Karin Amby

Karin’s first encounter with Svalbard was during a lecture in the small village of Älvdalen in Sweden in 2001. She fell in love with the land she saw in the pictures.

Three years later she sat foot on Spitsbergen for the first time, with a five-week internship as a guide ahead of her. Already in the car from the airport to Longyearbyen she decided she wanted to live in Svalbard one day. In 2007 she moved to Longyearbyen and stayed for nine years. During that time she studied the fascinating Svalbard flora, stopped being afraid of dogs and started dogsledding, gave birth to two children and founded the company FatBike Spitsbergen (today run by new owners).

In 2016, Karin and her family left Svalbard and tried to get accustomed to the world outside with a “proper job”. However, it soon became clear that this “normal” lifestyle was not for Karin. Today she earns her living as a freelance guide with assignments in both Svalbard and Greenland and is proud to be at home with her kids in between her working periods.