tourists from all over the world come by boat to see the world's first sunrise and the magnificent Arctic coastline, giving them a taste of the "northernmost" sweetness.
However, they are not satisfied, because Hammerfest has 250,000 visitors a year.
In the face of the battle between Hammerfest and Honningschweig's "the northernmost city in the world", Longyearbyen, which is further north, and Alert, who is further north, each moved a small horse to sit on the north side, laughing at the two cities in the south for the title of "the world's northernmost city".
Longyearbyen and Allett watched with amusement, but they just didn't squeak.
Alert can't help it, although it is the northernmost settlement in the world, but people Alert is self-aware, and Alert, which is located at 82 degrees 28 minutes north latitude, is definitely the northernmost human settlement on the planet in any way, but this settlement that Yang Jing and they just left is too small, and the environment is too bad.
Yang Jing and the others had just left Alert for a few days, so they were most touched by the situation there.
To the north of Alert is the perennially frozen Arctic Ocean, to the south is a swamp covered with ice and snow, and for most of the year it is covered with ice and snow, and the rest of the day is muddy.
The people there don't see a few tourists all year round, and the inhabitants are naturally not interested in the "northernmost" controversy, which does not bring them any benefits, but they often talk about the town's nickname, "Heroic Town", because only the heroic men – ambitious explorers and persevering scientific expeditions – dare to come to this isolated and snowy place.
To be honest, Yang Jing, who had just left Alet, knew very well that Alett was not qualified to compete for the title of "the northernmost city in the world".
It's not even a village, so how can it be called a "city"?
Not to mention that even if it was there, it wouldn't be a, more than 99.999 percent of the people in this world wouldn't be able to get there!
As for another place that is eligible to compete for the title of "the northernmost city in the world", it is Longyearbyen City, where Yang Jing and they are about to enter the port.
Geographically, Longyearbyen, at 78 degrees 13 minutes north latitude, is undoubtedly much farther north than the two quarrelsome neighbours to the south.
And although the city has a population of just over 1,800 people, it is a city in the truest sense of the word, and it is also a capital city.
Therefore, no matter how you look at it, Longyearbyen City is more qualified to receive the title of "the northernmost city in the world".
However, it is a pity that although the city belongs to Norway, it was discovered by the American Longyearbyen when he was looking for coal mines, and the proportion of residents is twice that of Russians and Ukrainians as Norwegians.
As a result, despite the fact that this Arctic research town has the world's northernmost coal mine and considerable international popularity, it is considered by Norwegians to be the least qualified city in the world to be the "northernmost city in the world".
Even refusing to admit his homeland, Longyearbyen had no choice but to carry the two cities to the south with Alert, who were brothers and sisters, to see the two cities in the south tear each other apart.
However, although the Norwegians were reluctant to recognize Longyearbyen's status, the city was so famous all over the world that Captain André would not have set the second supply point on this voyage.
Don't look at Longyearbyen's small city, but it has a dock that can dock 10,000-ton ships.
Although Longyearbyen was discovered by Icelanders as early as 1194, the harsh climate makes it difficult to survive here.
It wasn't until 1906 that the American John Longyearyen discovered a wealth of coal in the area, and the city began to flourish.
It is safe to say that the city was built on the coal mines.
And the Swell Coal Mine in Longyearbyen is one of the most productive in the world, which is very tempting for Europe in the context of industrialization.
With the injection of US dollar capital, coal mines have blossomed everywhere in Svalbard, and many miners from Norway, Russia and other countries have left their homes to fight the cold and become the first islanders.
With coal mines, it is natural to have a wharf to transport raw coal, so this 10,000-ton wharf was formed.
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After the Blue Whale docked steadily at this pier, Yang Jing and Gege led Dabai to get off the ship.
It will take a whole day for the Blue Whale to resupply here, and it will not leave until tomorrow evening.
Before that, Yang Jing and the others had more than 20 hours to explore the city.
After entering the city, Yang Jing found that this long and narrow city was located in a valley, and it was precisely because of the towering mountains on the north and south sides that the residents of the valley could resist the cold wind from the Arctic.
The city was small, much smaller than Nuuk, which Yang Jing had visited.
However, the buildings here are just as colorful and beautiful as Nuuk.
It is said that the reason why the houses here are all this color is because from November to January, Longyearbyen has three months of polar nights, during which the whole city is plunged into darkness, so the facades of the houses here are painted in a variety of colors to make it easier for residents and tourists to identify in the dark.
The hotel Yang Jing booked was the Radisson Blu Polar Hotel Spitsbergen, the best in Longyearbyen, and like all the other buildings in the town, this hotel was also made of wood and only two stories high.
This four-star hotel is located in the center of the small town 13 kilometers away from the pier, and the hotel was originally going to send a car to pick up Yang Jing and them, but because of the presence of Dabai, Yang Jing refused.
Anyway, it's not far, it's healthier to walk.
As the group walked from the pier to the hotel, Yang Jing found that abandoned wooden cable cars could be seen everywhere on the hillsides on both sides of the road.
The cable cars are all left over from Svalbard, the town's largest company, and were used to transport coal from the mine to the wharf before it was mechanized.
Now Longyearbyen City is in the polar daylight period, it is the peak tourist season, Yang Jing and their disembarkation time is half past eight in the evening local time, but at this time there are still many tourists on the street playing.
Yang Jing and his party quickly attracted the attention of many people, mainly because the big white around Yang Jing was too attractive.
Although some people in Europe and the United States also keep polar bears as pets, such a large polar bear is really too rare.
Even though Longyearbyen, like Churchill in Canada, is home to many polar bears, and the city is also known as the "home of polar bears", it is rare to walk down the street with a wild polar bear so swaggeringly.
So along the way, the combination of Yang Jing, Gege and Dabai got the highest attention