14 April 2023
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Norway Post’s new two-stamp issue highlights the island of Svalbarb, which is home to seven of Norway’s 47 National Parks.
One of the stamps shows a photographic image of the rugged coastline to be seen in Forlandet National Park, and the other, a photo of the Svalbard reindeer.
Svalbard can be visited in both winter, when the Northern Lights piece the round-the-clock darkness, and in summer, when the sun doesn’t set and the barren landscape takes on a lunar aspect.
The untouched Arctic landscape of Svalbard includes glaciers and is the home to many species of wildlife, including the Svalbard reindeer, which has inhabited the island for approximately 5,000 years and is in the unique position of being the only large grazing mammal to inhabit the High Arctic. Because of over-hunting in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the species was almost extinct by the 1920s, but the population has increased over recent decades and in 2019 measured around 22,000.
The two Svalbard stamps are a domestic issue with a value of 100g (Svalbard) and Kr 48.00 (Svalbard reindeer).
Issue date 21 February