Island in the snow

This article appeared in The Village (a Dublin magazine, sadly no longer with us) and in Daily Ireland (ditto)

YOU'RE NORTH of nearly everywhere once you reach Svalbard. The Archipelago is about 600 miles above Norway, and comfortably inside the Arctic Circle.

Here, beyond latitude 80 degrees north, the winter temperatures can sink to minus 50.

But you can spot polar bear, walrus, whale, seal, snow bunting . . . . and anyway, the temperatures in summer edge up to 4 degrees Celsius.

Svalbard is some six hours flying time from Dublin – but you’ll not find any direct flights. In fact you change aircraft four times before finding yourself on the final approach round the southerly side of Spitsbergen, the plane dropping in over Mount Misery and finally landing at Longyearbyen Airport on the Svalbard Archipelago.

First impressions: this looks about as desolate as it gets. A treeless landscape of striated rock, snow and ice surround the airport. It seems like the raw materials from which scenery is made.

Our ship was anchored in the harbour of Longyearbyen, a small mining town with hotel, desultory row of houses, and the world's most northerly sushi restaurant. It's also home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. In a remote mountain just outside town is a secure vault that preserves a wide range of plant seeds, duplicates of those found round the world — just in case global mayhem were to break out, destroying the rest of the world. Everything needed to restart agriculture will be there. Let's hope the sushi people make it inside too.

LONGYEARBYEN  is home to about 2,000 people — the northernmost place on the planet with a permanent population of any note.

At the hotel our first intimation of the forbidding terrain was on display. A notice explained Svalbard etiquette: “Always carry a weapon when travelling outside the settlements. But it is forbidden to carry a loaded weapon within the settlements.”

For many on an Arctic cruise the possibility of an encounter with the alpha predator, the polar bear, is one of the main attractions. Ursus maritimus is the world’s largest land carnivore. Strong with it.

Thus bear hunting, even for the benign purpose of Instagramming, is a hazardous business. Polar bears, in thrall to the Atkins diet, are exceptionally hungry in the summer months. The absence of ice leaves many of them stranded on land and consequently deprived of their main course, seal meat. So, watch out if you’re in a kayak.

Or on land. Anywhere, really.

Before we embarked on any excursion across the tundra, the area was scouted out by rifle-carrying guides. Riding shotgun on all our hikes, they were constantly alert lest any of Svalbard’s 3000 bears (they outnumber the humans) made an impromptu appearance.

Instructions were simple enough: should we attract the attention of a bear, the guides would decide ad hoc on tactics. “We might even ask you to take your clothes off and drop them when we’re scarpering – that might just delay the bear long enough for us to make our getaway.”

After hearing this, the state of my underpants would probably have stopped anything in its tracks.

The safety briefing concluded, we headed for the boats and duly checked aboard our assigned inflatable, a Zodiac.

Before getting underway it was “man overboard drill”. I was appointed Second Pointer. If someone fell overboard, it was the Chief Pointer’s job to keep pointing at the unfortunate person in the water. Should the Chief Pointer fall in while pointing, then it was down to me, the assistant, to continue pointing.

I’m delighted to report that our positions proved to be sinecures.

The cold hard facts

Each day, weather permitting, our boat, a former Russian research ship, the Akademik Sergey Vavilov, anchored in one of Svalbard’s fjords. The Zodiacs were launched, and we landed on the tundra.

We’d examine lichens and the sphagnum moss that the reindeer were chomping. Lichens are not a single entity but a symbiosis of fungi and algae. I can confirm they are the slowest-growing organisms on Planet Earth – some of them only manage 3mm in a hundred years. Lazy gobshites.

Snow buntings, Svalbard’s sole songbird, regularly spotted bobbing through the lichen, seemed uninterested.

Blubber Island, a defunct 17th century whaling station used by those inveterate travellers the Dutch and the Basques, was reached on day three. A desolate place, the evidence of the melancholy trade was everywhere — we were even shown a double blubber burner, one for the committed whaling geek.

