Svalbard

"It was as if Europe had been shifted 20 degrees north and Ireland moved to Svalbard, " said Bill Patterson of Saskatchewan University.

This remote island at the top of the world is home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (colloquially known as "The Doomsday Vault" ).

We also pass two dead whales, belly up on the surface, prompting an irreverent suggestion that we tow them to Svalbard to use as bear bait.

The Global Crop Diversity Trust says at least four hundred fifty thousand seed samples will go into the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

In fact, they have gone just about as wild as it is possible to get, examining polar bears on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

What you see is an artist's conception of this facility which is built in a mountain in Svalbard.

The idea of Svalbard was that it's cold, so we get natural freezing temperatures.

Gene banks all over the world deposit duplicate samples of their stockpiles with Svalbard for safekeeping.

We were going to camp and paddle around a section of the uninhabited north west of Spitsbergen island in the Svalbard archipelago.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a wonderful gift that Norway and others have given us, but it's not the complete answer.

But it may be vying with the ones found in Svalbard and Mexico for the title of the world's largest.

In Svalbard, Norway's Arctic archipelago, a camera trap catches a polar bear looking out of place on bare brown soil.

They pad across the ice from Russia to Alaska, from Canada to Greenland and onto Norway's Svalbard archipelago.

The scientists, from Denmark and Norway, studied sites in Canada and Svalbard off northern Norway alongside their main focus on Zackenberg.

(The banana bank is in Belgium. ) The Svalbard vault fulfils this criterion for any seed you can think of.

Young male polar bears spar under the low light of winter in Svalbard, a cluster of islands halfway between Norway and the North Pole.

The rich life of Svalbard, Norway's Arctic archipelago, faces a creeping thaw.

Dr Diouf addressed a conference in Svalbard held in connection with the inauguration of the Seed Vault.

Researchers motor through glassy Arctic waters off Norway's Svalbard Archipelago.

Each August he leads a team to Norway's Svalbard archipelago, far north of the Arctic Circle.

Svalbard is a group of islands nearly a thousand kilometres north of mainland Norway and about 1120 km from the North Pole.

And this next picture shows it in context, in Svalbard.

Some do not have seeds and so cannot be stored on Svalbard.

But this rare relic was found in 2004 on a small spit of land on the Norway's Svalbard Island.

A global seed vault, preserving crop varieties from over 100 countries, opened this week (26 February) in Svalbard, Norway.

Polar Bear on Brown Soil, Svalbard, Norway.

Polar Bear and Cubs, Svalbard, Norway.

That is one of the reasons to build the seed bank in Svalbard.

"The wealth that is being safeguarded in Svalbard will be the global insurance to address future challenges, " he added.

For the first time in 5 months, this mother polar bear sticks her nose into the open air here in the Svalbard Islands of Norway.

To Svalbard, in fact.

Svalbard was chosen because it is cold and remote.

Officially opened in 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is built 426 feet under the mountain's surface.

Eerie: A green aurora appears over Svalbard in Norway, an area close to the north pole which is shrouded in darkness for much of the year

Vibrant anemones and soft corals are part of the ecosystem in Svalbard, Norway's Arctic archipelago

Assessing source areas of pollutants from studies of flyash, charcoal, and pollen from Svalbard snow and ice

Husky's delight: A rare pink sky over Svalbard, Norway. The spectacular sight only occurs once in every five years

Mercury, cadmium, lead and selenium in ringed seals from the Baltic Sea and from Svalbard

Svalbard: Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean

Polar bears in Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago