For the miners, scientists and tourism workers of more than 50 nationalities who make up most of Svalbard’s 3,000 inhabitants, it's challenging at first to adjust to living without even a hint of twilight in a treeless, black-and-white landscape.Sign up for NBC Chicago newsletters.
Then the polar night becomes an opportunity to slow down and appreciate the only glimpses of natural light – the stars, the elusive swirls of the aurora borealis, and the full moon, which circles overhead without setting for a couple of days at a time. Most of all, there’s the glow of the snowpack. But that’s changing as the Arctic, and especially this archipelago lapped by warm currents, heats up faster than most of the rest of the world, delaying and reducing snowfall.“When the dark season comes … we’re used to see northern lights, the moon, stars, and the snow is lighting up. Now it became dark and depressing,” said Espen Rotevatn, the director of Svalbard Folkehøgskole, an alternative school in Longyearbyen.