What it’s like to explore polar night in the northernmost town on the planet

The hub of Norway’s remote Svalbard archipelago, Longyearbyen is a real-life winter wonderland – and especially otherworldly during polar night, says Clodagh Kinsella

Longyearbyen is alive with an ethereal glow during polar night (Hurtigruten Svalbadr/Agurtxane Concellon)

“Killing is the Svalbard history,” says guide Erlend, as we huddle round a fire in a tepee, escaping Arctic -33C winds. “Kids here learn these local traditions. They come up and shoot a reindeer, and have it for lunch.”

Midway between Norway and the North Pole, glacier-lined Svalbard has long lured hardy souls: whalers in the 17th century, then Russians and Norwegian trappers hunting polar bears, reindeer, foxes and ptarmigan.

We’re tracing their footsteps in the Todalen valley, outside Longyearbyen, the archipelago’s main town.