travels with janne

We get a good glimpse of a polar bear, who haughtily turns his back on us, grunting walruses and grazing reindeer.

The next day, it is too foggy to make a landing. We would not be able to see a polar bear approaching before it was too late, so …

Instead, we follow the pack ice northwest from Seven Islands, which is as far north as we can get in the ship. We are now at almost 81ºN. The islands are the northernmost landmass reachable by normal means, being 1024.3 kilometers (637 miles) south of the North Pole.

We see a polar bear on the way, sitting on the ice. It looks at us then almost demonstratively turns its back to us.

We also see a group of walruses on an ice floe, and catch a fleeting glimpse of a bowhead whale.

Eventually, we leave the pack ice behind us and follow the contintental shelf southwards. Here is typically an upwelling of nutrients, so it is common to see whales. We see white-beaked dolphins and various kinds of whales that are too far away for me to identify. All I see are their blows.

Next morning, we take the zodiacs to a place called Poolepynten. Here we encounter animals. A couple of adult reindeer females and a calf graze. At one point they come too close to a ruddy turnstone nest, so the bird hassles them until they move on. Terns fly close over our heads. They might have nests in the area, too. We hear the chirpings of snow buntings.

We also see walruses. They are so laid-back and relaxed that they barely take notice of us. Nevertheless, we keep a distance of about 50 m, staying behind a line that our guide has etched in the sand.

Some of the walruses hang around in the water doing I know not what. They are not feeding. Maybe just having a bit of fun.

The beach is littered with driftwood. In the past, hunters and trappers would have used the wood for building and fuel. That is no longer permitted.

A whale must have beached here many years ago. It is interesting to note how porous the bones are, and how they form a basis for new life in the form of mosses, lichens and flowers. As long as we do not disturb things, Nature will find its way.

Scores of humans and thousands of animals have lost their lives unnaturally in these remote areas.

With its enforced hull the ship does a much better job of crunching its way through the ice than a meagre zodiac, even though the rubber boats are of military quality. We spend the morning gliding at a leisurely pace through the pack ice at Hinlopen Strait, which is at about 80ºN.

We see a bearded seal on an ice floe. And what looks like blood on another ice floe. It could very well be the remnants of a polar bear kill.

This must be the right time to get a picture of myself.

In the afternoon we make a landing with the zodiacs in Sorgfjord (Sorrow Fjord) and hike for about two hours, the first part in our regular boots and the last part on snowshoes.

A cross erected by a ship’s crew in the 19^th century is a prominent feature in the landscape.

Close by are the remains of graves marked by stones. In the 17^th century there were skirmishes between French and Dutch whalers in the area, which resulted in many deaths and sunken ships.

Although Svalbard looks like an almost pristine landscape, people have left their mark. In previous times, whalers hunted whales for the lucrative whale oil trade.

Walruses were hunted for their valuable tusks, and polar bears and foxes were hunted and trapped for their furry, white pelts. Tens of thousands of animals were killed and at last, very few were left. There are still remains of trappers’ and hunters’ huts here and there. It must have been a harsh life, even for those who only stayed for the summer.

Fortunately, times have changed and the wildlife populations have rebounded, although not to their previous levels. Now all we see are bones left by natural deaths or polar bear kills, shed reindeer antlers, and purple saxifrage.

We sail through a frozen, monochrome blue landscape and get a feel for drift ice and glaciers.

The name Svalbard means “cold shores”. That is a very apt name for this country. We spend an afternoon exploring the cold shores from our zodiacs. Despite layers of warm, insulating and rainproof clothing, two hours on the icy waters among ice floes and close to glaciers has me feeling pretty cold during the last half hour. But what an experience to be surrounded by all this ice!

The blue colour is due to how the lights reflects from the ice that has been under extreme pressure for thousands of years, so the snow has compacted to what looks like blue crystal.

We sail up close to the glacier called Monacobreen in Liefdefjorden. It is named after the first Prince of Monaco, who was an explorer in the early 1900s and a pioneer of what would eventually become the science of oceanography. The face of the glacier is about four km wide and 30-50 m high. It looks like a landscape from some kind of fantasy movie.

We see a bearded seal in the water along with glaucous gulls and skua. A kittiwake floats nearby until it decides to leave us.

At one point we almost get trapped among the drift ice. It can be deceptively easy to find a lead (path) into the bay, but when you want to go back out again, the wind may have shifted so it blows the ice floes into the bay and you are surrounded. Fortunately, our guides are excellent zodiac pilots that always work in pairs, and we wend our way safely through the frozen labyrinth back to the ship.

I just love the feeling of total remoteness and stillness here.

Although the landscape seems barren, there are signs of life: polar bear footprints, nesting birds and even “Texas Bar”.

Today, we explore another fjord, this time leaving the zodiacs behind on shore and going for a two-hour hike.

We wander over granular snow and squooshy tundra. Because of the permafrost, the water from the melted upper layer does not seep through and the tundra is wet to walk on. We see boulders left behind by retreating glaciers at the end of the most recent Ice Age.

There are lots of fresh reindeer droppings here and there, old polar bear footprints at the edge of a glacier (I would be very nervous if they were fresh, despite the fact that our guides are armed), and recent fox footprints. Bones attest to the fact that animals die and are eaten by other animals. These bones are presumably from a seal.

An Arctic skua sits on its rocky nest, guarding its eggs.  A white-fronted goose looks askance at us before alighting.

Amazingly, a few plants find a toehold in this barren landscape. The spring is late this year, so the only flowering plants we see are the pretty little purple saxifrage. Their colour contrasts with the grey and black stones that are decorated with various shades of lichen. There are an incredible 742 species of lichen in Svalbard.

There are no plants that grow high here, but there are trees. So-called trees. Our guide points one out to us. To me it looks more like the flattened heather plant I had in my garden after it died.

We visit an old trappers’ hut, which for unknown reasons is called “Texas Bar”. The place is now used by a variety of people, including scientists. The place looks cozy, with room for two, a wood stove, a table, and a separate enclosure for a toilet. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the 12 m² cabin I had in Nova Scotia. Don’t ask me why there is so much liquor, though!

A trip to the archipelago Svalbard is most likely the most northerly I will ever travel – and what a trip!

I feel like I am at the end of the Earth (if a globe can actually have an end). And I am, almost. This is as close to the North Pole as I will probably ever be.

Flying in to Svalbard, I catch tantalizing glimpses of this remote Arctic archipelago. The view from above features mainly snow, ice, glaciers, mountains, rocks and, of course, the sea. Svalbard borders the Arctic Ocean, Norwegian Sea, Greenland Sea and Barents Sea.

I am here to sail through the icy waters on the lookout for wildlife and scenery, but first I have a bit of time in Svalbard’s town Longyearbyen. I doubt you could find a drearier looking town. There is not much to please the eye. There is a bleak post-coal mining era feeling about the place with various pipes, cranes, cables and containers that I have no idea what are used for.

The highlight for me is spotting a couple of reindeer grazing by the roadside.  One of them decides to cross the road looking for greener pastures, I suppose. The reindeer in Svalbard are adoringly tiny – almost just the size of a Hereford calf – but very, very hardy.

Once we board the ship and practice the obligatory safety drill, we set off on our adventure, sailing northwards. For the next six days, my life will be on the sea, among icebergs, ice floes and pack ice. Exciting! On the ship, we spend a lot of time on deck, on the lookout for wildlife and stunning scenery.

On the first day, we glide past snowclad mountains and see tubby little auks and gull-like Arctic fulmars. It is easy to understand why the Dutch called this place Spitsbergen, which means “pointed mountains”. 

On the second day we use the Zodiacs for the first time.

Sleek and elegant guillemots swim close to our little boat before taking off into the air.

We also see a polar bear with cubs at the foot of the glacier. Well, “see” might be pushing it. In the distance I could just make out a splodge that could be something, or not. More clearly, at another spot, we saw footprints from polar bear, fox and reindeer.

We see ptarmigan and bearded seals. Four reindeer graze peacefully on the slope. How they manage to eke out an existence in these almost barren lands is a miracle of evolution. 

Above us, kittiwakes are harassed by skua, who steal the food from the kittiwakes. We see long-tailed Arctic terns, glaucous gulls (second largest gull in the world), eider ducks, barnacle geese and fulmars.

After about two hours on the icy water, we head back to the ship and clamber on board. We are later rewarded with a sighting of about 30 ghostly white beluga whales feeding close to the shoreline. They are too far away for proper photos, but not too far away to enjoy through my new binoculars – a recent and wonderful birthday present from a group of friends.