Glacia. “Pure as the driven snow” Svalbard has this at its heart. It is arctic, glacial and unadulterated. In the lower climates, we only see the specks of glaciers hanging out in mountains, vestiges of U shaped valleys, deposits of glacial lakes, till left behind from the recession of the ice-age, and flood filled fjords Norway is known for. In Svalbard it is not the remains of an ice age, it is a landscape still surrounded by ice sheets, ice caps and pack ice. Even in the brief period of its summer, the ground remains frozen. Rivers in the arctic are only temporal, yielding flood water in the brief season to cascade, carving crevices in the ice caps and canyons in the cliffs. Waterfalls tumbling over the steep edges crashing into the arctic waters. Everchanging, the glacial panoramic landscape provides a contrast between the gloomy greys, clear skies, windswept waters and oily oceans. Sometimes it seems to be just black and white, other times a rainbow of color. Brittle twisted ice falls flow out of the smooth moving rivers of snow captured over the centuries, now compressed and cold. Snow that fell before the industrial age of man, is still uncontaminated, a reminder of the pureness of the Arctic.