Then it was off to the Polish Polar Research Station, the most northerly inhabited place on Earth. These almost eponymous Northerly Poles study everything from glaciology to geomagnetism. But they seemed pleased enough to see us, as was their dog. I didn’t bother with my Spot of the Antarctic joke.

Pack ice, icebergs, nunataks, floes, growlers, bergs, bergy bits — and glaciers that look like Munch’s Scream oozing down the mountain.

If you’re an ice fancier you’ll scarcely do better.

Out in the Zodiacs we’d steer within twenty five metres of the towering ice sheets.

The glaciers are an extraordinary kaleidoscope of white, blue, turquoise, aquamarine. And it’s silent as well. Except when a huge chunk of ice the size of a supermarket drops off the glacier and hurtles into the Arctic Ocean. Then the ice heaves, and slabs and blocks of ice as big as lorries re-arrange themselves. Soon, all is silent again.

Wildlife abounds in these so-called blue latitudes. The polar bears proved elusive – but we did spot a mother and cub sleeping off a seal meal.

That’s one of the great advantages of being a meat-eater – you spend most of your time dozing.

Northern right whales, minke whales, bowhead whale, beluga whales and fin whales all congregate up here; but regrettably not during our visit. Walruses, definitely. Noisy, smelly, comical, ugly, gregarious, lovable.

Yes, we all know Saturday night pubs like that.

Birds there were by the several thousand – loons, eider, snow geese, Atlantic puffins, guillemot. 

Arctic skuas tailgate gulls through the air till they vomit up their food, which the skuas then promptly scoff. As baroque a feeding habit as you’re likely to come across.

Going with the floe

A voyage to the Arctic regions gives you a small taste of what serving before the mast might be like. For this is no Caribbean cruise. On day four of our voyage a force 10 storm began blowing; several breakfasts unexpectedly re-appeared.

Bad weather always looks more dramatic through a window. Even more so through a porthole encrusted with ice. This looked extreme. Seasickness — that peculiar affliction that's like a mixture of flu and a hangover — even gripped some of the crew.

The storm continued for three days with little respite. Despite several Cruel Sea type destroyer-turns attempting to avoid the worst of the storm, still the boat was buffeted by crashing waves. Early in the morning of day six (about 4.00 am), and somet 16 miles west of the island of Kvitya, we encountered thick ice. By now the ship was performing a stately slalom around behemoths of ice; smaller chunks smacked with pistol cracks against the sides of the vessel.

Our Russian captain Beluga Valeriy announced over the tannoy that he was turning the boat round, and we ploughed south, out of the ice floes.

A collective sigh of relief could be heard among the passengers.

Although the worst of the storm was behind us, landing was still impossible. Cabin fever duly set in. We were in one of the most inhospitable parts of the world, and while the ship was warm and comfortable and the food excellent, entertainment opportunities were limited – no telly (good), no videos (quite good), no internet (not so good). And there’s only so many lectures on the mating rituals of the little auk you can listen to.

The seawater was still slapping the portholes of the bar (way up on the fifth floor), the only place to sit out an Arctic storm.

In an effort to rally the troops there seemed only one option. Quizzes were curated, musical soirées convened, dancing organised — strictly everything from ballroom to clog dancing.

Thus it was possible for a short period of time to be able to watch a passable imitation of Riverdance being played out in the bar of a Russian ship (yes, plenty of Cossack dancing too) as icebergs drifted by the window.

The official log the next day read:

Friday, 3 September — Position: Dolerittneset 78º35'N 22º33'E (at 0600)

Wind Speed/Direction: 12 m/s - 230º / AirTemp -2.0ºC / SeaTemp: -1.0ºC

It has been a long night, as we have been negotiating through the ice for quite some time.  It has also been a long night for other reasons, most of them associated with the “variety / entertainment” show in the lounge. There were only a handful of people around this morning.

Signed: Besuglyy Andrey (Chief Mate)

I don’t know about you, but I think I detect the whiff of burning martyr there.

Those Russians. Renowned for not being able to hold their drink.