A woman who lives on an island close to the North Pole has revealed the wildly complicated process of getting furniture delivered to her remote town.
Swedish videographer Cecilia Blomdahl, 34, first moved to the Norwegian island of Svalbard back in 2016.
The locale has a population of under 3,000 and sits in the Arctic Ocean – about 650 miles from the North Pole.
The creator, who has racked up more than four million followers across TikTok and Instagram combined by documenting life on Svalbard, recently shared a video narrating the process of getting new furniture shipped to the local port.
Swedish videographer Cecilia Blomdahl, 34, first moved to the remote Norwegian island of Svalbard back in 2016
Cecilia wanted to spruce up her home office in the cabin she shares with her husband – but, without any furniture stores on the island, the process of getting new pieces was complicated
As a first step, Cecilia had to get IKEA to deliver the furniture to a port in Tromsø in northern Norway – nearly 570 miles from Svalbard
Cecilia had been wanting to expand her home office in the cabin she shares with her husband, she explained in an Instagram caption.
‘Since we have no furniture store on Svalbard, any time you’re furnishing a home or want to buy some new stuff, you have to get it shipped up on the shipping boat.
‘This itself is not the most difficult process to organize, but it is a bit costly, which is why we don’t do it too often.
‘We ordered this off the IKEA website, with the delivery location to be the boat terminal in Tromsø, in northern Norway’, she explained.
From there, she had to arrange the furniture to be transferred to the boat that goes between Tromsø and Svalbard – with around 570 miles between the two ports.
The total shipping costs came out to roughly $500.
‘Which I still think is not bad considering where we are,’ Cecilia admitted.
She added that they placed the order on January 30 and got it by the end of February.
But getting the furniture from the port of Svalbard to their cabin involved yet another hurdle.
It’s not legal to drive on the ‘tundra’ of the island unless it’s ‘snow-covered’ – in which case, snowmobiles are okay.
Once it was delivered, the pair drove to the port to pick it up in their car
Back near their cabin, there was still another hurdle and had to load the furniture onto a snowmobile to cart it up to their front door
Cecilia and her husband finally got the furniture off the snowmobile and into their home – all while enduring a blizzard
Because there’s no driveway going down to the cabin from the road, they had to load all of the new furniture onto a snowmobile to get it to their front door.
Once there, they unloaded it from the snowmobile and carried it into their home – all while enduring a blizzard.
In the past, DailyMail.com has covered how Cecilia weathers the intense winters on Svalbard.
Located so close to the North Pole, the island annually sees four months of complete darkness in addition to the year-round bitter cold.
Back 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 bundling up in multiple warm layers and using a headlamp to light her way in the pitch black, Cecilia revealed that she has to carry a gun with her whenever she heads out because there’s always a risk she could run into a polar bear.
‘When 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 24/7,’ she continued, explaining that she needed to layer up with lots of clothes, including thermals, expedition pants, and a down jacket, as well as a hat and scarf.
‘And of course, that’s not enough. We have polar bears here, so we have to bring a rifle with us ever time we’re outside,’ she said, showing herself strapping the gun on.
She has also previously detailed the very complex process that pregnant women have to go through in order to prepare for birth – which cannot be done on the island itself because of its lack of medical resources.
Cecilia regularly documents her life on the remote island – revealing 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 that is one of the northernmost inhabited areas in the world
She has previously revealed how complicated it is for pregnant women to plan their labor – detailing why they cannot give birth on the island
The island only has one hospital, which according to Cecilia, is not fit for childbirth. So expectant mothers have to pack up their belongings and fly somewhere else before giving birth.
She noted that pregnant women have to travel to the mainland in Norway in order to welcome their newborns, and often do so weeks in advance.
‘You cannot give birth here. If you are pregnant and having a baby, you have to leave the island one month before your due date because you cannot give birth at this hospital,’ Cecilia explained in the clip.
‘They don’t have the right resources to be able to help you if something happened. So pregnant women leave for the mainland one month before their due date.
‘Where they go is up to them, but as a Svalbard resident, you have to have a mainland address, so most people just go to their home country.
‘If you’re from Norway you go back to Norway and if you’re from Sweden you probably go back to Sweden.’
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