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Longyearbyen, located on the west coast of the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, is cold. It always is: The annual average temperature there is -5˚C, but between January and March that average drops to -13˚C. In July, by contrast, you can expect an almost tropical 7˚C. It has a population of under 3,000 people, a single-screen cinema that plays films on Wednesdays and Sundays, and a school whose 270 students show up for their first day in August in mittens and hats. When school trips head into the mountains, teachers carry rifles to account for the risk of polar bears.