Happy Tycoon

Yang Jing and the others stayed from Alert for more than a week, counting the time it took to come, more than 20 days have passed since the trip.

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 number of glaciers have collapsed from Greenland and entered the Arctic Ocean to become icebergs.

Because the ice is melting relatively quickly, the Blue Whale has been sailing at a speed of ten knots in the sea seven or eight kilometers away from the coastline. When bypassing the northern part of Greenland and entering the Greenland Sea, due to the influence of the North Atlantic warm current, there is almost no ice on the sea here.

Here, Captain Andre can safely and boldly increase the speed of the ship to the normal cruising speed, and then go straight to Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard in northern Norway, at this speed.

When the Blue Whale arrived in Longyearbyen, it was already three days after leaving Alert.

Longyearbyen, at 78°13' north latitude, is the capital of Svalbard and claims to be the northernmost city on the planet.

In fact, the title of the northernmost city in the world is still in dispute.

Unlike Ushuaia, Argentina, which is recognized as the southern city in the world, the title of the northernmost city on Earth has always been under debate.

The most troubled ones were Hammerfest and Honningschweig, two cities not far from each other on the northern island of Norway.

Hammerfest declared itself the Northernmost City in the World as early as 200 years ago, and built many monumental buildings to prove its status, such as Northernmost Sign and Northernmost Hotel. It seized the relevant tourist souvenirs, printed materials and stamps, and seized the public opinion guidance of many books 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 tourists flocking here, but also the government's many inclined policies have also benefited it a lot. For example, the world's first electric street lamp was first installed in this city, because everyone agrees that there is a three-month polar night in winter, which is the place that needs street lamps the most.

But their neighbor, Horning Schweiger in North Point, was obviously not convinced. Your Hammerfest latitude is 70 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, but ours is 71 degrees north latitude. How can we say that we should be the northernmost in the world!

But the people of Hammerfest are confident and confident. According to Norwegian law, people who have reached 5,000 people can be called a city. Honningschweig has only 3,300 people in total, so it can only be called a small town, and it is useless to go north.

This reason of Hammerfest made the Honningschweig people very dissatisfied, so in 1996, the Honningschweig people declared themselves a city, but it was declared invalid by the Norwegian government six months later. In desperation, the city council played the Huairou card. Hammerfest has already made a fortune from oil processing, so it should be more generous and distribute some of the benefits of the most north to good neighbors.

Now Honningschweig has a bar that is known as the northernmost bar in the world and a sightseeing spot where the world is the first to see the Northern Lights. Every summer, as many as 208,000 tourists from various countries come by cruise ship to see the world's first ray of sunrise and the magnificent Arctic coastline, allowing them to taste the sweetness of the most north. But they are still not satisfied, because Hammerfest has 250,000 visitors a year.

Facing the competition for the northernmost city in the world between Hammerfest and Horningschweig, Longyearbyen and Alert, who are further north, each moved a small horse to sit on the north side, laughing Look at the two cities in the south fighting their brains like dogs for the title of the northernmost city in the world.

Longyearbyen and Alert, the two little brothers, watched with interest, but they just kept silent.

Alert can't help it. Although it is the northernmost settlement in the world, Alert is self-aware. Located at 82° 28' north latitude, Alert is definitely the most beautiful place on the planet in every respect. The human settlement at the northern end, but the settlement that Yang Jing and the others just left is too small, and the environment is too harsh.

Yang Jing and the others had just left Alert for a few days, so they were most 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. It is covered with ice and snow for most of the year, and the roads are hard to distinguish. The rest of the day is muddy. Although there is a small airport, it can only take off every year. The dozens of planes that have landed so pitifully, most of the planes are snow planes with only a few seats.

People there rarely see a few tourists all year round, and the residents are naturally not interested in the Northernmost contest that can't bring them any benefits. What they often talk about is the town's nickname Hero Town. , because only good men—ambitious explorers and persevering scientific research personnel—will dare to come to this isolated place, which is covered with ice and snow all year round.

To be honest, Yang Jing and the others who have just left from Alert know very well that Alert is not qualified to compete for the title of the northernmost city in the world. How could it be called a city when it wasn't even a village? Not to mention that it's useless to get this title there, more than 99.999% of the people in this world can't get there!

