Storfjord, Svalbard Archipelago
We’re not quite sure when the day started nor whether yesterday actually came to an end. When the sun only dips towards the horizon and never disappears, daylight is endless and thus little remains to define this period of time. Little, except a gentle reminder that a particular meal is being served. If left to ourselves however, how would we divide our lives into intervals that included needed sleep?
We forgot to sleep last night. By the clock, it was 2300 hours when we lifted anchor and moved away from our polar bear/reindeer show. Low angle light on the perfectly calm water was mesmerizing. Silent eyes gazed upon pancake-like floes or fluffed rounded mounds that turned in upon themselves in their own reflections. All was quiet. In the distance, a movement- a wake rippled removing the mirror-like quality of the sea. Its source was a massive polar bear swiftly swimming directly across our path. It showed its endurance for the cold and frigid water and its strength and agility, strongly stoking rhythmically and never slowing. We watched for a while and continued weaving among the pack, eyes still scanning. On the bridge, the Captain’s wife carved two new notches into the polished wood of the helm. This was not an age-old tradition of counting days, but of documenting polar bear sightings. According to someone’s watch, it was three o’clock when another call was placed ship-wide: another bear, another notch and more photos for the collection.
Just when one who was functioning by modern day standards with respect to the hour would have been thinking about getting up, we were planning on staying in bed. But the plan was foiled and the anchor dropped in a bay called Dolerittneset. Under cloudy skies, the northwestern corner of Edgeøya appeared brown and barren. Layer caked hillsides framed a deep and winding valley. Alluvial fans coalesced into aprons of crumbled rock. But first impressions are often wrong. Tundra polygons patterned the land like a crazy patchwork quilt. Lush mosses grew in the troughs almost masking miniscule wood-rush and sedges. Willow with leaves no larger than a child’s fingernail waved their fluffy catkins to the winds. Purple saxifrage and white whitlow grass gathered together in clumps. Mats of fern-like Dryas leaves carpeted drier ridges, the few fully open blossoms prophesizing the floral show yet to come. Creamy poppies and pale pink lousewort sprouted between the frost-fractured cobbles. Like polished ivory, bleached white antlers from years gone by, lay against the deep green mosses. Nearby, grazing reindeer sported new velvet covered crowns. Whale bone fragments, decomposed but recognizable, told of whaling days not so long ago.
There is no sleeping or eating on this boat without excitement mixing in. Lunchtime brought walrus right to the dining room windows. No seat remained undisturbed as crowds flocked to view these massive beasts. First there was one on an ice floe, its weathered hide wrinkled pink. Proudly it lifted its head to display elongated canine teeth. The pewter light of mid-day painted his craft with silver. But he was only the beginning of the parade as bands of swimming Odobenus followed behind, each group pausing as if to salute the reviewers behind the glassy panes.
Gradually, the leaden sky cleared and the world was bathed in shades of blue: blue-gray clouds, the deep blue sea and cobalt mountains. Glaciers poured like rivers down mountain valleys. Fast ice hugged the shores of Barentsøya. Seals dotted the surface here and there like misplaced slugs. Soon, ice gave way to open waters and we set our course across Storfjord to the eastern shores of Spitzbergen. Its sharp peaks bit the sky as we gathered on the back deck to feast upon hot dogs and beer and watch our passage south. Tonight we seem to know that it is time to sleep and little by little the lights go out. The bodies rest for now, ever alert for another wildlife call.
