World’s most remote holiday? Arctic ‘doomsday vault’ gets visitor centre
- The facility will showcase the contents of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which was built to preserve samples in the event of nuclear war or other disasters
- The separate site is being constructed on Norway’s Spitsbergen island, and will also house parts of a digital archive of human heritage
One of the most remote and unwelcoming parts of the planet is trying its luck as a tourist destination.
A one-of-a-kind visitor centre dedicated to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, dubbed the “doomsday” vault, is being built on Norway’s Spitsbergen island, north of the Arctic Circle.
The centre will showcase the contents of the famous seed bank, a storage facility built on the Arctic permafrost to preserve seeds to safeguard humanity in the event of a disaster.
The spectacular building will also house parts of the Arctic World Archives, a digital archive of human heritage, designed to withstand global disasters and thought to be one of the safest locations on Earth.
Separate from the two existing preservation sites, the visitor centre is being built in the island’s capital Longyearbyen, with an opening planned for 2022, Norwegian tourism officials say.
Svalbard means roughly “cold coast” and its geopolitical and climatic stability has made it favourable for preservation of human culture and Earth’s life forms in the event of nuclear war or other disasters.
