The Town Where You Can’t Be Born or Buried — The Strange History of Longyearbyen

0:00 Speaker 1: Dear listener. One of my favorite podcasters is Cecilia Blomdahl.

0:04 Speaker 1: She is a blogger on YouTube who documents her life

0:07 Speaker 1: on Long Year Bin, which translates to Long Year Town.

0:10 Speaker 1: It is a Norwegian name, combining the surname of American

0:14 Speaker 1: founder John Monroe Longyear, with the Norwegian suffix bin, meaning

0:19 Speaker 1: the town. I will link her in the description. Not

0:23 Speaker 1: many can live there. The polar nights and polar days

0:26 Speaker 1: make for twenty four hours of darkness part of the

0:28 Speaker 1: year and twenty four hours of daylight another part of

0:32 Speaker 1: the year. Tonight, we are traveling farther north than most

0:36 Speaker 1: people will ever go, to a place where the sun

0:38 Speaker 1: disappears for months, where the cold is not just uncomfortable

0:42 Speaker 1: but constant, and where life itself operates under a very

0:46 Speaker 1: different set of rules. We are going to the remote

0:49 Speaker 1: Arctic archipelago of Spalbard, a place so unusual, so isolated,

0:54 Speaker 1: and so shaped by its environment that it has become

0:57 Speaker 1: famous for one particularly strange fact. In this town, you

1:02 Speaker 1: are not allowed to die. Now before we unpack that sentence,

1:06 Speaker 1: because it does raise several immediate questions. We need to

1:09 Speaker 1: understand how this place came to exist at all because

1:11 Speaker 1: Long year Bin is not an ancient settlement, it is

1:14 Speaker 1: relatively modern. Founded in nineteen oh six, John saw opportunity

1:20 Speaker 1: where most people saw ice, establishing a coal mining operation

1:24 Speaker 1: in one of the harshest environments on Earth, because if

1:27 Speaker 1: there is one consistent theme in human history, it's that

1:31 Speaker 1: someone will always look at an unforgiving landscape and think, yes,

1:36 Speaker 1: but what if we worked there. The town itself began

1:39 Speaker 1: as a company settlement built to support mining operations, and

1:43 Speaker 1: for decades, life and Long Yearbin revolved around coal isolation

1:48 Speaker 1: and survival, with workers enduring extreme cold, polar darkness, and

1:53 Speaker 1: the constant awareness that they were living in a place

1:56 Speaker 1: where nature was very much in charge and humans were

2:00 Speaker 1: at best temporary guests. And yet people stayed because over time,

2:06 Speaker 1: Long year Been evolved from a mining outpost into a

2:09 Speaker 1: functioning community, complete with homes, schools, a university center, and

2:15 Speaker 1: even tourism, because at some point humans decided that not

2:19 Speaker 1: only could they live in one of the most extreme

2:21 Speaker 1: environments on Earth, but they could also visit it for fun,

2:25 Speaker 1: which says a lot about us as a species. But

2:28 Speaker 1: the environment never stopped shaping the rules, because in Spalbard,

2:33 Speaker 1: the ground is permanently frozen, a condition known as permafrost,

2:37 Speaker 1: and while that may sound like a simple geological detail,

2:41 Speaker 1: it has some very unusual consequences, particularly when it comes

2:45 Speaker 1: to what happens after life ends. Because in permafrost, bodies

2:50 Speaker 1: do not decompose in the way they normally would. They

2:53 Speaker 1: remain preserved, sometimes for decades, sometimes longer, which is fascinating

2:58 Speaker 1: from a scientific perspective and slightly unsettling from every other perspective.

3:03 Speaker 1: This became widely recognized after the influenza pandemic of nineteen eighteen,

3:08 Speaker 1: when victims buried in long Yeurbin were later found to

3:11 Speaker 1: have remained remarkably intact, with traces of the virus still detectable,

3:17 Speaker 1: raising concerns that diseases could, in theory, persist in preserved bodies.

3:22 Speaker 1: And while the risk is low, the implication was enough

3:25 Speaker 1: to change policy, because the idea that something from the

3:28 Speaker 1: past could remain frozen waiting is exactly the kind of

3:33 Speaker 1: concept that makes people reconsider their options. So the town

3:36 Speaker 1: made a decision, not an official law in the way

3:39 Speaker 1: you might expect, but a very real policy. If you

3:42 Speaker 1: are seriously ill in long Urban, you are flown to

3:46 Speaker 1: mainland Norway. If you are near the end of life,

3:49 Speaker 1: you are not kept in the town because burial in

3:52 Speaker 1: the traditional sense is not practiced here anymore, which leads

3:56 Speaker 1: to the strange but accurate statement in Long Yeban you

4:00 Speaker 1: are not allowed to die. Now. Of course people do die,

4:04 Speaker 1: but the point is that the town does not handle

4:07 Speaker 1: death in the way most places do because the environment

4:10 Speaker 1: does not allow for it in a safe or practical way,

4:13 Speaker 1: which is one of those moments where nature quietly reminds

4:16 Speaker 1: humans that not every system works everywhere. And if that

4:20 Speaker 1: wasn't enough to make Long Year Bin feel different, the

4:23 Speaker 1: town operates under several other unusual rules because living in

