> What do these folks do for work that they can live up in the Arctic in this fashion?

The name of the island in the article is a link to its Wikipedia page, from which another link takes you to the page for Nordland, the county it belongs to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordland#Economy

> How do they keep the dome's light from being completely obliterated.

As another poster noted, the dome is not very well isolated. As a wild guess, this might mean that thin layers of snow could melt off if it's not too cold outside.

Also, during the three winter months when it doesn't get light outside at all, you might as well live under a layer of snow. Its reflection of the house's lights should give an overall brighter feeling than if the light just goes off into the arctic night.

Thanks, the picture on that wiki page are even more beautiful and dramatic than the ones in the original article.

Is this as big as a tourist draw as the fjords around Bergen? It looks equally as impressive.

Lofoten, which is in Nordland and which some of those pictures are from is a big tourist draw, and it is absolutely spectacular. You get the fjords and the midnight sun.

Thanks. In case anyone else wants to put it on their travel shortlist:

http://www.lofoten.info/en

In addition to the excellent replies below, note that Nordland is actually pretty far south, if your goal is to live above the polar circle - you might want to also cast your eyes to Tromsø: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troms%C3%B8

Has a bit more infrastructure and job opportunities, if that's something that is relevant to you - and plenty of "alpine" mountains in the surrounding area.

That said, the Lofoten area is famous for its spectacular beauty - many graphical artists and painters have lived moved there over the years because of the unique landscape and light.

Further north than Tromsø, things get a bit flat as you move up towards Finnmark - and more remote. And then there's of course Svalbard, if you want to live in an area that's more like northern parts of Alaska...

The second question bothers me as well. In addition, partially melted and refrozen snow can cause really large loads to the dome if not removed on time. Must be annoying to climb up there.

"Able to withstand over 4KN/m² of snow loading and wind speeds exceeding 31m/s"

http://www.solardome.co.uk/case-study/the-nature-house-north...

I looked at the link for SolarDome referenced in the article and wasn't able to find a good answer to that on their faq:

http://www.solardome.co.uk/faqs/

I'm guessing people clean these with a telescoping pole. But I could see that being a back-breaking exercise. But maybe that's a small place to live in such harmony with your surroundings.

If they're like the ones we saw a demo of then they have a panel(s) that opens on the top for you push the snow off. I seem to remember something about plowing the snow around the dome too, but it was a decade+ back.

Need a little robot to do it :)