Bellsund, Svalbard
Last night’s fog was a taste of real Svalbard: here on the west coast of Spitsbergen, warm, moist Atlantic air meets the frozen currents that stream off the North Pole, and this sea fret can last for days. But our charmed existence continues, for after threading the eye of the needle, Akselǿya, where a savage wind lashed the sea into a lather, we explored the south shore of Van Mijenfjorden and the sun came out. The ship nosed behind our intrepid scout boat as it wove through a maze of coastal ice floes looking for a safe landing site. At last comes the call to action: “Zodiacs down: we will be landing walkers in 15 minutes.” Naturalists and passengers fan out with practiced ease: we have been fellow shipmates for nearly two weeks now and everyone knows the drill. Zodiacs in through the ice and soon we are stepping ashore on a wild black-gravel beach, the advance party already scanning strand and slopes for any prowling bears which could precipitate a swift retreat. The coast is clear. Fit and fearless, we head for the hills. With armed scouts at front and rear, we start to climb– first across the clay pan behind the beach, patterned with the prints of glaucous gulls, then over the first snowfield, crunching across the crystal surface. Tension is dented for a second by a couple of sneaky snowballs from the junior ranks, but order prevails as we file up the slope. Now through a strip of wiry grass, littered with goose and reindeer droppings. Two barnacle geese fly overhead to confirm our tracking. Then up the bare slope of a huge moraine. But look more closely– this is not bare, it is peopled with tiny plants: clumps of moss campion, tufted saxifrage and on the barest, leanest brow, the flimsy beauty of the Svalbard poppy, sulphur petals trembling in the wind. There is more: a distant eider drake guards his invisible mate, a broken puffball casts its spores into the ether, and one of our group finds the broken eggshell of a purple sandpiper, no doubt filched by an Arctic fox. We pause at the top to catch our breath. A rushing meltwater stream has gouged a steep gully out below us. Above the snow-striped hills, blue sky and swirling cloud tussle for control of the day. At our feet a fragile kingdom of plucky plants which are flowering against all the odds. And far below us in the ice floes, like a toy boat in a bath full of soap suds, lies the little ship with the big heart which has brought us so far: Endeavour. Suddenly we are all hushed by a moment of insight and reverence. Like the flimsy plants we gaze down upon, we too are pygmies in this giant, pristine landscape. We too have bloomed under this harsh regime of ice and wind, to become a single, tight-knit community bonded by our Arctic adventure.
Last night’s fog was a taste of real Svalbard: here on the west coast of Spitsbergen, warm, moist Atlantic air meets the frozen currents that stream off the North Pole, and this sea fret can last for days. But our charmed existence continues, for after threading the eye of the needle, Akselǿya, where a savage wind lashed the sea into a lather, we explored the south shore of Van Mijenfjorden and the sun came out. The ship nosed behind our intrepid scout boat as it wove through a maze of coastal ice floes looking for a safe landing site. At last comes the call to action: “Zodiacs down: we will be landing walkers in 15 minutes.” Naturalists and passengers fan out with practiced ease: we have been fellow shipmates for nearly two weeks now and everyone knows the drill. Zodiacs in through the ice and soon we are stepping ashore on a wild black-gravel beach, the advance party already scanning strand and slopes for any prowling bears which could precipitate a swift retreat. The coast is clear. Fit and fearless, we head for the hills. With armed scouts at front and rear, we start to climb– first across the clay pan behind the beach, patterned with the prints of glaucous gulls, then over the first snowfield, crunching across the crystal surface. Tension is dented for a second by a couple of sneaky snowballs from the junior ranks, but order prevails as we file up the slope. Now through a strip of wiry grass, littered with goose and reindeer droppings. Two barnacle geese fly overhead to confirm our tracking. Then up the bare slope of a huge moraine. But look more closely– this is not bare, it is peopled with tiny plants: clumps of moss campion, tufted saxifrage and on the barest, leanest brow, the flimsy beauty of the Svalbard poppy, sulphur petals trembling in the wind. There is more: a distant eider drake guards his invisible mate, a broken puffball casts its spores into the ether, and one of our group finds the broken eggshell of a purple sandpiper, no doubt filched by an Arctic fox. We pause at the top to catch our breath. A rushing meltwater stream has gouged a steep gully out below us. Above the snow-striped hills, blue sky and swirling cloud tussle for control of the day. At our feet a fragile kingdom of plucky plants which are flowering against all the odds. And far below us in the ice floes, like a toy boat in a bath full of soap suds, lies the little ship with the big heart which has brought us so far: Endeavour. Suddenly we are all hushed by a moment of insight and reverence. Like the flimsy plants we gaze down upon, we too are pygmies in this giant, pristine landscape. We too have bloomed under this harsh regime of ice and wind, to become a single, tight-knit community bonded by our Arctic adventure.
