Dinner at seven, at one table.
Arctic char, reindeer, bread from the oven by the door. Twelve chairs and one conversation, with a guide at the end who will tell you what the sky is likely to do tonight.
78°26′ N · 15°57′ E · Svalbard
A lodge for the dark.
Six rooms on a frozen shore, open only while the sun is gone: from the first morning it doesn’t rise, 26 October, to the day it comes back, 16 February.
02 — Mørketid
It isn’t one long night.
Svalbard calls this season mørketid, the dark time. In late October the sun stops clearing the mountains. By 12 November it no longer comes within six degrees of the horizon, which means even at noon there isn’t enough light outside to read by.
Then, for an hour or two around midday, the sky turns a blue you won’t have seen anywhere else. The rest belongs to the stars and the moon, and, because Svalbard sits under the daytime side of the aurora, to northern lights that can turn up at any hour. We’ve had them over breakfast.
- 25 Oct
- Last sunrise of the year
- 113 days
- Without the sun
- 12 Nov – 30 Jan
- No daylight at all, even at noon
- −11.9°
- The sun at noon on 21 December
03 — The way in
There’s no road to us.
Fly to Longyearbyen, about three hours from Oslo. We meet the plane, fit you with a snowmobile suit, boots and mitts, and drive you out: 64 kilometres over two valleys and the tongue of a glacier, with one of our guides in front. Your bags follow on the sledge.
- LongyearbyenAirport, suits and a hot drink
- AdventdalenThe valley out of town, under the last street lights
- The glacier tongueHalfway. Engines off for ten minutes to listen
- MørkeThree hours after landing, the windows lit
Everyone who leaves a settlement in Svalbard must be protected against polar bears. Our guides carry the rifle and the flare gun so you don’t have to.
04 — The lodge
Six rooms, one long table, a sauna on the fjord.
The house was a trapper’s station in the 1930s. We rebuilt it in black-stained larch, kept it low against the wind, and left the windows the size they were. Twelve guests at most, so the dark stays dark.
A north window in every room.
Four doubles and two twins, wool on the beds and no curtains on the north side. If the aurora starts at three in the morning you’ll see it from the pillow. Or ask, and we’ll knock.
- Rooms
- 4 doubles, 2 twins
- Guests
- 12 at most
- Guides
- 1 to every 4 guests, on every trip out
- Light
- Lamps inside, none outside
80 °C, then the fjord.
The sauna is wood-fired and sits at the water’s edge. The ice hole beside it is optional, and nobody has regretted it yet.
05 — The season
Open from the first morning the sun doesn’t rise to the day it comes back.
26 October 2026 to 16 February 2027. Stays of four, five or seven nights, arriving on Mondays and Thursdays.
NOK 11,400 per person per night, sharing. That covers everything once you land: the transfer both ways, the guiding, every meal, the sauna, the suits and boots. Flights to Longyearbyen are yours to book.