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Arctic Adventures and Artistic Inspiration From Process to PerformanceArctic Adventures and Artistic InspirationI am honored to have been awarded a residency spot for the Arctic Circle’s summer solstice expedition in the waters around Svalbard in June 2017. Along with 29 other artists and scientists from around the world, I had the amazing opportunity to explore the far North and engage with international colleagues while sailing in a Barkentine tall ship along the coast of Spitsbergen in the waters of both the Greenland Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Upon my return, I created an interdisciplinary multi-media performance based on my research, which premiered in February 2018 at Saddleback College (Mission Viejo, CA), as well as a photography exhibit and lecture series, entitled MELT at the Potocki Art Center (opened January 20, 2018 with an afternoon of lectures on climate change, and with photos on display through mid March 2018). Throughout the process, I blogged about the creation of these works, starting with my travels to the end of the world… June 5- July 10: Journey to the Far North...Random Travel Statistics Selected books read pre-trip to prepare: Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler, A Naturalist’s Guide to the Arctic by E.C. Pielou, The Arctic: A Guide to Coastal Wildlife by Tony Soper, Insight Guide to Norway, and Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
June 7I arrived late afternoon yesterday in Oslo, Norway—still can’t believe my journey to Svalbard has finally begun! My heart jumps and my stomach leaps about in excitement every time I think about it…each day on this journey brings first—laying over in Stockholm—so gorgeously green and forested from the air—arriving in Oslo, surely the furthest north I’ve been (until the 10th, that is!), my view out the airplane window as we flew across Sweden and Norway was beautiful—thick stands of tall trees, lush green grass, and swirling, curving rivers that shone like molten silver as the sunlight bounced off of them. I lugged my gear through the airport, the Flytoget train, and up the cobbled city blocks to Smarthotel Oslo—my room is so cozy! Small, like a little nest. Today it is grey and rainy, so I spent the day at museums, crossing the Oslofjord on the ferry, thrilling at the wind on my face and the gentle feel of the waves beneath me, like an old friend after so many years away from the sea—even the mingling of diesel fuel on the salty breeze was nostalgic. I visited the Polar Fram museum, gasping audibly when I realized that THE Fram ship itself was on display and accessible to the public—I wandered the exhibits, reading about these hardy explorers, marveling over the items they carried, examining photos—it made me even more excited about the opportunity to be part of this upcoming artist residency—every time I see a map, I stare with wonder at Svalbard, so far north, so unimaginable, so mystical! Alone, I walked the deck of the Fram, imagining the bitter cold conditions, the teams of dogs, supplies, scientific equipment and ice that accompanied each expedition. The museum was three levels, with the ship in the center, so I could see the Fram from many angles—I was astounded that the huge wooden curving hull could survive the crushing passage through the ice…and Nansen intentionally lodged her in the frozen landscape, to drift with the polar pack ice, such pressure grinding on that ship—a crucible of Nature! I recalled the Nansen bottles we used to take samples for oceanography labs on the R/V Sea Explorer, and suddenly made the connection—the museum had a beautiful collection of the bottles used on the Fram expeditions…I pictured them dropping overboard in the frigid seas. I wished someone was here with me to share that observation; while I am happy to explore and wander on my own, experiences are so much more meaningful when they are shared…it’s as if the presence of someone else affirms and heightens the memory, and even if one never speaks of it, the knowledge that two minds have recorded it makes the memory of it that much richer. I imagined Nansen and his men, and all the “firsts” on their voyages, in terms of both science and exploration. When I left the Fram museum, the downpour continued, so I spent a nautical-themed afternoon browsing through the other two nearby museums on the island: the Kontiki museum and the Norwegian Maritime History museum. Both were incredibly interesting—both the Kontiki and the Ra were housed inside the first museum, and I especially enjoyed learning about the adventurous undertakings of Thor Heyerdahl in his pursuit of experimental maritime archeology! Towards late afternoon, the rain let up and I took the ferry back to Oslo, stopping to tour the Nobel Peace Museum, where again, I saw Fridtjof Nansen’s name in the displays, this time for his great humanitarian efforts, including the creation of the Nansen Passport to resettle refugees…truly a great and accomplished man! June 8 - 9It is already my last night in Oslo—the eve before my great adventure truly begins! I am filled with excitement—the world map will spread wider for me tomorrow as I fly into new territory—landscapes yet uncharted by me. I am looking forward to meeting the other artists and scientists, and am humbled and honored to be among them! Several are on my flight, so introductions will begin at the airport. Hopefully the rain will pause for a few hours so I can haul my luggage to the train station (I realize now why it is called luggage)! The skies have been deeply grey throughout most of the last three days; I can imagine how beautiful and beckoning all the city parks must be in the warm, sun-drenched summer, but I spent my time inside the many museums of the city (a prefect way to pass rainy days). Despite the drizzle, I also walked Karl Johans gate this afternoon, as I’m sure every tourist must, and am quite glad that I am staying a few blocks from the madness of the shops, tourists and street hawkers. I have loved the purple pansies that overfill each flower bed—the lilac and vivid purple blossoms such a lovely contrast to the wet grey of the stones and asphalt, and the lush green of broad leaves and thick trees. The colors of the Oslofjord have mirrored the sky—appearing almost liquid black yesterday as I leaned over the pier to watch three jellies pulsing, barely seen right beneath the surface—like gelatinous yellowy egg yolks. I hope to see much more marine life in the weeks ahead! Likewise the strong maritime themes of so many of the museums I visited make me eager to set foot on our tallship (and a bit nervous)! Certainly Norway is a nation deeply connected to the sea, from Vikings to polar explorers, and experimental marine archeologists like Thor Heyerdahl; I have enjoyed seeing examples of these historic vessels from so many periods. Now I await the journey to our vessel, and towards new acquaintances…and especially towards new landscapes and inspiring adventures yet unimagined! It is already my last