Svalbard OC

Svalbard OC: Svalbard/Шпицберген/Shpitsbergen
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Representation: Svalbard, Norway
Capital: Longyearbyen
Government: Unitary Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy
Currency: Norwegian krone
Language[s]: Norwegian and Russian
Religion[s]: Christianity
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Full Human Name: Frøya Nanna Olsen - Henrik Åge Olsen (male counterpart's name)
Age: 419
Human Age: 20
Date of Birth: Febuary 20th, 1596
Gender: Female

Physical Appearance: Frøya stands at about 5'3" and weighs 140 lbs with a moderately small build, albeit she is a bit pudgy. She has short, straight, bleach blond hair. Her eyes are extremely dark; they are an almost black color, but they're really just a dark coffee bean brown. Her skin is very pale/fair which means she burns easily, and the Norwegian also has rosy cheeks. Her hands are calloused and slightly scarred hands from her past with whaling. Her apparel consists of nice pastel colors, and she wears warm sweaters (she owns at least 100 of them), heavy winter coats, cozy sweatpants, fur boots, ushanka's, and she always wears gloves on her hands to hide all of the scars. This young woman also has ear piercings, usually golden studs and a ring in the top piercing. When it's time for a special event, she wears her best frilly dress, and during military times, she wears the standard Norwegian navy military uniform.

Personality: To put this girl into a nutshell, she is by far an odd ball. Some choose to describe Frøya as lovely, whimsical and compassionate about others. She can truly be the dreamer in the positive manifestation of her personality. But, alas! She is inclined to keep swimming downstream, without even trying to face the current upstream, a trait that may get her tagged as lazy, mellow, submissive, an escapist or pessimistic. Due to this tendency, she may be given to excessive indulgence in life, and she runs the risk of losing herself to either epicurean worlds or a wasted, deprived state. Different to the common perception, the Norwegian can be quite determined! All in all, she is sensitive, emotional, creative to the core, profound and intuitive. They carry a mystical allure that draws many a sceptic towards them! As to begin, Frøya is very creative and imaginative, and they can think abstract and come up with out-of-the-box ideas. Her power of imagination can help her scale great heights. She is a very soft person who will treat others exactly as she want others to treat them, and she is always in a helpful mood. As she can feel for others, she can always sympathise with others and try to help them out. Furthermore, Frøya is extremely intuitive and won't fall for anyone's bullshit. More than rational reasoning, facts and figures, she relies on her intuition while taking a decision. Affectionate and gentle, she's very much so considered to be sensitive. If there is a setback, it affects her deeply, and she will develop extreme feelings regarding the matter. Also, she will always be looking for a way to help others, but, her selfless deeds may not always be recognised by others. As this drifts into her negative traits, Frøya tends to be an escapist. When things go wrong, she will blame it on her bad luck or something else and avoid dealing with it fair and square. And as I digress, she will be hurt and demoralised very easily. Even with all the talent and resources she possesses, her low self-esteem becomes a hindrance in her path, no matter how much she may choose to hide it with a smile. The Norwegian also seems to look at the negative side more than the positive side of things, making her rather pessimistic, especially in the past. And lastly, Frøya can be very lazy about things that don’t matter to her. Her enthusiasm and energy levels only seem to last only for a short time.

Likes/Dislikes: She happens to have a great love of the snow and all activities that happen to fit in with snow, astronomy, the art of science, especially chemistry, reading, coffee, hunting, the nighttime (you get accustomed to being constantly in the dark when you live in Svalbard, though she loves the warmth of summer days as well) watching horror films, playing jokes on people to keep things light, being with friends constantly to keep herself from being alone, and even playing video games spark interest within her. Frøya also happened to be a top notch whaler back in the day when it was what she was most famous for, and has the scarred, calloused hands to prove it.
	What she doesn't like, however, is being in too large of a crowd, finding herself in predicaments where all the focus is directly on her, being too hot (anything over 60 degrees feels like she's sitting in the bowels of Hell), being the shortest person in the room, being declined of piggy back rides in correlation to the previous dislike, and being called "loopy in the head" for talking to herself.

