Lovozero

LONGYEARBYEN Further Reading Arlov, Thor Bj0m & Susan Barr (editors), Store Norske 75 dr, Longyearbyen: Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani a/s, 1991 Hoel, Adolf, Svalbards historie 1596-1965, Volume I-III, Oslo: Sverre Kildahls boktrykkeri, 1966/67 Paul, Helen Longyear, Landlooker in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Marquette: John M. Longyear Research Library, 1983

LONGYEARBYEN Longyearbyen is the administrative capital and largest settlement in the Norwegian High Arctic Svalbard Archipelago. The town is situated in Longyeardalen (78°13f N 15°37' E), on the south side of Adventfjorden. This small fjord is a southern branch of Isfjorden, the largest fjord on the western coast of Spitsbergen. Longyearbyen is a Norwegian translation of the English name Longyear City. This mining community was established in 1906 by The Arctic Coal Company of Boston and named for one of the main shareholders of the company, John Munro Longyear. In 1904, he and his associate Frederick Ayer had bought some Norwegian coalfields on the western side of Adventfjorden and extended this property by large claims the following year. The Arctic Coal Company was purchased in 1916 by a Norwegian company formed for this purpose, Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK). The original settlement was situated near Mine No. 1, at the mouth of Longyeardalen, on the northwestemregion (Skjeringa). As new mines opened further up the valley, buildings were erected close to these (Sverdrupbyen, Nybyen, and Haugen). The town therefore spread throughout 3 km of the valley, but the most recent parts are presently at the mouth of the valley, but on the southeastern side (Lia). Most of the oldest areas of Longyearbyen were destroyed in World War II by a German navy raid in September 1943. From its establishment and up through the 1980s, Longyearbyen was a typical company town. Today, governmental agencies, the tourism industry, private business, and a local university are all located in the town. The mining company SNSK remains the largest employer. In 1999, SNSK produced 403,940 tons of tertiary age coal, of which 137,291 tons were from Mine No. 7 near Longyearbyen. Production has now been reduced to 50,000 tons to extend the longevity of this mine. Longyearbyen is today a modern small town of about 1500 inhabitants. It has four hotels, several restaurants, and numerous shops. It has Svalbard’s only international airport, with daily flights to main­

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land Norway. Longyearbyen has 33 km of roads, but no roads leave town or lead to other communities in Svalbard. Transportation within Svalbard is by air, boat, or snowmobile. The harbor features a new quay that can accommodate large ships. Longyearbyen’s power supply derives from Norway’s only coal-based power plant. The town has a modem hospital with den­ tal facilities built in 1991. The school system includes kindergarten through high school. In addition, the University Courses on Svalbard (UNIS) was estab­ lished in 1993, and presently enrolls 100 students. Several scientific institutions are also located in Longyearbyen, including the Norwegian Polar Institute (1992), European Incoherent Scatter Radar (EISCAT) (1994), and the Svalbard Satellite Station (Svalsat)(1997). The governor of Svalbard (,Sysselmannen), which includes the local police and environmental authorities, is based here. Longyearbyen is also home to Svalbardposten, the world’s northernmost newspaper published weekly with a circulation of approximately 2500. Ian Gjertz

See also Svalbard Further Reading Arctic Pilot. Sailing Directions Svalbard-Jan Mayen, Stavanger Norwegian Hydrographic Service and Norwegian Polar Research Institute, 1988 Orheim, Olav (editor), The Placenames of Svalbard, Oslo: Norsk Polarinstitutt, 2003 The Svalbard Pages website: http://www.Svalbard.com

LOONS—See DIVERS OR LOONS LOVOZERO Lovozero is a village situated at the center of the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. Lovozero is also the name of a large nearby lake, and the municipality of which the village is the administrative center. The Lovozero municipality covers 37% of Murmanskaya Oblast’. It includes a large part of the peninsula’s nonindustrialized areas that are still used for reindeer herding and fishing as well as many of the mineral resources that are attractive for commercial exploita­ tion. The municipality also includes the road-less vil­ lages of Krasnoshchel’e (population approximately 650), Kanevka (population approximately TOO), and Sosnovka (population approximately 80) (Murmanskaya Oblast’ Statistics Bureau, 1989), and the large Ponoi and Iokanga and Varzuga rivers that are rich sources of salmon.