night in Oslo—the eve before my great adventure truly begins! I am filled with excitement—the world map will spread wider for me tomorrow as I fly into new territory—landscapes yet uncharted by me. I am looking forward to meeting the other artists and scientists, and am humbled and honored to be among them! Several are on my flight, so introductions will begin at the airport. Hopefully the rain will pause for a few hours so I can haul my luggage to the train station (I realize now why it is called luggage)! The skies have been deeply grey throughout most of the last three days; I can imagine how beautiful and beckoning all the city parks must be in the warm, sun-drenched summer, but I spent my time inside the many museums of the city (a prefect way to pass rainy days). Despite the drizzle, I also walked Karl Johans gate this afternoon, as I’m sure every tourist must, and am quite glad that I am staying a few blocks from the madness of the shops, tourists and street hawkers. I have loved the purple pansies that overfill each flower bed—the lilac and vivid purple blossoms such a lovely contrast to the wet grey of the stones and asphalt, and the lush green of broad leaves and thick trees. The colors of the Oslofjord have mirrored the sky—appearing almost liquid black yesterday as I leaned over the pier to watch three jellies pulsing, barely seen right beneath the surface—like gelatinous yellowy egg yolks. I hope to see much more marine life in the weeks ahead! Likewise the strong maritime themes of so many of the museums I visited make me eager to set foot on our tallship (and a bit nervous)! Certainly Norway is a nation deeply connected to the sea, from Vikings to polar explorers, and experimental marine archeologists like Thor Heyerdahl; I have enjoyed seeing examples of these historic vessels from so many periods. Now I await the journey to our vessel, and towards new acquaintances…and especially towards new landscapes and inspiring adventures yet unimagined!  June 10At the gate in Oslo, about ten of us met for the first time—shaking hands and making introductions, everyone excited about the journey ahead. On the first flight from Oslo to Tromso, I sat next to a Welsh gentleman whose son worked for the Norwegian Polar Institute; we talked about ice and snow, and the shifts in seasons and warming weather in recent years. After proceeding through customs in Tromso, a much smaller group of passengers reboarded for the flight to Longyearbyen; I got my journal out to write, but ended up talking with Robert about his work, and then excitedly exclaiming about the wondrous sea ice with Lynne, our noses and foreheads pressed to the cool windowpane, peering down at the deep turquoise sea with fractal-like patterns of fractured sea ice, stretching in vast floating spirals from land…and what land indeed! We followed the sea ice as it curled towards Svalbard, and it was awe-inspiring to see the thick white curves of snow, the deep furrowed paths of slow-moving glaciers, the rich brown of the earth—mountains and valleys and reaching fingers of the sea carving through this surreal landscape of the north—so alien and remote—truly sublime and beautiful! Upon landing we congregated in the small airport, exchanging further handshakes and introductions in a flurry of names as we retrieved luggage and took inventory. We piled onto the bus and within minutes spotted the light tan summer coat and bold antlers of a male reindeer! By the time we reached the Coal Miner’s Cabins, we had tallied six, including a female with two calves. After stripping off shoes and jackets, we padded into the bar/restaurant, all dark woodsy tones and thick with conversation and huddled groups nursing deep amber pints. Our group filled the tables along one side as introductions and handshakes went round again, this time with the full group of thirty, many of whom had arrived on earlier flights, and everyone squeezed into tables; outside the tall windows the light was a hazy gray, bouncing off the bright white snow against the deep muddy brown of the revealed earth underneath. After dinner, Pablo, Adam and I donned our heavy coats to walk around, our boots squelching in the fresh mud, meltwater and soft shaved-ice-like banks. The tang of the cold air felt so refreshing and pure, the only sound our footfalls and the steady melodious trickle of snow melt dripping into a gently rushing streamlet. June 11My roommate is still sleeping but I have not yet shaken off all the clasp of jet lag—wide awake at 4:30 AM(which looks the same as 4:30 PM, or 10 PM or 2 AM—a soft-grey-late-afternoon-cloudy light that has been constant since our arrival). I lay in bed til 7:30 AM, filled with anticipation about the adventure that has begun, listening to the running meltwater right outside the window…the window! Such a view! We threw wide the window last night, filling the room with that electric, enticing, revitalizing air, marveling in the sloping snowy hill right outside, packed with a slightly menacing blanket of snow on its flat top, the scree slopes slanting sharply towards us. Our cabin, and in fact the majesty of the location, reminds me a bit of the alps, except this is so much more remote! One feels the closeness of the far North, the stirrings of excitement and newness felt by the polar explorers, the isolated rawness of nature—stark and sublime. Today with breakfast in our bellies, we will gather for formal introductions with Sarah, our lead guide, and then, a day to explore! My mind and heart are filled with images from our arrival yesterday—my words do not even begin to approach the breathtaking peaks and valleys of Svalbard as we flew over them, the wings of the plane seeming to just skim over the deeply snowed-in mountains—and the spread of the sea ice was indescribable—it looked as if we were flying high above a sky dotted with clouds, like the wild wide broken-up bits of water vapor that diffuse and spread across a high cloud ceiling, but this was an entirely different state of matter—deep, cold liquid and shattered bits of solid frozen water—almost the opposite of the sky vision one imagines it might be—a quite different reflection of shades of blue and white. So difficult to get a sense of size—how massive were these bergs? How recently had they fractured? How deep beneath the surface might they reach, or were they just floating upon it—the scientific classification of solid, liquid and gas is certainly not enough to represent the range of water in this environment, nor are blue and white adequate color descriptors. I imagine in the weeks ahead I will encounter hues of turquoise, cobalt, teal, sapphire and white as yet unseen by my eyes! ~ Midnight. And the light is as bright as noon, with a strong sun high overhead, legs and feet aching from the long walk back from the beach beyond town where we had a crackly bonfire on the black gravel sand, with the waves gently sluicing into the shore mere meters away. The warmth of the fire chased the cold away, and the sun brightened as the evening wore on. I walked the beach photographing