Phobias:
Atychiphobia- Fear of failure.
Athazagoraphobia- Fear of being forgotton or ignored or forgetting
Belonephobia- Fear of pins and needles.
Demophobia- Fear of crowds.
Emetophobia- Fear of vomiting.
Insectophobia - Fear of insects.
Mnemophobia- Fear of memories.
Xyrophobia-Fear of razors.

Relations:
-Norway: Her relationship with her country is one that's very warm and mutual. Of course, she doesn't talk to him as much as one might assume, though Svalbard usually finds herself being forgotten about. When they do interact however, it's very amiable and comfortable, even though he does make her a bit nervous the way an employee might be with their boss.

-Russia: Things are perhaps a little odd between these two, the history both being strained and comforting. A lot of the people she converses with don't like Russia, though she finds herself being rather fond of him. If anything, Frøya tries to meet up with him as much as possible as it seems to bring her nostalgia- something she both fearsand craves.

-Sweden: She views him as a good friend, and even looks up to him at times. They rarely talk to each other, but the Norwegian enjoys his company and wishes to get to know him better.

-Jan Mayen: Jan Mayen is Svalbard's best friend hand's down. Both of them share the common feeling of being forgotten and having little friends or social skills. Jan Mayen is a bit clingy and awkward to her hip, but she doesn't mind as all of his oddness or quirks, but instead, she embraces them. He's the one who occupies most of his time, and considering his extra needs, she usually is there looking out for him.



Extras/Headcanons: (Headcanons and Interesting Facts etc. you want to add in. )
-Headcanon: Over time, she became somewhat nocturnal due to how long the darkness consumes Svalbard during the winter, and it wouldn't be odd to see her staying up late at night because of this.

-Headcanon: Frøya talks to herself often and the reason for this is because of all the time she spent alone and in isolation throughout history. With all the empty silence she dealt with, she spoke out loud to herself to fill the emptiness, and to this day, the Norwegian still speaks to herself absentmindedly which may come off as odd to others (not to mention this may be a hindrance to her keeping her book metaphorically "closed" and many will describe her as an open book due to this).

