Toppturfestivalen Svalbard is one of the products of Svalbard Events, which works to promote winter sports activities in Svalbard.
About Svalbard Events
It all started in the autumn of 2011 when several people living on Svalbard wanted to start a top tour festival to be able to show how exciting and unique Svalbard is as a ski destination. The festival was organized as a trial project for "friends of friends", where a total of 60 people signed up. Spring 2012 came and the destination was set to Gipsvika, just north of Longyearbyen. It was 3 wonderful days of skiing, boating and festival life.
Thomas Hukkelås
Founder, Svalbard Events
The Top Tour Festival will be created
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We decided that this was something we wanted to work on further and quickly decided to organize a new festival in 2013, this time even better and a little bigger, but not too big. Trygghamna and Svalbard showed their best in 2013 and 2014.
In 2015 and 2018 we had a gap year due to logistics at home. But, in 2016 and 2017 we went on with ski&sail with simplified logistics.
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In 2019, we came up with yet another new destination and a new arrangement - Barentsburg - which is the largest Russian settlement on Svalbard. We followed this up in 2021 by moving the festival once again, to Pyramiden, which is a disused Russian settlement.
In 2022, the festival was moved once again, this time to Longyearbyen, where we wanted to show you the top touring possibilities in our "backyard"!
We welcome you to Longyearbyen and Svalbard in 2024!
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Welcome to Svalbard, the real Arctic!
Welcome to Svalbard, the real Arctic!
About Longyearbyen
Longyearbyen is named after John Munro Longyear, who bought Norwegian coal fields west of the Adventfjord in 1904. Two years later, the first house was built by the American Arctic Coal Company on the site, which was named Longyear City.
Longyearbyen is today Svalbard's administrative centre with 2,400 inhabitants from almost 53 nations. The town itself is the gateway to nature experiences and the starting point for most adventures in Svalbard. Here the wilderness begins in the middle of the city, and it never ends!
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What to do in Longyearbyen?
There is only one grocery store, but several sports stores, including one of the city's oldest, www.arctica.no, which you will find inside Lompensenteret, the city's only shopping centre.
The town has several museums, its own brewery and a great little center with several places to eat. Feel free to take a walk outside with your mittens on or just take a walk around town and breathe in the good polar air. But remember: don't leave the settlement without a weapon, you never know where and when the polar bear might appear.
In Longyearbyen, we take off our shoes in hotels and restaurants, a tradition that arose out of the coal dust problem of old.
WELCOME TO THE CITY OF LONGYEAR AND SVALBARD!