If ice and geographical oddities are your thing, then head for Svalbard. And if you’re an expert marksman, even better. It’s an archipelago of four large islands – the best-known is Spitsbergen – and many smaller ones, nearly two-thirds of its 63,000 square kilometres are occupied by glaciers. Hence the name: Svalbard means “cold coast” in Norwegian.
What’s so strange about Svalbard? Try its legal status. A 1920 treaty granted Norway sovereignty but required it to give treaty signatories economic equality. More than 40 countries signed, including Japan, Italy, Britain, Germany and Russia, and Svalbard is now, unusually, a “shared zone”. One of the archipelago’s main activities…
