In January, Bieke Depoorter travelled to Spitsbergen to explore the rise of tourism on the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. Situated north of mainland Europe, Svalbard is midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. The islands were first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries, after which they were abandoned until coal mining began in the early 20th century and several permanent communities were established.