4:27 Speaker 1: such an extreme environment requires adjustments that would seem strange

4:31 Speaker 1: almost anywhere else. For example, there is a long standing

4:35 Speaker 1: cultural expectation that residents carry rifles when leaving the town limits,

4:40 Speaker 1: not for crime, but for polar bears, because in Svalbard,

4:45 Speaker 1: the wildlife is not just part of the scenery, it

4:48 Speaker 1: is part of the risk assessment. And as if that

4:51 Speaker 1: weren't enough to make Long Year buy In feel like

4:53 Speaker 1: a place operating under an entirely different set of rules,

4:57 Speaker 1: there is another quiet reality that most p people don't

5:00 Speaker 1: realize until they arrive, because, much like death, birth is

5:05 Speaker 1: also gently redirected elsewhere as the town does not have

5:09 Speaker 1: facilities equipped to handle childbirth, and expectant mothers are typically

5:14 Speaker 1: required to travel to Mainland Norway weeks before their due date,

5:19 Speaker 1: which means that in Long Year Bin, you are not

5:22 Speaker 1: just discouraged from dying there, you are also strongly advised

5:26 Speaker 1: not to be born there, making it one of the

5:29 Speaker 1: only places on Earth where life both begins and ends

5:33 Speaker 1: somewhere else, which is less of a rule and more

5:36 Speaker 1: of a logistical reality, but still, when you think about it,

5:42 Speaker 1: it does give the town a very unique relationship with

5:45 Speaker 1: the concept of arrival and departure. And yes, dear listener,

5:50 Speaker 1: that is exactly as serious as it sounds. Now, let's

5:54 Speaker 1: take a moment, because this feels like the perfect time

5:58 Speaker 1: to address a problem you probably don't have.

6:00 Speaker 2: Are you tired of living in a place where the

6:02 Speaker 2: rules make sense, where you can come and go without

6:05 Speaker 2: considering wildlife risk factors, and where the ground behaves exactly

6:09 Speaker 2: as expected, Then you may be ready for Arctic Living Company,

6:13 Speaker 2: the only completely fictional relocation service that specializes in moving

6:17 Speaker 2: you to places where survival is a daily consideration. Arctic

6:21 Speaker 2: Living Company exists because sometimes the best way to appreciate

6:25 Speaker 2: comfort is to temporarily imagine losing it.

6:28 Speaker 1: But Long Year Bin is not just strange because of

6:31 Speaker 1: its rules. It is strange because of what it represents.

6:35 Speaker 1: A place where human systems have had to adapt to

6:39 Speaker 1: environmental reality in very direct ways, where policies are shaped

6:44 Speaker 1: not by preference but by necessity, and where the limits

6:48 Speaker 1: of nature are not theoretical, they are immediate and unavoidable.

6:53 Speaker 1: And perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of this

6:55 Speaker 1: place is not just how people live there, but why

6:59 Speaker 1: they choose to say. Because despite the darkness, the isolation,

7:04 Speaker 1: the cold, and the constant reminders that this is not

7:07 Speaker 1: an easy place to exist, there is something about Long

7:10 Speaker 1: Yearbin that draws people in a sense of uniqueness, of

7:14 Speaker 1: living at the edge of the world, of being part

7:16 Speaker 1: of a place that operates differently from everywhere else. There

7:19 Speaker 1: is also something else here, because Long Yearbin is home

7:23 Speaker 1: to the small barred Global Seed Vault, a secure facility

7:26 Speaker 1: built deep into the Arctic permafrost designed to store seeds

7:30 Speaker 1: from around the world as a safeguard against global catastrophe,

7:35 Speaker 1: which means that in a place where death is handled differently.

7:38 Speaker 1: There is also a structure dedicated entirely to preserving life

7:42 Speaker 1: for the future, which feels less like coincidence and more

7:46 Speaker 1: like a very carefully chosen location, Because if you were

7:50 Speaker 1: going to store the future of the world's food supply somewhere,

7:53 Speaker 1: you might choose a place where nothing changes. Dear listener,

7:58 Speaker 1: As we step back from the frozen landlandscape of long

8:00 Speaker 1: year beIN, what becomes clear is that this is not

8:04 Speaker 1: just a strange town with unusual rules. It is a

8:07 Speaker 1: place where the environment has shaped every aspect of life,

8:11 Speaker 1: from how people work to how they travel to how

8:14 Speaker 1: they handle something as universal as death itself, and in

8:18 Speaker 1: doing so, it reveals something important about the relationship between

8:23 Speaker 1: humans and the world around them, Because no matter how

8:26 Speaker 1: advanced we become, no matter how much we build, organize,

8:30 Speaker 1: and control, there are still places where nature sets the

8:33 Speaker 1: rules and we simply adapt to them. So the next

8:36 Speaker 1: time you find yourself in a place that feels predictable, comfortable,

8:40 Speaker 1: and easy to understand, take a moment to imagine a

8:43 Speaker 1: town where the ground never thaws, where the sun disappears

8:46 Speaker 1: for months, and where even something as inevitable as death

8:50 Speaker 1: has to follow a different set of guidelines. Sleep well,

8:53 Speaker 1: dear listener, and tonight, wherever you are, just be glad

8:58 Speaker 1: the ground beneath you behaves the way you expect acted

9:00 Speaker 1: two