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History: Scandinavians may have possibly discovered Svalbard as early as the 12th century, though proof of this to be true isn't exactly proven. There are traditional Norse accounts of a land known as Svalbarð—literally translating to "cold coasts", and this happens to serve as a nickname for her. The Dutchman Willem Barents made the first indisputable discovery of the archipelago in 1596, when he sighted its coast while searching for the Northern Sea Route. The name Spitsbergen is due to Barents, chosen for the pointed peaks he saw on the west coast of the main island, although his 1599 map of the Arctic labels the island as Het Niewe Land "The New Land". Barentsz did not recognize that he discovered an archipelago, and consequently the name Spitsbergen long remained in use both for the main island and for the archipelago as a whole.
	The first known landing on the island dates to 1604, when an English ship landed at Bjørnøya and started hunting walrus; annual expeditions soon followed, and Spitsbergen became a base for hunting the bowhead whale from 1611. Because of the lawless nature of the area, English, Danish, Dutch, and French companies and authorities tried to use force to keep out other countries' fleets.
	Smeerenburg was one of the first settlements, established by the Dutch in 1619. Smaller bases were also built by the English, Danish and French. At first the outposts were merely summer camps, but from the early 1630s, a few individuals started to overwinter. Whaling at Spitsbergen lasted until the 1820s, when the Dutch, British and Danish whalers moved elsewhere in the Arctic. By the late 17th century, Russian hunters arrived; they overwintered to a greater extent and hunted land mammals such as the polar bear and fox. After British raids into the Barents Sea in 1809, Russian activity on Svalbard diminished, and ceased by the 1820s. Norwegian hunting—mostly for walrus—started in the 1790s, but was abandoned about the same time as the Russians left. Whaling continued around Spitsbergen until the 1830s, and around Bjørnøya until the 1860s.
	By the 1890s, Svalbard had become a destination for Arctic tourism, coal deposits had been found and the islands were being used as a base for Arctic exploration. The first mining was along Isfjorden by Norwegians in 1899; by 1904, British interests had established themselves in Adventfjorden and started the first all-year operations. Production in Longyearbyen, by American interests, started in 1908; and Store Norske established itself in 1916, as did other Norwegian interests during the war, in part by buying American interests.
	Discussions to establish the sovereignty of the archipelago commenced in the 1910s, but were interrupted by World War I. On 9 February 1920, following the Paris Peace Conference, the Svalbard Treaty was signed, granting full sovereignty to Norway. However, all signatory countries were granted non-discriminatory rights to fishing, hunting and mineral resources. The treaty took effect on 14 August 1925, at the same time as the Svalbard Act regulated the archipelago and the first governor, Johannes Gerckens Bassøe, took office. The archipelago has traditionally been known as Spitsbergen, and the main island as West Spitsbergen. From the 1920s, Norway renamed the archipelago Svalbard, and the main island became Spitsbergen. Kvitøya, Kong Karls Land, Hopen and Bjørnøya were not regarded as part of the Spitsbergen archipelago. Russians have traditionally called the archipelago Grumant (Грумант). The Soviet Union retained the name Spitsbergen (Шпицберген) to support undocumented claims that Russians were the first to discover the island. In 1928, Italian explorer Umberto Nobile and the crew of the airship Italia crashed on the icepack off the coast of Foyn Island. The subsequent rescue attempts were covered extensively in the press and Svalbard received short-lived fame as a result.
	In 1941, Operation Gauntlet, all Norwegian and Soviet settlements on Svalbard were evacuated, and a German presence was established with a meteorological outpost, although a small Norwegian garrison was kept on Spitsbergen. The German Operation Zitronella took this garrison by force in 1943, and at the same time destroying the settlements at Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. In September 1944, together with the supply ship Carl J. Busch, the submarine U-307 transported the men of Operation Haudegen to Svalbard. Operation Haudegen (aka SWASHBUCKLER) was the name of a German operation during the Second World War to establish meteorological stations on Svalbard. The station was active from 9 September 1944 to 4 September 1945. It lost radio contact in May 1945, and the soldiers were capable of asking for support only in August 1945. On September 4, 1945, the soldiers were picked up by a Norwegian seal hunting vessel and surrendered to its captain. This group of men were the last German troops to surrender after the Second World War. After the war, the Soviet Union proposed common Norwegian and Soviet administration and military defence of Svalbard. This was rejected in 1947 by Norway, which two years later joined NATO. The Soviet Union retained high civilian activity on Svalbard, in part to ensure that the archipelago was not used by NATO.
	After the war, Norway re-established operations at Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund, while the Soviet Union established mining in Barentsburg, Pyramiden and Grumant. The mine at Ny-Ålesund had several fatal accidents, killing 71 people while it was in operation from 1945 to 1954 and from 1960 to 1963. The Kings Bay Affair, caused by the 1962 accident killing 21 workers, forced Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet to withdraw. From 1964, Ny-Ålesund became a research outpost, and a facility for the European Space Research Organisation. Petroleum test drilling was started in 1963 and continued until 1984, but no commercially viable fields were found. From 1960, regular charter flights were made from the mainland to a field at Hotellneset; in 1975, Svalbard Airport, Longyear opened, allowing year-round services.
	During the Cold War, the Soviet Union retained about two-thirds of the population on the islands (with a third being Norwegians) with the archipelago's population slightly under 4,000. Russian activity has diminished considerably since then, falling from 2,500 to 450 people from 1990 to 2010. Grumant was closed after it was depleted in 1962. Pyramiden was closed in 1998. Coal exports from Barentsburg ceased in 2006 because of a fire, but resumed in 2010. The Russian community has also experienced two air accidents, Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, which killed 141 people, and the Heerodden helicopter accident.