The telegraph station in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

IN THE MIDDLE OF HISTORY

The protected telegraph station in Ny-Ålesund from 1918 was shut down in 1962. At this point, more things had happened here than in most little wooden houses: Roald Amundsen, the polar explorer, came here to set his watch to Paris-time, while waiting to set out on an expedition towards the North Pole in the spring of 1926. This is also where his desperate emergency messages arrived when his plane crashed in the icy wastelands. The telegram containing the message that should have sunk the Gerhardsen government in 1963 was also sent from here.

When Telenor developed a plan for the protection of its buildings and technical installations in 1997, there was never any doubt as to whether the telegraph station in Ny-Ålesund should be on the list. Throughout many years, the blue house was the lifeblood of one of the world’s northernmost human settlements, and the only possibility for its inhabitants to stay in contact with the mainland through long and isolated winters. A lot has happened since those days. Today Ny-Ålesund is a high-tech centre for arctic research and for monitoring the environment. Listening for noise from black holes 31 billion light years away, is one of the projects the scientists are currently engaged in. That’s why it’s important to turn off Wi Fi and mobile phones on arrival to Ny-Ålesund, in order to prevent any disturbances to the sensitive listening equipment.

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