What a YEAR looks like on Svalbard an island close to the North Pole January ️ December

My name is Cecilia and I live on Svalbard, an island close to the North Pole. It has now been two months since we last saw the sun. Our island is located so far north that during the winter we are left in complete darkness for three months, a season known as the polar night or the dark season. It's a time when the lines between day and night are blurred and the northern lights can be seen dancing across the sky at all times of the day. But where there is polar night there is also polar day, a time when the sun never sets below the horizon and the midnight sun leaves us in constant daylight for four months. I've now been fortunate enough to call this island my home for over eight years and I live in this cabin together with my boyfriend Christopher and my dog Grim. While Svalbard may be a place of extreme seasons it is also one of extraordinary beauty. January is one of the darkest months of the year and by now we have lived in complete darkness for weeks and the sleepiness starts to take over. It's not normal for our bodies to live without daylight so it's not so strange that it eventually becomes a struggle to get out of bed at a decent hour. But I don't mind, it's best to this time of year just kind of go with the flow. I prefer to spend the nights together with the northern lights underneath the stars. One reason I love the polar night so much is because of the night sky. There is no light pollution out at our cabin so walking out our door on a clear day is like standing on the doorstep to our galaxy. In January we can expect some wild snowstorms and this is definitely one of the months that challenges us the most. It's dark, cold and ruggedly arctic but the weather changes fast and often. From one day to the next it is completely different. The dark stormy polar night sky may be switched out with a deep purple one. This is exactly what happened last January. This rare weather phenomenon that is caused by Rayleigh scattering has surprised us more than once here on Svalbard making a dark season day feel a lot more bright. There is lots of magic to be found in polar night and it's actually one of my favorite times of year. This is just beyond like magical. Just look at this. The only time we get to see more of our beautiful surroundings is under the light of a full moon so when we wake up to the horizon glowing at the end of January it almost doesn't feel real and by January 30th we say goodbye to the polar night with the promise of brighter days ahead. The polar night is officially over. In February we switch out the darkness for pink and blue hues. In a single phrase February is known as the blue hour. As the long dark season comes to an end each day gets just a little bit brighter. The end of the polar night light coupled with the snowy mountain peaks paints the landscape with a breathtaking blue hue for many hours each day. It's a kind of blue that feels like you can reach out and grab a handful. It's one of my favorite times of year and truly a photographer's dream. After spending months pointing my lens to the night sky I get to focus on different scenes as everything comes into view once again. This time before the sun returns by mid-month is unreal. It truly feels like something out of a dream. March often claims the title of Svalbard's coldest month and temperatures frequently drop below minus 20 degrees Celsius or colder. It's so cold. We just talked to Einar and he said that it's minus 30 in town. Minus 30 Celsius. I think this is the coldest day we've had this year so far. Well it is. The sun has by now made its first appearance over the horizon and continues to climb higher until on the 8th of March it shines on the village once again for the first time since October the year before. It's sunfest 2023. This is the first time the sun's going to hit the village since October. We love a good sunfest and the kids here are also going to sing a song and we're drinking coffees and we had a solbolle, a sun bun. It was quite nice. A sun bun. This is a month full of celebration and it sometimes feels like a bit of a rebirth or starting over fresh. As March frequently blesses us with favorable weather and the days stretch longer we explore the island by snowmobile. There is so much to see and do here that is only reachable while there is snow cover. We head out to remote cabins miles away from our town Langebyn to stay for a few days and enjoy the silence or we pack up everything we need for a day exploring a large glacier cave. Okay it's actually not that bad. Look at this. There are so many different seasons here in the far north and every month offers a unique experience. It is what keeps life here so exciting. April is the start of the midnight sun season also known as polar day. It's a month brimming with activity. We have around the clock daylight by mid-April so there is more than enough daylight to use to explore the beautiful snow-capped mountains and vast white plains. We spend lots of time at remote cabins and out exploring the island. Since we cover quite long distances on our snowmobiles it is not uncommon to come across a polar bear or two when out on these trips. In last month's NordVPN episode we all witnessed Grim go over to