Nordaustlandet, Svalbard
Ever have one of those moments when a song just pops into your head…maybe not the whole song but perhaps only a snippet of the chorus? It happens to me from time to time. (Okay, more often than I should probably admit!) I can be completely focused on the task at hand when, suddenly, I find myself singing along to some tune that should have been dumped from my internal memory cache long ago. And more often than not, the tune describes the rhythm of the moment perfectly, which brings me around to today.
Rod Stewart once sang that “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” and as luck (“good,” it turns out, but at the time I was thinking “bad”) would have it, I found myself on one of the few spits of ice-free terrain on the otherwise ice-capped Nordaustlandet Island. I was dressed in full Arctic regalia, which may have been appropriate attire for my normal task of shuttling guests in and out of the Zodiacs, but was decidedly inappropriate for leading one of our long hikes ashore. After a little more than an hour in the overly insulated garb, I and many in my group were beginning to overheat. It wasn’t that we hadn’t enjoyed our jaunt over the tundra, but rather we just weren’t expecting the sun to be so intense this far north. As a result, the members of my party were beginning to spread out, polar bear dangers be damned! Of course, it could have been that they were just eager to get away from me after I had led them out into and over perhaps the most rugged stretch of the high arctic we had yet seen on this expedition.
Nordaustlandet is situated well north on the eastern side of Svalbard and therefore doesn’t receive much of the life-giving warmth from the Atlantic jet stream. So, after happily dispensing with my vast knowledge of the local geology, this biologist was alarmed to find that I was only five minutes into the hike with just a smattering of Svalbard Poppy and Moss Campion to offer any foreseeable distraction for the remainder of our journey. I began to wonder if the physics behind “isostatic rebound” would be sufficient to keep my group’s thoughts occupied and deter them from organizing a mutinous revolt against me. Luckily, their mercy and interest were greater than their ire, and we managed to pass the time in harmony while conversing on the various fossils and skeletal remains time had left behind. (All the while, I was trying to ignore the radio in my paranoid head as it subtly hinted that I appeared Dazed and Confused, by Led Zeppelin.) Still, we were back at the landing site, and though I tried to maintain some semblance of control over the group, they were quickly moving away from me and back to the molting walruses we had seen upon coming ashore.
I began to resign myself to the idea that they must have been simply overjoyed at the opportunity to leave me behind, before I realised that they were instead being drawn to a remarkable scene down at the beach. A group of adolescent walruses had apparently taken an interest in the new, brightly-clad beach residents and were tentatively hauling their considerable bulk up near the shore for closer inspection. In summary, we had people watching walruses watching people! And suddenly, my fears and paranoia dissipated into relief and reflection upon a remarkable day. (And the radio changed to “Goo Goo Gah-joob,” I Am the Walrus by the Beatles.) Perhaps my worries had been a result of simple sensory overload from a near 24-hour marathon of polar bears, kayaking, ice walls, glacial falls, and walruses. My paranoia had obviously been unfounded. Perhaps…but as I turned away and looked over my shoulder at the walrus silently peering back at me, the song changed again….“I always feel like, Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell.
Ever have one of those moments when a song just pops into your head…maybe not the whole song but perhaps only a snippet of the chorus? It happens to me from time to time. (Okay, more often than I should probably admit!) I can be completely focused on the task at hand when, suddenly, I find myself singing along to some tune that should have been dumped from my internal memory cache long ago. And more often than not, the tune describes the rhythm of the moment perfectly, which brings me around to today.
Rod Stewart once sang that “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” and as luck (“good,” it turns out, but at the time I was thinking “bad”) would have it, I found myself on one of the few spits of ice-free terrain on the otherwise ice-capped Nordaustlandet Island. I was dressed in full Arctic regalia, which may have been appropriate attire for my normal task of shuttling guests in and out of the Zodiacs, but was decidedly inappropriate for leading one of our long hikes ashore. After a little more than an hour in the overly insulated garb, I and many in my group were beginning to overheat. It wasn’t that we hadn’t enjoyed our jaunt over the tundra, but rather we just weren’t expecting the sun to be so intense this far north. As a result, the members of my party were beginning to spread out, polar bear dangers be damned! Of course, it could have been that they were just eager to get away from me after I had led them out into and over perhaps the most rugged stretch of the high arctic we had yet seen on this expedition.
Nordaustlandet is situated well north on the eastern side of Svalbard and therefore doesn’t receive much of the life-giving warmth from the Atlantic jet stream. So, after happily dispensing with my vast knowledge of the local geology, this biologist was alarmed to find that I was only five minutes into the hike with just a smattering of Svalbard Poppy and Moss Campion to offer any foreseeable distraction for the remainder of our journey. I began to wonder if the physics behind “isostatic rebound” would be sufficient to keep my group’s thoughts occupied and deter them from organizing a mutinous revolt against me. Luckily, their mercy and interest were greater than their ire, and we managed to pass the time in harmony while conversing on the various fossils and skeletal remains time had left behind. (All the while, I was trying to ignore the radio in my paranoid head as it subtly hinted that I appeared Dazed and Confused, by Led Zeppelin.) Still, we were back at the landing site, and though I tried to maintain some semblance of control over the group, they were quickly moving away from me and back to the molting walruses we had seen upon coming ashore.
I began to resign myself to the idea that they must have been simply overjoyed at the opportunity to leave me behind, before I realised that they were instead being drawn to a remarkable scene down at the beach. A group of adolescent walruses had apparently taken an interest in the new, brightly-clad beach residents and were tentatively hauling their considerable bulk up near the shore for closer inspection. In summary, we had people watching walruses watching people! And suddenly, my fears and paranoia dissipated into relief and reflection upon a remarkable day. (And the radio changed to “Goo Goo Gah-joob,” I Am the Walrus by the Beatles.) Perhaps my worries had been a result of simple sensory overload from a near 24-hour marathon of polar bears, kayaking, ice walls, glacial falls, and walruses. My paranoia had obviously been unfounded. Perhaps…but as I turned away and looked over my shoulder at the walrus silently peering back at me, the song changed again….“I always feel like, Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell.