beach wrack—bits of greenish kelp and sea grass—colorful against the pebbled hues of the shale beach, crunching delicately underfoot. The afternoon spent in town writing postcards (with polar bear stamps!), and exploring an old stilted abandoned mining facility, full of rusting machinery and coal “buckets” hung from conveyor belts, the old windowpanes revealing the white and brown mountains and colorful prefab houses beyond. The beach bonfire was magical—such a different experience than a SoCal beach—wrapped up in parkas and hats, the hot fire and nighttime sun bringing balance, served dahl and rice out of giant silver pots by the smiling guides, while Sarah’s dog Nemo roamed gleefully (what a happy life for a dog)! Tomorrow we set sail; we glimpsed the Antigua from the beach, anchored further up the fjord—such an air of anticipation as we prepare to transfer our gear and climb aboard our new home tomorrow. June 12We are at sea! It is difficult to write while wearing gloves, and it is exhilarating and very cold up on deck with the cold arctic wind and the salty sea spray, but I would feel like I was missing out on something truly unique and spectacular if I were to go into the warm dark-rich-mahogany-wooded and brass salon. The landscape that we are passing is rugged, raw and wild—so stark and silent. The only sounds are the swishing of waves, and the hum of the motors—the sea has progressively darkened from a frothy cool teal to a deep matte sapphire, and the blue sky has quietly closed to drifting fog and thickening clouds. My fingers, beneath my thin gloves, burn with the cold, and despite my layers, a cool chill settles across my spine and down into the toes of my boots, but I am content to remain in the thralls of the sea, as each moment the landscape shifts—a deepening of fog, a slanting bit of sun, the angle of the snow-scarred cliffs—each glance, each perspective, entirely new! **brief note: as I transcribe this entry into my laptop, I am sitting in the afore mentioned salon, and through the old speakers wired through this room and the kitchen I hear a B-side song from Roxette…my favorite cassette of 1989 (who could forget The Look?), but definitely not heard in the U.S. since!** Small gulls and terns wheel and dive lazily about us, and everywhere are the textures of tradition and nautical adventure: twisted tan ropes and stretched taut lines, the clean slatted wooden deck, the shiny deep forest green metal hull. Overhead the lines ascend to meet the masts and rolled canvas sails, vantage points merging and melding, with the fog-shrouded sun piercing through…as I write, the texture and sound of the wind shifts slightly, the ship moving gently beneath us, almost like the supple smooth gait of a horse. She, the Antigua, is a beautiful and proud host to us. Many people have moved inside, chased in by the cold, huddled with mugs of hot tea in the salon, bent over their journals–we just saw a seal! He popped his head up off the port side—what a gift to see! I feel ten degrees warmer with the exhilaration of the pinniped sighting, but soon will have to give in and join those inside. There are just a few of us out now—seated in deck chairs, lounging in the zodiac on mid deck, watching from the bow—the sea continues to darken, taking on deeper hues of grey, and the clouds settle in over the mountains, sinking lower and settling into our bones and flesh, inducing runny noses and shivers! The waves move slowly past, transitioning from blue to grey as we move towards the open sea ahead… ~ Evening. I am nestled in my bunk, the ocean swishing and sloshing against the metal wall, like waves against a shore, only the shore is the hull beside me. Our cabin is tiny—difficult at first to maneuver (we were both initially skeptical of how our luggage would fit), but like precise puzzle pieces, we squirreled everything away. It is such a feeling of comfort to crawl into the bunk, wrapping the blanket around me, lulled in the cradle of the sea and the steady lullaby-hum of the ship’s engine. Uncharted territories lay outside…fog-settled vistas of rolling blue-grey seas frothed by wavelets, cutting smoothly past furrowed mountains sloping to the sea with snow-edged scree, rich shades of brown (who knew how diverse and expressive brown could be). Stirring to think that beneath my body and the underbelly of the ship lay fathoms-deep icy-cold water, sinking down into darkness and unknown depths—full and black and expansive, the fingers of midnight sun filtering only so far before being swallowed up by the depths. The summer sea here supposedly nutrient-rich and warmer than its winter counterpart—we have already glimpsed one beautiful seal as he surfaced—imagine the life that swims beneath us! We browsed the bird guide after a delicious (!!!) dinner, deciding that we have so far seen glaucous gulls, Northern fulmar, barnacle geese, arctic terns, purple sandpipers, and in Longyearbyen, the beautiful white and black songbirds were snow buntings! In summer, they probably still play in the skies all night, a night where there is no nightfall. Somewhere hangs the moon—but where? Has the emboldened sun chased her from the sky, or does she delicately lay hidden by blue skies and seeping fog, or perched behind cliffs and flat-topped peaks? Perhaps we shall spy her on the open sea–the sun and the moon, ancient lovers who dance an intricate slow duet in the heavens, with the stars cast between them like a sparkling net, perhaps in the land of the midnight sun these two celestial bodies briefly meet, or maybe spin just out of reach of one another—the light of one dimming and chasing away the other in an endless game of hide-and-seek while the sea watches from below. The sea…up here the cold makes everything seem more raw, more wild, more infinite. What possibilities and vistas will tomorrow bring as we sail north, like the great explorers before us… June 13First landing! And I am first to step out on the shore from the zodiac (besides the guides of course, who have been here scouting out the location, and are stationed like sentries at the edges of our field of vision, like rocks carrying rifles). The vista is incredible—a massive furrowed glacier with deep brown and turquoise grooves, an eon-cold slow-moving river of ice, carving a path to the sea, and shedding tumbling, dense chunks of ice with thunderous crashes into the deep, cold waters of 14th of July Bay. The National Geographic Explorer is in with us, situated at the other end; our tallship looks beautiful against the backdrop of the glacier and a tall green-tinged rock face housing hundreds of small crying birds, nesting safely in the high cliffs. On the beach the sea has tossed up small bergy bits—diamond-like glittering chunks of ice that slowly crackle in the air—on close inspection I can see the tiny spreading crystalline fissures forming lattices in the glassy clearness—snapping, popping, hissing. The shapes of the sea are stunning—some look like clear spiraling bodies, or pock-marked quartz, twisting and reaching fingers, with welling drops