On an expedition cruise not everything that is planned can work out quite as expected. We had already seen yesterday how fog could create a change of plan, as we’d been unable to land at Andréeneset on Kvitøya. Today another force of nature was to have a similar impact; not weather but bears!
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We have had plenty of warm September sun this year, but also some chillier days, reminding us that winter isn’t too far away. By the end of the month it was looking, and feeling, quite autumnal. We were home for much of the month but did make our usual anniversary visit to Paris near the start.
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A more low-key day today, after the excitement of yesterday's polar bear encounter. But there were no dull days on this trip and today’s highlight was ticking off another of my Arctic wish-list animals, walruses. The ship travelled south-east during the night to the small island of Kvitoya, the easternmost one in the Svalbard archipelago.
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I wonder what it would be like to live in a town where the sun never sets in the summer and never rises in the winter? A town whose population of 2,400 residents hail from almost 53 different countries? And whose residents stay only for an average of seven years? And how would it feel to have to carry a rifle every time you stepped beyond the town’s limits and to know how to use it against a possible polar bear attack?
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When we decided on August for our Svalbard visit I wasn’t sure whether we would see any pack ice. As the summer progresses the ice retreats northwards, beyond the area our itinerary was scheduled to cover. But on an expedition cruise the planned itinerary can often be abandoned because of weather conditions, wildlife viewing opportunities or other factors.
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Are you a town mouse or a country mouse? Personally I choose the bustle and activity of city life over that in the country, although I can see the benefits that the latter offers. A bit of peace and quiet would be welcome sometimes, I admit.
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Anyone who thinks of the Arctic as a bleak and desolate place, devoid of life, needs only to visit the bird cliffs of Alkefjellet to dispel that illusion. I have never seen so much activity, so much life, concentrated in one small area.
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There are some places that stay with you forever, whether you spend just a few hours there or many days. Places that almost haunt you. Places you long to return to some day. Sometimes you fulfil that longing and return, maybe often. And sometimes you never go back, but never forget.
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We were to see Svalbard at its most dramatic and bleak today. Yesterday’s weather had been surprisingly (unnaturally) warm, but today, though still milder than we had anticipated, was much more mixed. But rain or shine, this landscape is unrivalled in its beauty.
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Christiane Ritter spent a winter in the harshest conditions that Svalbard can offer. Living in a tiny hut with her husband and another trapper, but sometimes left alone there for many days. Constant darkness, cut off from the world by snow and ice; her Arctic was not my Arctic. But I think editing some of my photos in black and white has helped to emphasise what sense of bleakness I did find in this stunning environment.
