#35
Csilla’s Spring salute to May in Svalbard: where winter lingers and icebergs glow

A May Expedition Micro Cruise to Svalbard, seen through the eyes of Csilla

We were on opposite sides of the Atlantic—Csilla Kiss in Germany, me in Connecticut—scrolling through the Secret Atlas expedition inventory one afternoon. A few strong departures remained for April and May. That was when Csilla stopped, then smiled in a way that suggested she knew something others had missed.

May, she said, was her favourite time to visit Svalbard.

I asked her why. I had only known the archipelago in summer, when the snow loosens its grip and the fjords open wide. Csilla had travelled farther and longer than most, with the eye of a photographer who does not chase spectacle so much as truth. As she spoke, it became clear she wasn’t being sentimental. She was being precise.

So I asked her to repeat it all again—this time properly so I could record it—because for those who wonder why seasoned Arctic travellers quietly choose spring, the answer deserves to be written down. For the right traveller, a Secret Atlas Expedition Micro Cruise to Svalbard in May is not an alternative season. It is the season.

Her planning was deliberate. She knew that by mid-May, Svalbard’s winter season formally ends. Dog sleds move onto gravel. Ice caves in the hinterlands become inaccessible.  She fixed her journey just before that shift—late enough for steady daylight, early enough for snow underfoot, sea ice intact, and the Arctic still in its hard, clean state.

Even before embarkation, the timing proved itself. From a modest cabin near Longyearbyen, she ate breakfast while reindeer and Arctic fox moved through a landscape still entirely white. The town—often treated as a staging post—felt once again like what it truly is: a human foothold carved into snow and rock. Her experiences on shore even before her trip began were mind-blowing. She did dog sledding, visited the ice cave and enjoyed the scenery of a frozen land born from her zest to see lands of extreme beauty. This was the Svalbard of her wildest imagination.

Then a large male arrived, drawn by scent alone. The air between the animals tightened. What followed was the old arithmetic of the north: hunger, possession, inheritance. By the time the ship moved on, five bears had passed through the scene, each drawn in by the quiet gravity of the kill.

What made it unforgettable was not only the bears, but the setting. They moved across a continuous white floor, backed by mountains that were still winter’s own. This was not the broken slush  ice of late season. This was the Arctic as it has always existed in the imagination—severe, spacious, and exacting.

In the photographs from that morning, the humans are small standing on the glittering sea ice with elation on their faces. The ship and Zodiacs anchor the frame. This is not a landing you can schedule. It happens only when ice, weather, and experience agree. It is the kind of moment that belongs to an expedition, not an itinerary—and one that forges instant bonds among those who share it.

This is why photographers quietly favour April and May. Details multiply. Contrast deepens. The Arctic looks as it is imagined to look—before the thaw softens its edges. And with a Secret Atlas Micro Cruise, crowds are never part of the equation.

Framed by winter

In May, Svalbard’s wildlife moves through a world that still feels newly made, Csilla explains.                        

Walruses haul out on ice pans and low shores. Arctic foxes cross snowfields in coats caught between seasons. Reindeer trace careful paths where snow thins on the slopes. Glaciers loom at the heads of fjords—some erased by fog, others calving blocks of blue ice that drift away like brief sculptures.

Csilla encountered them all: walrus, fox, reindeer, seals, whales, and the rising noise of bird cliffs waking for the season. Yet what stayed with her was not a checklist, but a sense that nothing was ornamental. The animals were not decorating the landscape. They belonged to it.

Less distance, deeper meaning

In summer, ships can circle the archipelago. Csilla had done that before. In May, the map was smaller—but the experience ran deeper.

With only a handful of guests aboard, time could be spent rather than consumed. Hours were given to bears on the ice, to a single glowing iceberg, to the silence of a glacier dissolving into cloud. The route was shorter. Each moment opened fully.

When Csilla looks back, she does not speak in superlatives. She remembers images: snow-buried mountains, a ship threading loose pack ice, the quiet shock of standing on the frozen sea, a fox crossing white ground below her window, a bear and cub on the pale stage of spring.

For travellers who want Svalbard not just as a destination but as an atmosphere—for photographers drawn to ice and gentle light, for those who imagine the north before the thaw—it is in these spring weeks that the archipelago most closely matches the vision they carry.

In May, winter has not quite let go. The light has already returned. Between the two, there is room for journeys like this.