Woman living on an island near the NORTH POLE reveals the hugely complicated process of getting IKEA furniture delivered to her remote village – and the staggering cost of having one item shipped to her
A woman living on an island near the North Pole has revealed the hugely complicated process of getting furniture delivered to her remote town.
Swedish videographer Cecilia Blomdahl, 34, first moved to the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in 2016.
The region has fewer than 3,000 inhabitants and is located in the Arctic Ocean, about 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole.
The creator, who has amassed more than four million followers on TikTok and Instagram combined by documenting life on Svalbard, recently shared a video detailing how new furniture is shipped to the local port.
Swedish videographer Cecilia Blomdahl, 34, first moved to the remote Norwegian island of Svalbard in 2016
Cecilia wanted to renovate her home office in the cabin she shares with her husband, but because there were no furniture stores on the island, obtaining new pieces was complicated
As a first step, Cecilia had to arrange for IKEA to deliver the furniture to a port in Tromsø in Northern Norway, almost 900 kilometers from Spitsbergen.
Cecilia wanted to expand her home office in the cabin she shares with her husband, she explained in an Instagram caption.
‘Since we don’t have a furniture store on Spitsbergen, every time you furnish a house or want to buy new stuff, you have to have it transported by ship.
‘In itself this is not the most difficult process to organize, but it is a bit expensive, which is why we don’t do it that often.
“We ordered this via the IKEA website, with the delivery location being the boat terminal in Tromsø, in the north of Norway,” she explained.
From there she had to ensure that the furniture was transferred to the boat that sails between Tromsø and Spitsbergen, with a distance of around 900 kilometers between the two ports.
Total shipping came to about $500.
“Which I still don’t think is a bad thing considering where we are now,” Cecilia admitted.
She added that they placed the order on January 30 and received it in late February.
But transporting the furniture from the Spitsbergen harbor to their cabin presented another hurdle.
It is not legal to drive on the island’s ‘tundra’ unless it is ‘snow-covered’. In that case, snowmobiles are allowed.
After it was delivered, the pair drove to the port to pick it up in their car
Back near their cabin there was another hurdle and they had to load the furniture onto a snowmobile to drive them to their front door.
Cecilia and her husband finally got the snowmobile furniture into their house – all while weathering a snowstorm
With no driveway leading to the cottage from the road, they had to load all the new furniture onto a snowmobile to get it to their front door.
Once there, they unloaded it from the snowmobile and carried it to their house, weathering a snowstorm.
In the past, DailyMail.com has discussed how Cecilia copes with the intense winters in Svalbard.
Being so close to the North Pole, the island experiences four months of complete darkness every year, in addition to the bitter cold that prevails all year round.
In 2020, she opened up about the incredibly complicated process of taking her dog for an afternoon walk, describing how the simple task becomes an “expedition” as a result of the dangerous environment she lives in.
In addition to wrapping herself in several warm layers and using a headlamp to light her way in the pitch black, Cecilia revealed that she always has to carry a gun with her when she goes outside because there is always a risk that she might encounters a polar bear.
“Walking your dog is an expedition,” Cecilia said in the introduction to her video.
“It’s starting to get really cold here and it’s pitch black 24 hours a day,” she continued, explaining that she had to put on a lot of clothes, including thermals, expedition pants and a down jacket, as well as a hat and scarf. .
‘And that is of course not enough. We have polar bears here, so we always have to take a gun with us when we’re outside,” she said, showing herself strapping on the gun.
She has also previously described the very complex process pregnant women have to go through to prepare for birth – which is not possible on the island itself due to the lack of medical resources.
Cecilia regularly documents her life on the remote island and shows how complex it is to live in an area with such harsh weather conditions
Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago just south of the North Pole and is one of the northernmost inhabited areas in the world
She has previously revealed how complicated it is for pregnant women to plan their birth, and explained why they can’t give birth on the island
The island has only one hospital, which Cecilia says is not suitable for deliveries. So expectant mothers have to pack up and fly somewhere else before giving birth.
She noted that pregnant women have to travel to mainland Norway to welcome their newborns, often weeks in advance.
‘You can’t give birth here. If you are pregnant and have a baby, you have to leave the island a month before your due date because you cannot give birth in this hospital,” Cecilia explains in the video.
‘They don’t have the right resources to help you if something happens. Pregnant women therefore leave for the mainland a month before their due date.
‘Where they go is their business, but as a resident of Svalbard you have to have an address on the mainland, so most people just go to their home country.
“If you come from Norway, you go back to Norway and if you come from Sweden, you probably go back to Sweden.”