of meltwater blooming and falling, blooming and falling, the shapes ephemeral and shifting, laying exposed upon the khaki sand, smooth and pillow-soft, wet save for the etched footprints of our Wellies, and the spreading webbed feet of water fowl. Beyond the reach of the wet sand and the slowly disappearing crystal castles, lays a blanket of beach wrack, evidence of past higher tides and rougher seas: a jumble of dried kelp, assorted grey pebbles, delicate bleached white bird bones (so fragile and tiny!), a few dashes of shades of green—more recent upheavals from the sea, with the life still fading. As I crunch slowly across the beach, I encounter a treasure—Svalbard saxifrage—lovely magenta blossoms nestled into the rocky shore! Nearby orange lichens radiate out from rocks—strong survivors in a harsh environment, brilliant splashes of color among the greys, browns, blues and whites! ~ Afternoon landing: I am sitting beside a glacier on an ancient rock smoothed by the passage of time, between the sturdy face of rock-meeting-ice and the calm mirrored waters of the bay. Beneath my feet are a beachful of rocks, their sizes and shapes squeezed by the glacier and the rough weather, crunching under my feet as I walk, whispering their lengthy stories in shards. The only other sounds are the lapping wavelets (growing fiercer when pushed by the abrupt calving of the glacial face, breaking open with resounding crashes to reveal startling, shocking blue veins), and the continual running waters of the glacial melt, the inevitable end of its centuries-long march to the sea; waterfalls run swiftly out of the crevices, sliding and curving through the soft sand, little rivulets with long histories. The starkness of this place defies words and pictures—each shot more stunning than the last, and equally inadequate to describe. Snow and ice lay scattered across the beach, like forgotten or cast-aside scarves of a goddess—perhaps Freya herself rested here, delighting in the roaring thunder of breakaway ice, conducting and calling the resultant waves across the bay towards her. The sun pierces weakly through the heavy clouds and fog—but really it is the damp grey air that heightens the sense of the sublime, the weight of isolation, the immeasurable grandeur of this place. The newly exposed face of the glacier gleams a vivid and fragile blue, the fractured angles of ice too numerous to count—a cubist sculpture of nature in constant shift. The water is glassy-still, each small ripple can be traced clear across the bay and the small bergs in the water drift lazily. Close to the calving face, the water tries to reflect up the same oceanic turquoise: a blue bathed in white, fed with minerals, and oh-so-cold. So many textures everywhere—the veins in the ice, run-thru with silt and sand, bursting blue when opened; the scarred and smoothed rocks—hidden hues and patterns that emerge as one peers closer; the sea itself—transitioning from the brilliant blue of a husky’s eye to the dark steel blue of cold, deep water; the infinite patterns of ice forming hollows that drip into non-existence, grooves and traces that deepen with each passing minute and whisper of long journeys across these islands; the muddy, silty sand, ground down by the harshness of ice, an unforgiving lover, such fine grains and long pasts…Tim, one of the guides, said that a lot of the mountains of Svalbard have been a billion years in the making, thrown up by tectonic shift. I could write for hours and not capture any of the majesty of this place! A growing groaning sound crescendo-ing into thunder heralds explosions of white powder and spikes of dashing blue as a huge piece of the glacier falls into the sea, the spreading wave moving out in the aftermath, the bay resettling into silence after a restless sleep, knowing that more violent upheavals lay ahead… ~ Retrospective, added once back on the ship: I decide to put away my camera and journal, and really take time to look; instead of continually documenting and reflecting, to really BE in the moment, in this place, in this extraordinary environment, and indeed, as soon as I put my journal away on the shore, I saw a sleek rounded head emerge from the sea—a beautiful ringed seal popping up to observe us along the beach—he swam up and down the bay, silently rising and sinking beneath the glassy surface. I sat and watched the sea, listening to the sounds of change—states of matter in transition. Louise, one of our rifled guides, called me over and offered me her binoculars, pointing out an extremely fleet-footed reindeer very high up the sheer cliffs beside us, while above, the birds wheeled and turned, coming and going from their nesting colonies… Conversations And Dinner Happens (again, a lavish beautiful affair of lovely vegetables and savory flavors!) I peer out on deck as we sail up along the northwestern coast in the late evening—the water is like glass, with long slow undulating waves cresting lazily away from us as we sluice through the ocean. The fog has closed in, deep soft hues of grey—one can easily imagine Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or other such romantic myths and monsters looming in the mist—but instead, a seal surfaces, and Northern fulmar birds glide besides us. The dove-grey shroud closes in on the land, but the contrast with the pristine-white powdered snow piled on the beach is almost blinding, and up ahead, visible in the next groove in the coastline, the vibrant blue of a glacier appears. Sarah tells us that through the night we will sail past the seven glaciers, numerically named. She also tells us the sad tale of four lives lost in this region a hundred years ago, reminding us of the treachery of this environment, and the thin line between life and death, salvation and sleeping an eternity in the snow… I finger-paint with a melting bit of this afternoon’s glacier to bring the saxifrage and glacial seams to life in my journal, and while on deck, sight two puffins tussling in the water–tumbling rotund white glossy bellies, sleek black backs, and bright orange beaks! Imagine what dwells beneath the surface here—a whole world unseen…throughout the day I was reminded of the saying: draw a circle around yourself and within it find 300 things to be noticed (paraphrased, of course). Indeed, from the micro to the macro, innumerable treasures wait to be revealed if only we take the time to look properly—the natural world unfolds spectacularly from multiple perspectives, and as the sun’s reign in the sky creeps towards summer solstice, and the landscape slowly warms from its winter spell, each day, each hour the islands renew—glaciers sliding to uncover new land, ice dissolving to reveal stones and tenacious green growing things, snow sliding and dripping down, down, down to the sea, carving a unique path behind it, migrating animals molting, nesting, birthing, fighting, mating, dying—so much life within a place of seeming silence and solitude… June 14 Smeerenbergfjorden: we are at the northern tip of Spitsbergen, where the whaling boom was centered in the 