On Tuesday night, I quickly wrote a story about a man who I only briefly worked with at the Juneau Empire in 2006, but who I remembered well because he was kind to me and generously paid for a hotel room where I could stay until I landed on my (at that point very wet) feet. I had only just learned that not only had he returned to Juneau, but he had just been hired as the managing editor of the newspaper he left 17 years ago. The story brought up questions that led to a deep dive into the Google machine over my morning decaf on Wednesday.
The first link I landed on had quite the attention-grabbing headline: “OUR EDITOR GOT EXPELLED.”
Full disclaimer: I have not yet contacted Mark and admittedly feel a bit sheepish about doing so, given what he did for me and what happened to him later. This information is what I dug up via the Google machine, and may or may not be accurate.
The Juneau Empire article announcing Mark’s new position mentioned that he formerly produced an independent alternative weekly newspaper in Longyearbyen, Norway — the northernmost year-round settlement in the world. Svalbard is high on my dream list of places to visit, so I wondered how Mark landed there and why he left. I vaguely recall that in 2006, he was leaving the daily newspaper to become a freelance journalist. As it turned out, he edited a part-time newspaper in Antarctica and traveled around the world writing articles about jazz. He landed in Longyearbyen sometime around 2008 and spent the next 13 years living with the push and pull of the midnight sun and polar darkness as far north as it’s possible to permanently live.
“Since then, Mark has been part of Longyearbyen’s inventory, sitting at a table in a corner of Café Fruene and focussing on his computer while life is busy around him, keeping his newspaper and website updated,” wrote Rolf Stange, who also maintains a Spitsbergen Web site.
According to Rolf, Mark was one of several residents who came upon hard times in 2016 when the building where he owned a flat was deemed in danger of collapse due to structural damage caused by melting permafrost. The building was condemned and every resident was forced to leave without much notice. Those without insurance presumably experienced a big setback without much time to find a new place to live in the tight-knit town of 1,700 people.
“Finally, all reserves were used up, and Mark’s economical situation in the northernmost settlement of the rich country Norway reached a point where he had increasing difficulties to fund his daily spending,” Rolf wrote. “So it went on for a while. Many did this and that to help, and it went on, with better and more difficult times.”
Mark, who even by brief readings comes across as fiercely dedicated to his journalism, was understandably reluctant to leave town. Instead, he at some point moved into Longyearbyen Camping to live outdoors in a part of the world where the highest temperature ever recorded was 71 degrees, only rarely sees temperatures above 50 degrees, can drop as low as 50 below zero, and languishes in darkness from October to February.
Also, this part of the world is home to polar bears. In August 2020, a polar bear attacked and killed a campground manager who was sleeping in his tent at the time. Due to that tragedy and COVID-19 travel restrictions, the campground remained closed through at least July 2021, when Mark was approached by a police officer doing a welfare check. Apparently, with the blessing of the campground owner, Mark had been living in a nest of cushions and sleeping bags on the porch of the main building that entire time. He chose to live on the porch, he said, because it was near an indoor bathroom where he could escape if another polar bear came knocking.
“I heard a man shout what sounded like my name, then two sets of heavy footsteps on the stairs, then two men exchanging words while rustling under a tarp covering enough of my gear at the opposite end of the L-shaped porch to suggest I might be sleeping there,” Mark wrote. “Laying with the sleeping bags over my head, I thought without hope maybe they wouldn’t bother looking over here and just drive away.”
“For at least three years I’ve spent every day thinking ‘it’ might happen at any moment,” he continued. “Exile from Svalbard for failing to meet the self-sufficiency rule.”
Rolf explains that under the Spitsbergen Treaty, there is no network for social security beyond what is provided by each resident’s home country. Norwegian authorities do not accept people living in unsettled situations in Spitsbergen and reserve the right to expel people who are not able to take care of themselves on a level accepted by the authorities.
The police officers performing the “welfare check” informed Mark that a government case had been opened in his name. Mark noted that while a number of people left Svalbard under financial duress during the COVID-19 pandemic, all did so before the government made an official deal of it. While Mark was a foreigner, at 13 years he was officially a longtime resident, and such cases were rare even before the pandemic.
Mark quoted the officers: “‘You know the rules,’ one of them said, in the sense of my being familiar with them after so many years. ‘To live here you must have a place to stay, in a house.’”
Mark tried to appeal to the authorities. He feared he had been deemed an invalid since injuring his leg in a bike crash. He had started using crutches to get around, hobbling along the street while hitchhiking between town and the campground.
Mark wrote: “I said living at the campsite allowed me to save what little income I had and thus make it realistic I could afford real housing when colder weather arrived in early September — which is what I did two years ago in similar circumstances. And my crutches were the result of a partially fractured leg when I tried to ride a bike a couple of weeks earlier. In truth, I had only the faintest wisp of hope of finding a place I could afford and I fell off the bike because of an arthritic leg that is nearly useless.”
He was asked if he wanted a lawyer, but there was no way Mark could make the case that he was economically solvent or physically viable. It’s a terrifying prospect when you consider it — governments pushing out the poor and enfeebled. But it’s a reality in Arctic Norway. Mark was told he would be extradited to the United States, a nation he no longer considered his home country. The prospect of leaving immediately was terrifying, but he took heart in the governor’s agreement to focus on returning him to Alaska.
Mark wrote: “If I had to go, doing so at the end of summer might ensure I didn’t arrive completely broke. Also, if it was possible to be sent to my long-ago hometown of Juneau, Alaska, instead of someplace like NYC I’d have a far better chance of surviving (possibly in the literal sense) because it was a small town I knew my way around in rather than a metropolis where I’d be helplessly clueless and homeless.”
On his last night in the campground Longyearbyen, Mark reflected on the fortune of his life over the past 13 years: “That night it was 4C, I was entirely sheltered from light winds and scores of seabirds were squawking in the designated sanctuary surrounding the campsite. Waking from scant and broken sleep to the sun shining through modest cloud cover above the panoramic fjord, I was feeling strongly the bliss of the past month there for being amidst a setting no amount of billions could authentically purchase. It was the last time I would indulge in the experience.”
Mark returned to Juneau in 2021, started working as a reporter for the Juneau Empire in spring 2022, continued updating his Icepeople site with Svalbard news until October 2022, and took over as managing editor for the Juneau Empire last month. It sounds like Alaska has been kind to Mark, just as he was kind to me when I first landed in that lovely part of the world.
I wish Mark the best in his next endeavor, and also continued healing. I wonder if a return to “solvency” would entice him to move back to the Far North. Even though he was ruthlessly kicked out — for me at least, it would be difficult to leave forever. And I wonder, sometimes, if I still feel the same way about Juneau.
What an incredible story, what happened to Mark, and amazing that he ended up returning to Alaska and the Juneau Empire. Strange circle indeed.
At times I feel the USA is the coldest hearted regarding the homeless. Then Norway disgusts me now.