As for another place that is qualified to compete for the title of the northernmost city in the world, it is Longyearbyen where Yang Jing and the others are about to dock in Hong Kong.

Geographically speaking, Longyearbyen, at 78°13' north latitude, is undoubtedly farther north than its two quarreling neighbors to the south. Moreover, although the city has a population of just over 1,800, it is an out-and-out city, and it is also a capital city. Therefore, no matter how you look at it, Longyearbyen is more qualified to win the title of the northernmost city in the world.

However, it is a pity that although this city belongs to Norway, it was discovered by the American Longyearbyen when he was looking for coal mines. The proportion of Russians and Ukrainians among the residents is twice that of Norwegians. Because of this, although this town known for Arctic scientific research has the world's northernmost coal mine and considerable international fame, in the eyes of Norwegians, this city is the least qualified to be the world's northernmost city city of.

Even his own motherland refused to admit it. In desperation, Longyearbyen and Allert, the two brothers and sisters, could only move a small horse and watch the two cities in the south tearing each other apart.

However, although the Norwegians are unwilling to recognize the status of Longyearbyen, this city is very famous all over the world, otherwise Captain Andre would not have set the second supply point for this voyage here city.

Despite the small size of Longyearbyen, there is a wharf here that can dock 10,000-ton giant ships.

No way, although Longyearbyen was discovered by Icelanders as early as 1194, the harsh climate here makes it difficult to survive here. It wasn't until 1906 that American John Longyearbyen discovered rich coal mines in this area that the city began to prosper.

It can be said with certainty that the city was developed on the basis of coal mines. Moreover, the Swell coal mine in Longyearbyen is one of the most productive coal mines in the world, which is very attractive to Europe in the context of industrialization. With the injection of U.S. dollar capital, coal mines bloomed everywhere in Svalbard. Tempted by high salaries, many miners from Norway, Russia and other countries left their homes and came here to fight the severe cold and become the earliest islanders.

With a coal mine, it is natural to have a wharf for transporting raw coal, so this 10,000-ton wharf was formed in this way.

After the Blue Whale docked firmly at the pier, Yang Jing and Gege led Dabai off the ship.

It will take a whole day for the Blue Whale to resupply here, and the Blue Whale will not leave here until tomorrow evening to move on. Before that, Yang Jing and the others had more than 20 hours to tour the city.

Only after actually entering this city did Yang Jing realize that this long and narrow city is located in a valley. It is precisely because of the towering mountains on the north and south sides that the residents in the valley can resist the cold wind from the North Pole.

The city is very small, much smaller than the Nuuk that Yang Jing once visited. But the buildings here are the same as Nuuk, colorful and beautiful.

It is said that the reason why the houses here are this color is because from November to January of the next year, Longyearbyen has three months of polar night, during which the whole city is plunged into darkness Therefore, the exterior walls of the houses here are painted in colorful colors to facilitate the identification of residents and tourists in the dark.

The hotel that Yang Jing booked was the Radisson Blu Polar Hotel in Spitsbergen, the best in Longyearbyen. Just like other buildings in the small town are made of wood, this hotel is also made of wood. And it's only two floors high.

This four-star hotel is located in the center of a small town 1.3 kilometers away from the wharf. Originally, the hotel wanted to send a car to pick up Yang Jing and the others, but because Dabai was there, Yang Jing refused. It's not far anyway, and it's healthier to walk.

On the way they walked from the pier to the hotel, Yang Jing found abandoned wooden cableways everywhere on the hillsides on both sides of the road.

These cable cars are all left over from the Svalbard Mining Group, the largest enterprise in the small town. Before mechanization was realized, these cable cars were used to transport coal from the mining area to the wharf.

The current Longyearbyen is in the extreme daylight period, which is the peak tourist season. It was 8:30 pm local time when Yang Jing and the others disembarked, but there were still many tourists on the street at this time.

Yang Jing and his group quickly attracted the attention of many people, mainly because Dabai beside Yang Jing was so attractive. Although some people in Europe and America keep polar bears as pets, such big polar bears are really rare. Even though Longyearbyen, like Churchill in Canada, has a large number of polar bears, and this city is also known as the hometown of polar bears, it is really rare to walk on the street with a wild polar bear so swaggeringly.

So along the way, the combination of Yang Jing, Gege and Dabai received the highest attention.