17th century. The vista that met us, when we emerged from the warm and cozy salon from breakfast, was truly stunning—the frozen sea lay before us—the water under the hull a deep, dense mineral-rich turquoise-teal, smooth as glass, and a few meters from the ship the surface begins to shift towards solid, the water thickening and blanching to ice, first soupy than more and more bergy bits, ending against spectacular glaciers on one side, with tall craggy peaks rising out of the fog behind, and on the other side, the horizon melts away into ice; we take the zodiacs out (small groups of four aboard), slowly navigating through the ice, rather ominous crunches each time we pass over larger bits—the melting ice looks like diamonds containing starfields, suspended in an aquamarine-hued heaven. Beneath the surface the ice hangs down, reminding us that size and scale are often not what they seem. Indeed, from the deck of the Antigua, the glacier appears very close, but when we zoom towards it in the zodiacs, Antigua shrinks in the distance—I realize that the towering cliff of ice is more massive than it appears. There is an enormous ice cave in its face, with hundreds of birds circling and flying in and out—every few minutes, the birds rush out, and a thunderous calving event follows—the cracks and crevices slowly widening to reveal vivid blue veins, until gravity and the melting friction of warming air inspire sections to take the plunge, falling away into the sea, large waves rolling out in their wake. We sight purplish-magenta ctenophores, like thick undulating strands of hair in the water, and one tuxedoed guillemot, looking quite regal—when our zodiac came too close, he kicked underwater, revealing his bright orange feet. Everywhere is ice, and everywhere there are new shades of blue, never before seen! As the fog shifts, and bits of sun slide through, the colors enrich and deepen. It is difficult to think that up until probably a century ago, this gorgeous, serene, meditative place of beauty played host to haunted death and the bloodied greed of man; I gaze into the still blue waters and think about the horrors of whaling—in fact, ‘smeeren’, for which this fjord, glacier and farther spit of land are named, means ‘blubber’ in Norwegian—these gentle giants of the sea slaughtered to satisfy the greed of civilized society—for lamplight and corsets and perfume and fuel…here and now, it seems a sanctuary; the seal that swam around our ship, the birds that floated lazily near our zodiac are merely curious—they have not (yet) known the viciousness of man. It is incredible to be in a place like this—almost as far from civilization, from “the things of man”, that one can get—it is hard to reconcile this with the ridiculous bustle of shopping malls, of the fume-ridden tangles of LA freeways. It is such a gift to be out of connection with the rest of the world, no internet or email or pressing engagements, nothing but NOW. Like the other members of my zodiac (Adam, Lynne and Brandy, with Benja at the helm), I snap dozens of photos, squirming and exclaiming and readjusting as something new reveals itself, a sudden gem in a landscape that already defies attempts at capture…yet I know each of my images will be inadequate, each digital rendering of the shifting blues in the ice will be lacking, each distance shot will not express the sheer magnitude of this place, the vast silence of the icefield, the indomitable magic of this environment…my words do not– Case in point: suddenly while I am writing about this morning’s experiences, outside there was a tremendous rolling crash that kept growing in volume—everyone rushed back outside to see the façade and roof of the large ice cave collapse and crumble into the sea—although it happened quite fast, time seemed to slow—the rumble, the crumbling and fracturing of the great slabs of ice, as the cave face just fell away, the ice creating huge plumes of powder and surf as they slowly somersaulted into the sea. The momentous wave rolling and building, moving past our ship as we swayed side to side. Reflections dance on the surface of the water, teasing spectres of mountains in the mist, curving ledges of frozen time, exposed veins of boldest-blue, carving time and space out of the looming peaks behind. Small clouds nestle in the valleys of the blanketed mountains, floating sculpted cities of ice moving with the current in the foreground, seemingly still until one notices that the perspective has changed. Antigua slowly drifting round her anchor chain, shifting fluidly with the waters…and such waters! The blues of the sky exchanging tones with the sea, like a game of dress-up that the land joins in playing as well, two sisters trying on each other’s clothes. The mountains gleefully throwing their image into the water, letting the currents and the wake of the zodiacs sluice through, fragmented just like the glacial face, leaping to join its lover, the ice collapsing and melting into the arms of the ocean, telling stories through shifting states and sculptures that soften and change each moment, expelling glimmering diamonds and exchanging crystal clarity for aquamarine escape, joining the waters that travel the world, after centuries locked in the ice. The world has changed a dozen times over since last these shards of ice glimpsed the sky… ~ Afternoon landing: We have made landfall in the zodiacs on a tall, rounded island overlooking Smeerenberg glacier. It is very remote; Sarah says that people hardly ever come here, and our bootprints trod on virgin snow, untouched but by eider ducks, some of whom are nesting on the island. The delicate origami-like arctic terns squeak and wheel on the wind overhead, nipping at one another in games of chase. Other than birds and the erratic thunder of the nearby calving glacier and waves lapping gently on the snowbanks, it is silent here. The only unnatural sounds are our boots crunching in the deep snow. Bits of messy soil with timid tiny growing things are revealed where the snow has melted away, shying away from the rocks, but Sarah says a footprint here will mark forever, so fragile is this earth–we walk only in the hard-packed snow or hopscotch our way across exposed rocks. I am uneasy just walking in the snow—I don’t like the traces all our meandering criss-crossing boot trails leave; it makes me sad that we have marked the snow in such a manner, even temporarily. The view, however, is remarkable. Antigua sits below on the glassy bay, backed by the startling blue glacial face. Fingers of the glacier ooze out between each hill and mountain, edging in on the fjord, which appears dwarfed by the monumental frozen rivers. Before me, a mountain across the shallow water has a tail that curves down to the sea like a sleeping dragon; one can certainly imagine myths of sea monsters and deities taking hold of sailors from every era! And the whiteness (!!!)