For the “living and dying in Svalbard” series: in addition to facing 24-hour darkness in winter and the constant threat of freezing to death, the 2,000 residents of the remote Norwegian town of Longyearbyen they must also scrupulously observe a very strange law: it is illegal to die there.
Located in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Longyearbyen is so cold it dies, or rather be buried, has been illegal since 1950when the locals realized that the bodies did not decompose in the cemetery due to the freezing climate.
Which may also be fortunate for the progress of human beings: scientists who exhumed the corpses of those who had died in the 1918 influenza pandemic in 1998 were able to recover live samples of the deadly virus. On the other hand, it is unfortunately a common thing and just recently from the Siberian permafrost, for example, viruses that have been buried for millennia and are still potentially infectious are re-emerging.
Inhabited mostly by miners, the locals became so afraid of the spread of disease after discovering that the bodies were not decomposing, that they made burial is illegal in the local cemetery. Other solution? Of course, the cremation. But it seems so few people have chosen this option that terminally ill patients have to leave the island and fly to the Norwegian mainland to spend their final days.
If it looks like you are going to die, every effort will be made to send you to the mainland, Jan Christian Meyer, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said cynically.
On the other hand, few people are born in Longyearbyen: pregnant women are encouraged to travel to the mainland ahead of their due date. And I bet that the Norwegian government is also able to guarantee substantial subsidies.
But that won’t be the only reason why you probably never want to move here. The city is so far north that it stays dark in winter for four months straight with no difference between night and day most of the time. But in practice you are at least guaranteed to see the Northern Lights, so maybe it’s worth the trip. Just don’t die.
