Tuesday, August 16, 2011

University life

Starting as a student at the university in Svalbard is not like starting uni anywhere else in Norway, or maybe the world for all i know. Being a student here means you have to go through a two day safety course, which in short just informs you of all the different things that can kill you, be it the snow, the ice, the ocean, the polar bear, the walrus, the mice the rabies or the tapeworms that can incubate in your body for ten years.. the list goes on!

Anyway, day one of the course consists of first a half hour brief of the general dangers that surround you in the every day life, like say, cars. you forget they exist since there arent a whole lot of them around. I took a taxi yesterday and i must admit it was strange sitting in a car (i mean its been a week at least since last!) and very strange driving around in svalbard..
After that its down to business, and to start it off we learnt how to use satellite phones and walkie talkies, not to mention emergency beacons, before putting on a survival suit and jumping out in the ocean to learn how to swim in the suit. It was quite funny as you are very buoyant, look like an orange alien and apart from floating every other movement is quite hard to do. My group was quite lucky though, as we arrived at the docks a huge seal was lying there relaxing. I have never before gotten so close to a seal before, and i can tell you, they are HUGE and very fat. so now you know.
Refreshed and a little bit wet we went back to UNIS and had lunch before a 3 hour safety course started. It was quite different to a lot of the safety courses i have done before, as a lot of the stuff we learnt is of course special for this area. Hypothermia, fractures, polar bears and so on. Apparantly all you need though is a jerven duk!

On day two we didnt have to do the short brief again (i guess we all know the dangers of cars now), and just went straight to work. Today the morning started by going through emergency equipment you have to have with when we go out in the field. How to put up a tent i a storm, where to put it, how to use cooking equipment, where to dig and what not to dig...in other words a lot of equipment, i dont know how i am going to manage to get room for all this in my backpack.. And last but not least, how to put up trip wires outside the tents for polar bear safety.
We finished the course with learning how to use rifles at the shooting range and how to react to polar bears. This was probably the most exciting thing of the course. I have never used a rifle before, my shooting career started and ended with paintball... a rifle is a whole different thing! The noise for the first thing is shockingly loud and then the rifle fires back when the bullet leaved the gun. It was very strange and quite fun, i must admit. I am extremely bad though at hitting the target in the right places, so i hope no one counts on me to kill a polar bear, otherwise we will probably become a polar bear feast..

So here i am, one week in, and what i have learned so far is how i can die up here, hopefully this next week i will learn how to live! I cant wait.

1 comment:

  1. I can see you are having a great time!! Exciting to follow you!! Want to see pictures!!! Love from us in Trondheim!

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