the dark side and become an internet scammer. He kept sending me phishing emails to try to get money for treats but thankfully NordVPN kept me safe and a big thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring this video. We are back with a new episode of the NordVPN series. It's a new year now and Grim has thankfully decided to leave his scamming times behind him. New year, new Grim. He has been spending the last week glued to the tv watching his new favorite tv series The Good Wife with Christopher but it was only with the help of NordVPN that he could watch this show as it isn't available on any of the streaming services that we have here in Norway. Grim downloaded NordVPN on our Apple TV and then with the click of one button connected to a server in the US and voila he can watch The Good Wife. NordVPN really make it so easy to unlock content in different countries. In five days Grim and Christopher have watched three seasons. Head to nordvpn.com slash Cecilia or use the code Cecilia to get four months for free on a two-year plan and it is all risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Thank you so much to NordVPN and let's head back to the video. May is a bit of an in-between month as I like to call it. Neither summer nor winter nor spring. There is a bit of snow and lots of sunshine. It's not the most eventful month adventure-wise as the weather is quite unpredictable. Spring is just around the corner so you never know if the snowmobile weather will last this long or if the snow will have started to melt already in early May. This is so gorgeous. There are geese over there. What? Gooses? Geese? Geese. And also reindeer. It's a zoo out here. I feel like this month is kind of like a mix of all seasons possible. You will see Grim holding on to the last of the snow around our cabin for dear life. Since the weather is quite impossible to predict for this month it is best to not plan too many snowmobile trips for this time of year. The birds have now also started to return to our island so we can hear them singing from the mountaintops again. On the 17th of May Norway celebrates its national day marking the official start of the polar summer and also boat season. Even though the calendar marks the arrival of summer, Longyearbyen's average temperature barely reaches six degrees celsius during June and July and the ocean stays between zero and four degrees all year round. It might not sound like a typical kind of summer but that is toasty to us. That was just a little granny dip. We spend our days out on the fjord or up in the mountains hiking discovering new places visiting our favorite nature bays and get to see the most incredible views and wildlife. Over 60 percent of Svalbard is covered in glaciers so to get to see these thousand-year-old masses of ice up close is always breathtaking. The endless daylight is tiring and I actually find this time of year to be the toughest on my body and mind. The sun just never ends and at one point it goes from energizing to draining. I am a winter girl at heart and thrive in the early dark evenings when our cabin is all cozy and this time of year just has none of that so my heart isn't as happy as it is during polar night. But that is okay it is still a very beautiful season. Out of 10 whole fingers, how many fingers would you give this morning? The light in summer is very harsh. By July the sun sets high in the sky all day long so there's none of that beautiful golden evening light that we all love. The tundra and the mountains take on a deep brown hue with pops of green. A very simple color palette. I always find it so strange that the polar day season feels so long but the polar night so short. I assume it has to do with me loving one more than the other. I think my mission for this year's polar day is to set more outdoorsy goals. I've always wanted to hike all the mountains around town not in one go but having been on all the peaks. I have about a third of them left so perhaps that is something I can take on this summer. Both Grim and Christopher love the polar day season. It is when they thrive so that is definitely one thing that I love about the summer. Now this is a month I love. In August our world becomes golden. In the glow of the sun which steadily descends closer to the horizon everything turns a burnt orange tone. While the whales may have arrived earlier this is the time when we often see them from our deck feeding in the shallow waters just outside our cabin. It's common to hear them before we see them and spotting one feels like finding a hidden treasure. There's just something so special about whales. As the sun dips lower golden hour returns. A photographer's dream lighting. And toward the end of the month the sun sets for the first time since April and the dark nights soon return to us as well. Can you just see how golden everything looks? And it's gonna get even more orange. This is just kind of like that time when everything switches from very yellow and green to orange and burnt orange and red and some of my favorite fall colors. The ocean is so blue right now. Everything looks incredibly saturated. Today is wild. I should be in bed but this is just standard practice by now. Oh wow the clouds are getting like a little pink tint over there. It's impossible