... it's abit further south:
Gaustadtoppen is located at 59.51N 008.39E and my home airport, Rygge (ENRY) is at 59.23N 010.47 E
BUT... the island-group "Svalbard" is the point in Norway which is farthest north.
It's main town, "Longyearbyen" is located at 78.13N 015.39E.
It's northern point is located at 80.50N 020.25E and THAT's pretty far north! (The North Pole is at 90N as you know...)
Here a few pics taken in the summer (June) to give you an idea
Before they constructed an airport with it's concrete runway, they landed on a flat section of frozen ground. (the ground is frozen all through the year) with both DC-3 and DC-4. Check out the airport terminal and the tower!
I bet you could easily land a RV there today...
The only industry used to be mining for coal deep inside the mountains:
The coal was moved from the mine entrance and down to the cableway pickup by a covered track:
The track had to be covered due to the harsh weather.
Here's the old cableway:
Now, it's only a couple of mines still in use and nowadays the main income for the islands is tourism.
You'll see signs warning you for polar bears in the streets:
The text says: "Applies to all of Svalbard"
And you can see reindeers almost everywhere:
The weather is VERY harsh up there, so the people had to invent many things to able to live up there.
Here's how the kids got from their school building to their gymnasium: the walkway had to be completely built in so they wouldn't be blown away or freeze to death during the frequent snowstorms...
Up in the hillside in the background, you can see an old cable way.
And finally an glimpse of the town Longyearbyen.
All the houses are built ABOVE the ground because of ground is aways frozen. So you can't have basement under your house...
You can see the same thing underneath the school and the gymanasium on the pic above.
In the foreground, you can see the "digger" they used inside the mines. It carved the coal loose so it could be transported out of the mine.
When you see how low that digger is; think about those brave men who where operating these suckers in narrow, dark caves deep, deep, DEEP inside those mountains...
Anyway; guess this wasn't exactly RV-releated so far (hope the moderators doesn't delete it!) but if any of you want a REALLY remote place to go to with your RV's, Svalbard is the place!
A few years back, Jan Johanson (hope I spelled his name right?) landed his RV-4 there when he was on his round-the-world tour.
He then continued with his RV down to the mainland and landed in Tromsø.
Just north of Tromsø, he was met by a Norwegian RV-4, which was built and flown by Bjørnar Vollstad, president of EAA Chapter 573 Norway.
Bjørnar escorted him to Tromsø for landing and over the next few days the two RV's flew together southwards, all through Norway from north to south.
(Norway is a very long country: the total length of the mainland is the same distance as it is from Norway's most southern point to Rome...)
Then Jan continued his tour alone.
Anyway, guess I got carried away alittle here, but hope you liked it anyway...
A Norwegian 2-ship New Year RV-trip to a mountain, around it and return.
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