—my eyes begin to squint when I gaze out over the snow—the blued glacier seems softer to look at, even though in actuality, it is hard and strong and violent and tenacious…and it is the snow that softens and melts under pressure. The ice behemoth is the physicalization of pressure—squeezing, shaping and reforming its surroundings as it crawls to the sea, pushing obstacles from its passage. The air is clear and cold against my skin; I have hardly any skin peeking through my layers, but I feel the vulnerability in my flesh when the glacial breeze touches me. To my right, the glacial field has a stripe of deep brown, like a spine through the landscape—the armored ridges of sapphire might be the back of some ancient beast, lumbering across the island. This place is both harsh and extremely delicate, and I feel the importance for action against climate change, action to keep places like this moving at the pace of nature, not mankind. I remember again the reason for the naming of this fjord, where legend says that during the height of whaling, one could walk across the slaughtered bodies, so thick was this bay with blood and death. These now still and serene waters were the site of great fear and chaos and suffering—the snow would have been deepened to crimson, and the fresh pure air dense with rot and decay. If a place like that can recover, and return to a sublime and breathtaking place like this, then perhaps there is hope for man, and for nature. Although the irony is that often we must see or experience something to truly understand, or care, about it, yet as ecotourism increases, how many careless footsteps will it take to scar this land forever, to push it past the point of return? This place transforms hourly, as we have seen here today with the dramatic calving events and the slowly melting reveal of earth on this island—what will next week, month, year, decade or century bring…or worse, what will it reap? June 15Last night the captain sailed Antigua right up to a shining-bright glacier, with a spreading shelf of ice projecting out. They tried to anchor the ship by nestling it up into the ice, but a strong wind blew down from the length of the glacier, pushing us seaward, and so this morning when we woke, we were at the farthest northwestern corner of Svalbard—a series of tiny snow-capped islands above Fairhaven Bay, which look out to the Arctic Ocean. The zodiacs made landfall at a rocky outcropping, frosted with slags of icy snow and looking up towards a low hill blanketed with beach wrack; the temperature is too low for proper decomposition, and these tangled webs of kelp have clearly frozen, thawed, refrozen, thawed many times—they are almost ossified, a weird consistency between slimy and frigid. Our boots sink into the mounds of half-rotting sea weed as we walk, and it starts to snow, beautiful tiny flakes drifting down, blown from the northern dark foreboding waters between two outlying islands. The snow makes soft pattering sounds against our Gore-tex, and the white flakes look ethereal against the rich reds, oranges, rusts, browns and mustards of the knotted kelp. I decide to focus on capturing texture images, hesitant about bringing my Sony camera out in the light arctic snow. I use my iPhone, keeping it nested and warm in my jacket pocket in between each image. Bleached white brittle bird bones, tiny and delicate; a long cream-colored whale bone, curved and revealing its lattice-like porous end; slick maroon seaweed, more recent arrivals to the island, as evidenced by the still malleable fronds; tiny crushed pink sea snails, adding a new hue to my arctic collection of colors; apple-green algae, smelling strongly of sulphur; holdfasts still tightly gripping mottled rocks, uprooted with home attached, now sharing a beach with halved sea urchin tests, spiraling white shells and blooming black and orange lichens. I walk across the small island towards the northernmost point, treading carefully on the rocks to avoid the lichens and the mossy green mounds of earth underneath the kelp blanket. I sit facing out to sea, my ears tuned to the gentle to and fro of the wavelets that lick the rounded rocks of the coast, which are elegantly crusted with miniscule barnacles—here growth is a luxury, and small means efficient energy use. The snow continues to fall for the two hours we are on shore (and indeed, the whole day), and today I feel the elements; my fingers, toes and face slowly chilling and numbing—I don’t mind, the snow is so special here at the literal edge of the world, and the thought of the luxuriously warm salon and cabins that we will all return to on Antigua make the cold bearable. A pair of Great Skua birds circle overhead, their shrieks rending the air every few minutes. I hear a sharp exhalation, and turn towards Fairhaven Bay, thinking it was a whale blow…even better! A large walrus is swimming past, two breaths at the surface each cycle, his large head breaking the water and then the long, slow view of his broad brown back and his flippers as he dives. We track his progress across the bay, surfacing every five minutes or so—it is easy to see how myths of mermaids were seeded, with his graceful spreading tail (although quite a tusky and whiskery visage)! I could see that legends of sea hags and sorceresses perhaps originated with creatures like this. The view from the top of the island is stunning—far to the north there are several large (they must be quite large) gleaming white ice bergs in the distance, as well as a glowing brilliant bit of blue—new ice floating free, no doubt, but monstrous in size! A wide flat berg floats swiftly south past us—I follow its progress past our island, past Antigua, two dark-feathered skuas perched on top, and the wider turquoise mass of the berg visible underwater (in addition to shore waves, I can hear waves breaking against the ice, wearing smooth a circumferencing-groove at the waterline). The snow slants diagonally across my field of vision, adding an extra layer of magic to the experience of this arctic island. By the time we pile back into the three zodiacs, everyone is cold, hunched together in the black rubber boats against the salt spray and crystal flakes. When we climb aboard, clean our boots and struggle inside, we are greeted with the warm, fragrant smell of lunch in the making! After lunch, when we have all thawed a bit, the engines are humming as we move further north, beyond the land masses of Svalbard, and out on the open sea towards the pack ice. Larger and more exotic looking bergs float by and it continues to snow—a large walrus hauls out on a nearby berg, causing all of us to rush out on the mid-deck in our cabin slippers and quickly-gathered coats to photograph him; his long curved tusks a yellowed-white, and his thick skin a deep dull brown. He glances at us, and slides into the water, surfacing frequently and swimming around, resting on the underwater ice shelf of the berg. The prow of Antigua faces due north, sailing further and further into the Arctic Ocean… ~ …According to Jessamyn’s latitute and longitude app, we are now at 79.59 degrees—we have sailed steadily north from Svalbard, the islands jagged in the background, lit by a dawn-like candle-yellow glowing light seeping