Happy birth-canal day

My life in Svalbard has started for real now. Last Wednesday we (the class) left for a 9 day glacier course on the Nordenskiold glacier. I don’t think anyone had very high expectations, but we were all very excited to say the least! The days before the trip we had tested all our equipment, put up the tents, bought major amounts of food, prepped some of it, planned, planned and planned some more and even had a “primus”-party where we all made dinner on our individual stoves just to make sure everything worked. (And yes, I am aware that I have become quite the geek, for your information I am actually doing schoolwork on a Saturday morning, voluntary not too mention, for the first time in my life.)

Wednesday finally arrived and we all boarded the tourist boat “Polargirl”, which is a medium sized fishing boat with a bit stressed out crew on board, no service and overpriced. But the weather was beautiful and the view was magnificent. The four hour sail was spent on deck playing around, reading and practicing knots that we needed to know. When we finally reached Billefjorden and slowly started creeping in towards Adolfsbukta where our camp was supposed to be, we saw the glacier. It is enormous and rages high up from the ocean between a mountain range, a stunning sight to say the least. We got dropped off into a smaller motorboat called a zodiac and off we went towards the camp situated on a beach on the left side of the glacier. Here our teachers met us and we spent the rest of the day and evening learning about camp safety, how to put up big camps according to wind, storms and eventual polar bears and making polar bear-watch lists. We had a big dinner consisting of steak and baked potatoes and talked late into the evening about our previous experiences. Three of the teachers on this trip are qualified mountaineers, one is the president (Ola Einang), our main teacher Sigmund is the vice president and Geir Arne is a mountaineering guide. The fourth teacher has specialized in glaciers and has 13 years of experience, so you could say all in all, we were one very lucky group of students.

I can explain a little bit about the polar-bear safety so you get a better understanding. What we normally do on multi day trips for polar bear safety is to have a polar bear watch during the night, this means that the guides alternate on being up for an hour at a time with a rifle, walking around the camp keeping their eyes peeled for bears. One of the other guides sleeps in the tent with a half loaded rifle, just in case. Sometimes, and this also depends on the company, there is a trip wire put up around the camp, which is a wire surrounding the camp in a square formation with loaded ammunition in each corner that triggers if the line gets pulled. We only used this during the day when we left the camp, so the eventual bear wouldn’t eat our tents. These are the two most used and normal ways of protecting oneself against a polar bear. As students at UNIS we also have to call in with our satellite phones every night at 8 pm to say that we are safe, otherwise a search and rescue is put in motion.

Everyday during this trip we woke up at 7 to organize the breakfast, lunch, re-pack our backpacks, coil ropes, put up trip-wires and get all our safety equipment (safety beacon, satellite phones, walkie talkies and rifle) ready by 9. By the time we left we were well equipped, with heavy back packs and early morning creeping out of the system getting ready for another 8-10 hour day on the glacier. We had amazing weather every day, our teachers had apparently never experienced Svalbard so calm and still, and we all got a very nice face-tan quite fast. We spent a lot of time learning the safety routines and practicing rope systems to rescue people out of crevasses and so on, and a lot of time guiding each other through the jungle that glaciers are. One thing that is quite interesting about glaciers is that its very hard to know what awaits around corners and its near impossible to backtrack your steps (in medium to difficult areas that is). If wanting to know whats on the other side of a big curve, the only way to find out is walk around and see.
Before, under and after we had quite big discussions and briefings about everything that was going to happen, why we were doing it that way and how it could be done differently. It was very full on, with a lot of information that had to be remembered on the spot and in the long term.
During our stay the glacier calved an enormous amount. This means that there is constant movement in the glacier and ice is regularly breaking off the front into the ocean. This meant for us that the glacier would rumble and the sound of thunder would be a constant all night and all day from ice falling off. Its a magnificent site and it creates huge sheets of ice and small icebergs that float way out into the ocean, which in turn attracts the seals and polar bears.

After 8-9 hours of this we left the glacier for the day, un-packed, un-coiled ropes, took down the trip wires, took off sweaty shoes, put on more clothes, started a fire, sat down and ATE. and yes, we ate a lot! so life was pretty good, stress free and constantly being reminded by our teachers to enjoy the moment, sit in silence and just enjoy the fact that we are in Svalbard, sitting on and next to one of the most beautiful glaciers around. "Being in the moment here is just as important as learning the glacier-related things" we were told by Ola.

My birth-canal day, or birthday as other people like to call it, happened to be during this week. I have been very fortunate to have a birthday when a lot of exciting things happen. I dont recall ever having a boring day. I think this one was quite special though. Waking up to the rumble of the glacier, being sung to, having bacon and eggs with toast for breakfast and enjoying every minute of the day is not a bad way to spend your birthday, especially not when you are in such a beautiful environment as i was in. The snickers cake for desert was just the icing on the cake. It was a great day and one i will remember for a very long time i hope.

9 days in the weather got a bit worse, the wind picked up and we unfortunately had eaten all our food and had a boat waiting for us to take us back to Longyearbyen. The boat ride back consisted of 19 very smelly, hungry and tired students that looked very disgusting but also very happy. I dont think anyone had anticipated that the trip would be as good as it was both in the social and learning aspect. We all came back eager to learn more, inspired and full of confidence to go out and try on our own, i dont think you could hope for a better outcome than that.