Svalbard and other places in the far north.

I didn't even know it was a real place.

Also they appear to have polar bears as guards for the seed.

http://im✧✧✧.g✧✧✧.c✧.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2008/feb/26/conservat✧✧✧.food/GD6380✧✧✧@The-Svalbard-Global-S-7✧✧✧.j✧✧

I think you'll have to go to the gallery at the guardian to see the polar bear guard. Sorry.

http://im✧✧✧.g✧✧✧.c✧.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2008/feb/26/conservat✧✧✧.food/GD6380✧✧✧@The-Svalbard-Global-S-7✧✧✧.j✧✧

Thta's exactly what i thought when i was reading the book. I looked it up and even then it seemed unlikely.

I have no idea what just happened there.

There's an @ in there, causing Mr ILX System to anonymize it as an email address?

But I don't remember even entering any adress. Ho hum. Here's some pretty pictures of Svalbard. including the Polar Bear sign warning you about them. As seen only in Svalbard!

in the second world war. didn't the allies and axis guys up there have to join together to repel an attack by polar bears?

I don't know about that. Certainly there was quite a bit of action up there in ww2.

And now they've got a Radission!
http://www.longyearbyen.radissonsas.com/cs/Satellite/Page/RadissonSAS/Page/rsasHotelArticle/1053434510418/en/hotelCode--lyrzh/

I want to visit.

The 11 men at Station Haudegen on Nordaustlandet (North-East Land), the most remote and northerly of the main islands in Svalbard, were the last German "combatants" to surrender at the end of World War II, nearly four months after the cessation of hostilities

Hmmmm strange. I've become obsessed with the artic and the Northern Lights after a trip to Canada last week and lots of nature documentary viewing recently. In fact, I spent about an hour looking at pics/info about the northern lights last night. I want to go too!

My dad did a bunch of work up there a few years ago. Sounds like a pretty crazy place.

http://www.svalbardarchaeology.org/

Crazy is right - here's a photo of some drunks fighting!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91385294@N00/282174202/

that seed bank is an amazing thing, just heard about it last month.

Funny, Svalbard is one of the places I always stare at on my world map shower curtain, thinking "this will be important later but I don't yet know how"

Huge double page photo of the place in the guardian to-day. It was dawn there yesterday for the first time since October.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/mar/08/arctic.wildlife?picture=332863544

Plus article about living up there. Interesting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/08/arctic.endangeredhabitats

She believes the onset of winter tends to unite Longyearbyen. "When it gets dark, people come together, because they are scared of the darkness - and the polar bears. They start visiting."

Sounds like the plot for a horror movie.

I was in Murmansk in February. Unremarkable

I want a world map shower curtain

What's stopping you?

They have a much cheaper version at Argos. It's just white on blue, but is still a good thing to stare at while you lather your hair.

I saw the Guardian article with accompanying pictures and thought "some day I will visit."