About Rolf Stange and this website

Born in 1973 in West Germany, I started travelling to the north in 1993 and have never stopped it since. I studied geography and geology first in Münster, later in Bonn and finished in 2002 with a »Diplom«. Now I am living in Dresden (Germany) and Longyearbyen (Spitsbergen).

Rolf Stange (2010)

I am in Spitsbergen at least once per year since 1997. For 3 long arctic summers, I had the chance of ‘exploring’ the island both with groups, with friends and on my own, thus hiking several thousand kilometers over tundra, rocks and glacier ice – and I don’t regret a single meter! In late winter 1999, I worked at Isfjord Radio/Kapp Linné at the west coast of Spitsbergen. There I saw the the beautiful arctic winter for the first time, another experience that quickly got me on the hook and a good reason to spend more time in Spitsbergen every years than “only” the summer sailing season.

Together with Peter Balwin and a visitor on board Grigoriy Mikheev

During the Arctic summer 2000 I worked for the first time on board the ice-strengthened vessels of Russian origin back than operated by Oceanwide Expeditions. I enjoyed this way of travelling from the very first day … since then, I am regularly travelling Spitsbergen, East Greenland and Antarctica, working as a guide and lecturer or as expedition leader on expedition style cruises, more and more focussing on sailing vessels.

While being at home in Longyearbyen and Dresden, I am writing books on these subjects. I have published Rocks and Ice, a book on the geography and geology of Svalbard and East Greenland, as well as a book about a ski expedition in East Greenland.

I am putting more and more time into publishing books, calendars etc. and into organizing polar voyages … and photography is of great importance to me, I enjoy it and I use the results to illustrate my books and this website. More about my photography here.