LOW-LEVEL FLIGHT TRAINING Also included in the territory of the Lovozero municipality is the industrial town of Revda. Revda is populated mainly by Russian and Ukrainian miners brought in to work the mines of the adjacent Khibiny Mountains. The town is also the site of a prison for serious offenders. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Revda had a population of around 18,000, which has since declined to around 10,000 due to economic hardship and out-migration (Murmanskaya Oblast’ Statistics Bureau, 1997). The village Lovozero itself has a population of approximately 3700, while that of the entire munici­ pality is approximately 20,000 (Murmanskaya Oblast’ Statistics Bureau, 1989). Rough estimates divide the village population into approximately 750 Saami, 750 Komi, and 2200 others, most of whom are Russians and other Slavs, and perhaps 200 Nenets (author’s esti­ mate, 2001). Lovozero is considered the cultural and demo­ graphic center of the Saami area in Russia. The founding date of the village is not known. The earli­ est records mention it as a settlement of Saami that lived almost exclusively off fishing in Lake Lovozero. The original Saami name for Lovozero, Lujovrsyit, can be translated as “the community by the great lake.” In 1887, the first four Komi families moved to Lovozero, fleeing reindeer disease and lack of grazing pastures in their native region within the Pechora River basin. That was the beginning of a migratory movement that lasted well into the 20th century, resulting in slightly greater numbers of Komi than Saami in what is now the Lovozero municipality. There was also an influx of Russians, a result of the building of the nearby Murrnan Railway between Petrograd and Murmansk around 1916, and in partic­ ular in connection with numerous military installa­ tions established in the period after World War II. Saami and Komi from numerous other villages were also forcefully resettled in Lovozero during the 1950s and 1960s. Lovozero has its own hospital, bank, post office, hotel, primary and secondary school, vocational school, youth club, cultural center, commercial farm, abattoir, and newspaper. The newspaper Lovozerskaia pravda began publication in 1935. The commercial farm is called Tundra and is engaged mainly in rein­ deer herding. Lovozero is connected to the outside world by a single two-lane paved road, which is well kept both in summer and winter. There is an airport in the village, with an airstrip suitable for small aircraft. Indra Overland

See also Kola Peninsula; Komi; Murmanskaya Oblast’; Nenets; Pechora Basin; Saami

Further Reading Beach, Hugh, “Reindeer Herding on the Kola Peninsula—Report of a Visit with Saami Herders of Sovkhoz Tundra.” In Readings in Saami History, Culture and Language III, edited by Roger Kvist, Umea: Centre for Arctic Cultural Research, 1992 Kaminsky, V., “Medical Care of the Indigenous Peoples in the Lovozero County” In Essays on Indigenous Identity and Rights, edited by Irja Seurujarvi-Kari & Ulla-Maija Kulonen, Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1996 Konstantinov, Yulian, “Field research of reindeer-herding in the kola peninsula: problems and challenges ” Acta Borealia (2), (1996): 53-68 Lukantschenko, Tatjana, “Lapps in the Soviet Union” In Readings in Saami History, Culture and Language, edited by Noel Broadbent, Umea: Center for Arctic Cultural Research, 1989 Robinson, Mike P. & Karim-Aly S. Kassam, Sami Potatoes: Living with Reindeer and Perestroika, Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 1998 Ushakov, I. & S. Dashchinskii, Lovozero, Murmansk: Murmanskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1988

LOW-LEVEL FLIGHT TRAINING In 1941, as part of an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, Goose Bay, Labrador, became the site of an air force base that would be used as a landing and refueling stop and as a bombing range. In 1986, Goose Bay became a candidate for NATO’s tactical fighter training center, which would have quadrupled the number of flights to 45,000 had the center not been canceled. In 1996, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Canada renewed their Multinational Memorandum of Understanding, which allows up to 18,000 flights per year and ensures a NATO presence in the region until 2006. The provi­ sion of an air base at Goose Bay is seen as one of the few ways in which Canada contributes to NATO. Despite the economic benefit of the military to the region, protests to the military activity in the region are not infrequent. The Innu Nation, which represents the Innu of Labrador, notes that Innu continue to use the flight area for hunting and cultural purposes. Since 1980, when they began protesting, the Innu have launched a comprehensive land claim, which covers the area currently used by NATO, in addition to launching several court challenges and protests against the low-level flights. Organizations in the disarma­ ment and environment movements have also been active, staging marches and collecting petitions to stop the low-level test flights. Many of the complaints deal with the impact of noise and pollution on humans and wildlife. In 1981, the Department of National Defense issued an Initial Environmental evaluation. Public meetings were later held as part of an Environmental Assessment Review Process that would assist the gov­ ernment as it sought to prepare an Environmental

1209 Indra Øverland (2004) ‘Lovozero’, in Mark Nuttall (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Arctic, London: Routledge, pp. 1208-1209.