Let's begin today with the story of a patch of barren land, 800 miles or 1,300 kilometers

from the North Pole, that became a thriving town with over 2,000 permanent residents, a hospital, a university, even a shopping mall.

A place naturally hostile to civilization that despite its best efforts yielded to a band of miners desire to set up. that, through a combination of luck and work, became just simply a town.

Let's begin with the story of a strangely civilized place.

Today, the story of Longyear bin Swalbard.

When John Monroe Longyear sold his mining interest in the place that had become his namesake,

Longyear City, it was bought by a Norwegian mining company called Stor Norsk in

1916. Now on extremities, we try not to give you too many names you have to remember, but Stor Norsk, as

it's commonly known, is one of the names that it might be useful to keep in the back of your head.

That's because for most of the next 75 or so years, the history of Longerbin and the history of Stor Norsk are inextricably linked.

Until the 1990s, nearly everyone in Longerbin was employed by Stor Norsk

or did some service that relied on the people employed by Stororrz.

Longer bin was, by all measures, a company town.

Not only did most people on the island get paid their money by Stororzk,

they quite literally and quite physically got their money from Stororisk.

With approval from the Norwegian Central Bank, Stor Norrisk created their own currency, which was used throughout

Longerbin.

Over the next few decades, Longerbin slowly built itself up.

1921 saw the first church in Longerbin and the first school which was inside the church's

reading room. In the 1930s, the first radio station, the first road, and the very

first signs of tourism, as a steamship began to regularly ferry curious travelers up in the summer

who wondered what it would be like to live in endless days and nights among polar bears.

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