out below a heavy dark grey stormy cloud layer—it has been snowing lightly since morning, and the bergs are more dramatic with each passing minute. The captain and the crew move hurriedly about deck and there is an air of something tremendously exciting to occur. Soon, to our amazement, Antigua stops, grounding carefully against a large stable ice floe, the middeck ramp is opened and Tim jumps down onto the ice with a large manual drill—he bores into the ice and then jams a tall log in upright. Alwin also jumps overboard and marches through the shin-deep snow, throwing a line from the bow around the log, then a second line from the stern. The procedure is repeated about ten meters over, and voila—we are anchored firmly to the ice! Sarah then announces that we may disembark onto the ice, and everyone scurries like children to their cabins to don our warmest clothes (and our life vests). It is a remarkable feeling to step onto the sea ice—truly untouched (by humans) powder! It crunches satisfyingly underfoot, and I sink down to nearly my knees. I stand in one spot and dig the hard-packed snow away, exposing the strong clear-blue ice beneath (and under that is of course the sea, some meters down)! What a striking vista–Antigua anchored in the ice floe, behind us the rugged northernmost islands of Svalbard, ahead of us in the distance, the massive front of the pack ice, and around us on all sides, the dark, dark grey still waters of the Arctic Ocean, dotted with powerful roaming bergs with shining white-teal underbellies. Another walrus and ringed seal surface to check out what we are doing, and birds cavort in the air. All four guides stand guard against polar bears at the edges of the ice, taking their task very seriously. The snow comes down thicker and faster, and the cold seeps into my bones—sharp and biting until the lure of a warm indoor porthole view is irresistible (also, the berg, virgin when we arrived, has now been adorned over and over with chaining patterns of boots, crossing and circling, and I wonder where the limits of this strong-but-fragile berg are…true, here there are enormous walruses and polar bears—the iceberg next to ours is marked with a purposeful crossing of polar bear prints (!!!)—but thirty excited artists tromping about for two hours on its surface might be a bit too much, so I head indoors to warm up)! If the anchor holds, the captain plans to keep us here overnight, sleeping spooned up against the body of the berg, adrift in the northernly sea, the last vestiges of land to our stern… Tim comes into the salon and informs us that in a mere two hours anchored we already drifted 2.5 kilometers west with our iceberg! By the time dinner is finished, the ice has closed in around us and the sun is peeking out, casting glowing light on the bergs and making the ocean look like a mirror. Sarah assures us that if any polar bears venture near in the night, we will be woken! June 16This morning we are still anchored on the port side—throughout the night I was awakened by ice gouging and scraping past the metal hull up against my bunk; I am on the starboard side, and my bottom bunk is just below the water line—the sounds of bergs bumping in the dark were quite exciting! The mass of the ship has pulled our berg in a large, slow circle of several kilometers overnight, and the ice floe keeps shifting, closing in around the ship and then diffusing out—I remember the gorgeous fractal patterns that we glimpsed from the air when we first flew to Longyearbyen a week ago, and realize with a start that we are part of those oceanic designs right now! The snow has stopped today, but the sky is a dark pensive grey, thick and close to the horizon, and the sea is almost black. I lean over the deck railing to photograph the ice—so many textures and colors in all the layers—porous spectacled powdered snow, thinning borders dissolving to clear at the edges, subsurface platforms a toothpasty-light-blue, tiny bubbles like shooting stars streaming away from the ice into the blackness . The ice varies in color from stark-blank-canvas-snow-packed-white to blackish-bluish-clearish liquid, and every tone and texture in between…some surfaces have collections of snowballs and hardening chunks, where bergs have collided and tumbled down like blocks, spilling across their neighbours’ territories, day-glo turquoise seams gleaming out, like a polar version of lava. There are robin’s egg blue arches, polished and layered like sandstone, and large flat white palettes tinged with red at the edges, evidence that birds or seals have lunched and left. The air is cold, and after two hours sitting on deck watching the fluid floating vista, my fingers and toes are numb—it takes several mugs of steaming hot chamomile tea to thaw me out. The bergs are strewn to the horizon in all directions, in some places like stepping stones and in others they mass together like a frozen puzzle. The ice varies in color from stark-blank-canvas-snow-packed-white to blackish-bluish-clearish liquid, and every tone and texture in between…some surfaces have collections of snowballs and hardening chunks, where bergs have collided and tumbled down like blocks, spilling across their neighbours’ territories, day-glo turquoise seams gleaming out, like a polar version of lava. There are robin’s egg blue arches, polished and layered like sandstone, and large flat white palettes tinged with red at the edges, evidence that birds or seals have lunched and left. The air is cold, and after two hours sitting on deck watching the fluid floating vista, my fingers and toes are numb—it takes several mugs of steaming hot chamomile tea to thaw me out. The bergs are strewn to the horizon in all directions, in some places like stepping stones and in others they mass together like a frozen puzzle. June 17When we crawled into our bunks last night we were gifted with a surreal symphony that was occurring right beneath Antigua; we could hear the male bearded seals singing in the waters close to our ship—beautiful siren-like decrescendo-ing wails that seemed to undulate and shimmer as waves of otherworldly sound. Around midnight, there was a great commotion, and someone ran up and down the narrow corridor knocking on each door…the signal for polar bear sighting! We all hurriedly threw on sweaters, coats and hats over our pajamas, grabbed our cameras, and rushed up on deck into the bitter cold air. The light, of course, was unchanged—still a flat foggy grey even in the middle of the night, with the blinding brightness of the white snow shining up. In addition to the sleeping older male bear we sighted earlier, there was now a female bear walking through the landscape (you can see her in the distance in my photo below)! We all took turns looking at her through the ship’s sighting telescope and the pairs of binoculars that were handed round. Through the larger magnifying lenses, I watched her walk, ambling through the snow, head forward and sniffing—beautiful! When we finally returned to bed, it was joyous to think that nearby, polar bears were also dreaming.
