When Hurtigruten operated what it claims to have been the first expedition cruise along the Norwegian coast to Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean, little did it know that such voyages would be the subject of global controversy 120 years later.

Hurtigruten itself has sound environmental credentials, including ordering the world’s first battery-powered hybrid ships at Kleven Yards — appropriately named after Norwegian polar explorers Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen.