SVALBARD

April 2024
‘The Journey’

3rd APRIL
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It is the start of our first ever Journey to Nature’s Edge (J2NE) and only 24hrs in, it is living up to its name. The series of projects link in with our Expeditions for Change and also our Natural World Heroes; raising awareness around critical topics, shining a light on frontline conservationists, and hopefully – via sponsorship – raising much needed funds too. Our first J2NE is Svalbard, so here we are.

With any new project it’s always good to be on your best form, so when what turned into flu hit me 2 days prior to the trip, it knocked me on my butt. I’ve only ever had it once before in my life – proper flu, not a ‘cold’ – and it was back with a vengeance. Taking caffeine nurofen cold and flu tablets didn’t help for the first couple of nights of lack of sleep either! #idiot Anyway, man-flu aside, we convene in Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard, and the adventure begins.

Hilde is our first guru to engage with. One half of the Hearts in the Ice team that spent 19 months in a trapper’s cabin in the middle of the Arctic she is a font of knowledge. She talks us through the long nights and days, the polar bear encounters, the ice sampling, and how even just sourcing usable fire wood was a hardship day in day out (often driftwood from Siberia runs aground on Norwegian shores, but finding ways and means to dry it enough to use for firewood is another challenge altogether).

Hearts in the Ice, is a reputable project and one that we support via J2NE but hopefully in bigger ways in the future. They are advocates for citizen science, polar bears international, and ‘sensible tourism’.

4th APRIL
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7hrs. 90kms. -10C. Snow and wind. J2NE the beginning.

A hardy bunch my fellow travellers – 6 of us, all photographers.

We set off from Longyearbyen, it is slightly overcast but not too bad, the sun pokes its head out on occasions as we make our way across the snowy flats and up through the mining struts and into the icy wilderness. Skidoos are interesting things, they look fun, but they are sometimes ‘not’; basically they can be bloody dangerous, but that comes later.

It’s a min-expedition to reach Isfjord Radio Station, but that’s the whole point. Slow travel, real travel, travel to explore and understand what ‘it’s all about’, and the day certainly provides that. A few hours in it’s all rosy, but that soon changes. It sort of creeps up on you the weather, one moment it’s blue skies and the next you can’t see the snowmobile in front of you, and that ‘last hour to go’ turns into another 3hrs. but it was worth it. Wind whipping across the desert like terrain, snow deepening every minute and visibility tricky at best. A few tumbles as the terrain steepens and the eyesight weakens, but soft landings all around. What it does do though is give us time, time to ground ourselves where we are, what we are experiencing, who we are with, what we want. It is all too easy these days travel, it’s lost its edge, and this was a gentle reminder as to what it was truly all about. Travel used to be about exploration, the thirst for knowledge, experiencing new things, too often now it is about ‘luxury’ or ‘access’ or ‘been there, done that’, and that’s exactly what we are trying to reset through this Journey to Nature’s Edge.

It's 7hrs later we arrive at the Radio Station and its clear already that everyone has already been through their own individual little journey. Don’t underestimate what we came through, it was not snowmobile amateur hour, surreal to say the least.

Now we’re here, it feels like another world entirely. Giant radar masts dot the landscape, huge satellite dishes look to the sky, reindeer wander nonchalantly through drifting snow. It’s day 1, adventure 1, natural world…1.

5th APRIL
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Weirdly, it’s colder today. Weird because it is bright sunshine and clear skies – obvious you might say, but it tricks the mind sometimes hey. So instead of the balmy -10C or so the day before, we are now basking in a temperate -18C and that’s without the windchill factor, which of course, comes into play as always.

The morning starts walking the shoreline round the station, it’s pretty mind-blowing actually. The station has played its part in history, being bombed out during the war, rebuilt, and now an ‘adventure stop’ for those in the know. It is built on the edge of Isfjord with some huge fuel tanks dotting the surrounds; the water is produced from snow melt, so thankfully at this time of the year that’s not so much of an issue, although when you see the permanently manned JCB shovelling snow into the various water tanks, you get to realise how inefficient us humans really are. Whilst not 5 star, there is nothing to complain about at the Station with warm rooms, hot shower, great food, and most of all, access to some of the nest outdoors lifestyle you’ll be able to access in the modern day. Even the walk around the station takes some time…especially with 6 photographers. We spend the next 2hrs making it all of approximately 500m as are literally blown away by the surrounding views, jawdrop mountains, sea ice chomping at the bit, the sea water steaming as its drastically warmer than the surrounding air, it’s just our planet on steroids everywhere you look. Aside from the natural highlights firing off in every direction, you look back at the station to marvel at its vast satellite dishes and radio masts reaching to the sky.