In the morning we sighted another bear on the ice (or perhaps the same one), and watched her padding across the frozen white plain—we also glimpsed an arctic fox bounding across in the opposite direction—quite fast, and already wearing his summer brown coat, despite the snow and ice! I was reminded of the Little Prince and his fox… After breakfast we took the zodiacs across to the northernmost island of Svalbard—we had photographed Ytre Norskoya from the backside the other day when we were in Fairhaven Bay; after gingerly wading through the bouldered beach, we hike up the steep snow-blanketed rocky hill for a spectacular view: the open ocean, with the pack ice up against the horizon and the ice bergs scattered across the deep blue expanse, Antigua anchored in the bay, layers of snow-covered craggy mountains behind us, and colonies of birds arcing everywhere in the air as they dive between their cliff face nests and the sea. The place is silent, save the crying birds, and the air is very cold. We pass several whaler’s graves on our long hike up—Sarah explains that the cyclical freezing and thawing of the permafrost and the passage of time have pushed up the coffins, despite layers of massive stones lain on top of them, and the splintered wooden planks (and bones) are visible among the mossy rocks and lichen-edged boulders. I do not take any photos here, wanting to honor the sleep of the dead in this faraway and forgotten place. Many of these whalers were young men who succumbed to scurvy…Tim later tells us of the extreme irony of this, since their graves are literally carpeted with mountain sorrel, rich in vitamin C…if only these arrogant men from faraway lands had bothered to learn about their environment instead of rushing to rape it, or studied and respected the ways of the indigenous arctic peoples, they would have known about the vast medicine cabinet of nature that was quietly growing between the rocks here. We hike on, boots crunching in the snow—the layers of white can be deceptive, and one time my foot breaks through suddenly and I sink almost up to my hip—needing Robert to give me a hand to pull me back out! The two peaks are marked by cairns of grey stones piled high, and we all spread out to find meditative places to sit and look out to sea, drinking in the magnificent vista. My skin, hot from the hike, quickly cools and before long, despite putting all my layers back on, I feel the cold sinking in—we are all very chilled by the time we gather for the hike back down, skidding and slipping on the quickly icing remains of our tracks up, as it starts to lightly snow. We arrive back on the ship for a delicious vegetable gratin, as we sail further along the northwest coast. Suddenly the Antigua slows and stops—another bear! This one is closer to the shore, sleeping in the snow—I gleefully look through the binoculars at the shaggy yellowed coat. The snow starts to fall harder and faster—flurries of white, like we are within a magical snow globe! Sarah announces a change in plans—with the bears and snowfall and fog, we will instead cruise along the coast and the fjord inlets for the afternoon…we slowly cruise back up Fuglefjordet, the fjord of birds, where we sailed in briefly a few nights ago hoping to anchor overnight to the ice (but were pushed back out by the wind coming off of the glacier). Now it is quite still, and the steady snowfall is breathtaking—the soft rustle of the flakes upon our coats, the still waters—almost a jeweled jade-blue color, with ice patterns slowly blooming and drifting on the surface as the snow falls down, down, down, disappearing into the sea. The shore is close—so white and icy—even though there is no sun, I must shade my eyes to look at it. Small guillemots and eider ducks glide on the surface, or fly to the three tidepool-like rocks in the middle. Jessamyn and I lean over the deck railing on the bow for quite a while, just watching the snowflakes tumble into the sea. It is almost trance-inducing, such an unnamable marine blue, dense and cold, with swirling, diagonally slanting ice crystals floating down. The bowsprit of the ship juts out over the icefield ahead—the weather-bleached wood and dirty canvas rolled sail such a sharp color contrast to the brilliant frozen white below. Each passing day brings such unique and stunning scenery; I can see the irresistible lure of the far north for explorers, and I understand now why people say that once the arctic is within your heart, it will call to you forever; there is something so visceral, so incomparable, so magnetic about this untamed and unspoiled place—truly one of the few wild spaces left on our little globe, spinning through the vast cosmos. There is such a sense of wonder in everything here—the tenacity of a shriveled small black colony of lichens, looking crisped and charred upon the island rock faces; the surprise of shades of green in unexpected places if one looks closely—lichens, mosses, even miniscule leaves—I think I may create a color palette of this arctic adventure, and see how many distinct hues I have captured! On the island this morning I found teeny-tiny shocking pink saxifrage, much more diminutive than those on the first beach—and even mounds of scarlet-tipped curled green leaves cozied up between rocks, looking almost like little mountain anemones! The spirit of survival feeds the fauna, and the flora here is adapted to deal with the harshest of conditions; every glance is new here—even places we have visited two days ago, like Fuglefjordet, look completely different—changed by the light, the falling snow, the shifting ice, and by us, as we carry new memories of our time on the sea ice, and view the world with new eyes that reflect the sea as we have seen it. After dinner, we sailed past a colony of walruses, lounging on a spit of sandy beach, their tough brown hides sun-dried and swollen after gorging on a feast from the sea. As we watched, several more popped up in the water closer to us—bobbing round heads and tusks disappearing underwater, their skin now shiny and glistening wet as they dove and splashed. Their antics reminded me that we had also seen a ringed seal this morning in the bay, who curiously swan back and forth, watching us from the water as we disembarked from the zodiacs and shed our life vests on a pile on shore. It is incredible to see so many seals on this trip—and especially, to hear them! Two nights in a row while we were anchored in the sea ice, I could hear bearded seals singing, their eerie siren songs echoing through the metal hull next to my bunk—these are the sounds that perhaps inspired the legends of selkies! I never imagined that I would actually be able to hear seals vocalizing from the ship (even though since my bunk is right below the water line, it does make sense), such a rare and special treat. In fact, right now we are moving at a good clip, the ship gently rocking, and the water sloshing against my wall—such a wonderful sound to fall asleep with, while I’m snuggled in my bunk!
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