Yang Jing and his team stayed in Alert for more than a week. Including the time it took to get here, this trip has lasted more than twenty days.
At the end of July, the Arctic Ocean has completely entered the warmest time of the year. At this time, the ice in the coastal areas of the Arctic Ocean has melted, and a large amount of glaciers have collapsed from Greenland and entered the Arctic Ocean to become icebergs.
Because the ice melted quickly, the Blue Whale had been sailing at a speed of ten knots in the waters seven or eight kilometers from the coastline. When it bypassed the northern part of Greenland and entered the Greenland Sea, due to the influence of the North Atlantic warm current, there was almost no ice on the sea surface.
Here, Captain Andre can confidently increase the ship's speed to normal cruising speed, and then head straight to Longyearbyen, the capital of the Svalbard Islands in northern Norway.
When the Blue Whale arrived in Longyearbyen, it was three days after leaving Alert.
Located at 78 degrees 13 minutes north latitude, Longyearbyen is the capital of Svalbard and is known as the northernmost city on the planet.
In fact, the title of "the northernmost city in the world" is still controversial.
Unlike Ushuaia in Argentina, which is recognized as the "southernmost city in the world", the title of the northernmost city on Earth has always been controversial.
The worst-affected cities were Hammerfest and Honningsweig, two not-too-distant cities on an island in northern Norway.
As early as two hundred years ago, Hammerfest declared itself to be the "northernmost city in the world" and built many commemorative buildings such as the "northernmost sign" and the "northernmost hotel" to prove its status. It also issued related tourist souvenirs, printed materials and stamps, and seized the "public opinion orientation" of many books, journals and magazines.
The title of "the northernmost city in the world" has brought many benefits to this small city with less than 10,000 people. Not only are there many tourists, but also many "favorable policies" from the government. For example, the world's first electric street light was installed in this city first, because everyone agreed that this place has three months of polar night in winter and is the place that needs street lights the most.
However, their neighbor, Honningsweig in the North Cape, is obviously not convinced. Your latitude of Hammerfest is 70 degrees 40 minutes north, while ours is 71 degrees north. How can we be the "northernmost in the world"?
But the people of Hammerfest were very confident. According to Norwegian law, a city can only be called a city if it has a population of 5,000. Honningsweig has only 3,300 people in total, so it can only be called a small town, and it is useless even if you go further north.
The reason of Hammerfest made the people of Honningsweig very dissatisfied, so in 1996, the people of Honningsweig declared themselves a "city", but six months later the Norwegian government declared it invalid. In desperation, the city council played a conciliatory card, saying that Hammerfest had made a fortune from oil processing and should be more generous and share some of the benefits of being the "farthest north" with its good neighbors.
Today, Honningsweig has a bar that claims to be the world's northernmost and a tourist spot where you can see the Northern Lights first. Every summer, 208,000 tourists from all over the world come by cruise ship to see the world's first rays of sunrise and the magnificent Arctic coastline, giving them a taste of the sweetness of being the "northernmost". However, they are still not satisfied, because Hammerfest has 250,000 tourists every year.
Faced with the dispute between Hammerfest and Honningschweig for the title of "the northernmost city in the world", Longyearbyen, which is further north, and Alert, which is further north, each moved a small stool and sat in the north, watching the two cities in the south fighting over the title of "the northernmost city in the world".
The two brothers, Longyear and Alert, watched with great interest but said nothing.
There was nothing Alert could do. Although it was the northernmost settlement in the world, Alert knew its limitations. Located at 82 degrees 28 minutes north latitude, Alert was definitely the northernmost human settlement on the planet in every respect. However, the settlement that Yang Jing and his companions had just left was too small, and the environment was too harsh.
Yang Jing and his team had just left Alert a few days ago, so they were most deeply impressed by the situation there.
To the north of Alert is the perennially frozen Arctic Ocean, and to the south is a swamp covered with ice and snow. For most of the year, the area is covered with ice and snow, making the roads indistinguishable, and the rest of the time it is muddy. Although there is a small airport, only a few dozen planes can take off and land each year, and most of the planes are snow planes with only a few seats.
The people there rarely see tourists all year round, and the residents are naturally not interested in the "northernmost" competition that cannot bring them any benefits. What they often talk about is the town's nickname "Hero Town", because only heroes - ambitious explorers and persevering scientific researchers - dare to come to this isolated place covered with ice and snow all year round.
To be honest, Yang Jing and his team, who had just left Alert, knew very well that Alert was not qualified to compete for the title of "the northernmost city in the world". It was not even a village, so how could it be called a "city"? Not to mention that even if it was awarded this title, it would be useless, as more than 99.999% of the people in the world could not reach it!
As for another place that is eligible to compete for the title of "the northernmost city in the world", it is Longyearbyen where Yang Jing and his team are about to dock.
Geographically speaking, Longyearbyen, located at 78 degrees 13 minutes north latitude, is undoubtedly much farther north than its two quarreling neighbors to the south. And although the city has a population of only more than 1,800 people, it is a real city, and a capital city. Therefore, no matter how you look at it, Longyearbyen is more qualified to be called the "world's northernmost city".
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