From here we hop onto our skidoos and set off down the coast, past empty telegraph poles where cables must have once hung, now just lonely masts reaching skywards in solitary fashion. We stop, a a dead reindeer, frozen in its snowy shadow, specks of blood dotting its snowy behind where Arctic fox have made a start on their frozen dinner. The lonely corpse is testament to the conditions out here, it is more than harsh, the wind whipping off the barren landscape in a seemingly never-ending ankle high blizzard. We ponder our reindeer friends’ demise for a while and then push on out into the frozen wasteland; it sounds dramatic, but that’s because it is, it really truly is just a never-ending harshness of white that for those not in the know, is oh so unforgiving. We arrive at our goal; a trappers hunt from the early 20th century. It is fairly rudimentary in its construction, built to serve not to comfort, close to the shoreline, dotted with whale bone surrounds offering hints to its inhabitants daily forays.

It's at this stage we have our first ‘catastrophe’…well I say catastrophe, we have a ‘drone down’. This soft Irish voice explains how ‘he was just whizzing it back at full speed skimming the tundra, when it suddenly just crashed into something…’ (I’ll let you guess who it was!:). Needless to say, drone is found, slightly worse for wear it might be said, and we continue on. Some of the group pushes further south whilst a couple of us decide to hug the shoreline to see what we can find. Reindeer (alive this time!) dot the coastline, some standing snow swept and oblivious, others hunkering down forming mini snowdrifts mildly raised bumps (maybe this is what aforesaid drone hit?!) on the otherwise snowy flats of Svalbard.

Images are tough today, not because of a lack of subject matter, but the weather; as soon as you remove your gloves – something that is often necessary for photography – the icy winds dropping the temperature to -30C soon impose themselves on human flesh. It’s not uncomfortable, it’s bloody painful, so we do our work and push on

6/7th APRIL
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Time flies. A day in bed (thanks flu), whilst others head out glacier bound. Sun dogs, are the flavour of the day.

The return homewards to Longyearbyen is much quicker than our initial journey. 3.5hrs and skimming across the frozen sea ice on our skidoos makes for a quick return. An ice cave provides for a pit stop before pushing on to the next stage. The ship and the frozen north.

The Kinfish has been our baby for a while now; we launched her into the industry roughly 7 years ago and she provides our polar home from home. An old survey (spy!) ship, she is our exploration base for the polar north year in year out. Approximately 40m in length, an ice class of 1C (strengthened to 1B), a maximum of 12 paying passengers and a crew that works to maximise your returns, she is the ideal launch pad for polar exploration and the next phase of our journey to nature’s edge. We board towards late afternoon and set sail further north.

It’s been a strange year so far when it comes to ice cover; we have arrived early in the season, but even for early season there is more sea ice than usual which makes for slower and more careful journeys as we push north. Many corners of the archipelago still remain inaccessible – even to the strengthened Kinfish – but exploration is our main aim so we push on regardless.

Definition of J2NE and what we are trying to achieve?

8 th APRIL
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We have positioned ourselves overnight across Isfjord from Longyearbyen and parked bow into the ice. It makes for a relaxing evening with little sway, perfect for a first night on board. Waking up to our snowy surrounds makes for the perfect start to the day, bow tucked into the ice, ice panels locking us in. we slowly extricate ourselves and saunter our way deeper into the fjord and stumble across a lone bear. It seems to be a healthy female, young and strong, patrolling the ice edge, looking for that next meal. We leave her be and continue on into the deeper corners of Isfjord until we reach the fast ice and slow to a halt. We decide to make our way back out into the wider channels and in doing so catch sight of another bear – or maybe the same – patrolling her way north. The day has moved on, so we decide to stick with our fluffy friend. The light softens, our luck comes in, she takes a left turn and heads out on the edge of the fast ice, mountains set the backdrop, a small flock of birds startle at the approach of the King of the Arctic. For the next few hours she treats us to a show; strutting her stuff o the ice edge boardwalk, stopping to sniff the air, casting a nonchalant glance in our direction, reaching the end of her icy peninsular, turning inland and off into the icy distance.

It's moments like this that make our journey. Our journey to nature’s edge. It doesn’t have to be another polar bear profile, it doesn’t have to be up close and personal. It’s ok to sit back and take in your surrounds and truly soak in the natural world that surrounds you. The moment for me that sticks in my mind is not the ‘frustration’ at a ‘distant’ bear, but an imprint on my mind of a bear in its natural habitat, walking the frosted ice line out into the fjord, its silhouette shouldering the horizon, off into the distant north…

What a day. What an awesome day. Snow wind, white outs. Not being able to see 20m in front of you.Skidoo crashes Frozen ice lakesCrossing frozen fjordsUp steep mountains, down steep mountains A lone spire in the snowy distance, Isfjord Radio Station and salvation7hrs. But it was worth it. Warmth. A shower. Hot food. Bed.