to not feel a sense of just pure calm here. It's almost like it's not real in a way you know. Like this is my deck. This is where I live. This is my view. What? I still just like I don't know. How is it possible? I just feel like what this does to your mental health and to your just I don't know to your gratitude maybe. Just feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Let's look at Christopher on the boat. I think we can zoom in quite close maybe. Let's check he's over there. Can you believe that we already have snow on the mountaintops? This happened yesterday. We just woke up and there was a lot of rain down here and then full-on snow flurry at the top of the mountains. Today it's five degrees so it's getting colder but not a lot yet. I mean it's still early. It's still early. September tends to wake us up to the season's first dusting of snow on the mountain peaks and it's not uncommon to see a couple of days of rain during this time of year. The days are now quickly getting shorter and a moody light takes over the early evenings. After all the endless sunshine I quite like this period. It's that last bit of late summer with breathtaking sunsets and cozy evenings. The animals start to prepare to leave for the winter but we still get quite a lot of whale views from our cabin. It's not uncommon to look out the window and see a huge pod of belugas swim right by the cabin. You can even hear them speak to each other all the way from our deck. I've never lived this close to wild nature before and now I can't imagine living any other way. The boat season isn't over quite yet so there is still lots of exploring to do for anyone wanting to make the most of the last daylight. My soul season is back. The darkness, the northern lights, the peaceful beauty of the night sky. We are once again reunited with the stars and the moon. Although the sun sets towards the end of the month you quickly sense the dwindling daylight in October. It's once again time for the fantastic blue hour just a bit of a slightly different kind since there's usually not much snow on the mountains yet but you never know you might wake up to lots of snow. It's a month mixed with gray snowy days, blue dreamy days and northern lights. As the days go by the daylight hours get shorter and the light gets more beautiful. We all start to prepare for the months of pitch black darkness that lay ahead and by the end of October the sun sets for the last time this year and the dark season begins. Everything is pink oh my gosh and there's no wind and it's just the colors are incredible. This is the light currently at nine in the morning well it's not even nine it's like 8 45 or something. Wow it's so blue and the mountains are a little bit like pink. What a morning. It's also one of the first days where it's colder than it's been in a long time even though the sun has set like almost a week ago we still get quite a lot of light but it's in the beginning no it's just the beginning of November. I think today is like November 1st or 2nd and we still have about maybe 10 days before it goes pitch black because it needs to you know gradually get darker and darker. The pitch black darkness doesn't arrive until mid-November and up until then we have blue mornings and dusky afternoons. The tilt of the earth hides us from the sun for four months and two and a half of those are spent in complete darkness. While this seems to be many people's idea of a nightmare, I love it so much. With all the beautiful views hiding in the dark we get to focus on other things for a while. I see this as a time to focus on the small things in life like how much I enjoy my morning coffee or daydreaming away in a good book or enjoying my time with Krim and Christopher. Thanks to the endless darkness the aurora can now be visible at all times of the day and that is something that I will never tire of. As you can imagine the holiday season is so magical here on Svalbard. Darkness, northern lights and just magical mornings underneath a sky full of stars. Seeing as we are so close to the pole we also have a very close relationship with Santa Claus. According to Longyearbyen legend he lives in a mine in the mountain and we welcome him home every year on the first of advent. This truly is the start of a very fairytale-like month. The main street adorned in Christmas lights and the sense of community is extra strong. Our permanent darkness now feels like a natural part of our everyday life and life just continues like normal. We lean into the holiday season a little bit extra and even get Christmas trees imported from the mainland. As you might have noticed throughout the months there are no trees here on Svalbard. We are so far north that nothing grows here and the ground is permanently frozen. As December comes to an end we celebrate the new year and get ready for what is to come. The first sunrise, blue hour, sunny winter, midnight sun, both season, golden autumn and then polar night once again. I thought it would be fun to look at what we have ahead of us this year by looking at what has been. Thank you so much for being here on my channel. I am so excited about this new year and making many more beautiful memories here in the high arctic. Have an amazing day and I will see you next week. Love you, bye!