And now my watch continues..

                                                         

It is January and I have returned to Svalbard without the sun. It will follow in a few months but for now the land is still dark except from the bright lights of Longyearbyen on the coast connected with Nybyen further in land situated at the base of two glaciers that I know to be there even without the sight of them. The mine that served as Santa’s grotto is still lit up on the hillside. The snow lying on the land is still here reflecting what light we receive and with it completing the brilliant contrast with the darkness of the sky and this creates the breathtakingly fullness of the moon and lights of distant stars. The meeting of recognizable faces as others return and a faint green tinge in the night sky draws a familiar end to my first day back on Svalbard.

This semester I have chosen to study geophysics. Studying the interactions between the air and the ice and the sea, and to study the dynamics of the glaciers present today on Svalbard. Not my strength, in all honesty it was an excuse to stay here longer. There are more hieroglyphs on the chalkboard than on the Rosetta stone during one hour of our lectures. Though it is very interesting when someone with a stronger background in physics asks a question or proposes a correction to be made to the equations by saying a word like epsilon; like that means something. When I see numbers and shapes that make interesting calligraphy, others see a principle, a defining quality of today’s Arctic landscape, a piece of the modellers puzzle in an attempt to understand how the world is changing. They say Van Gogh medically had to have seen the world differently and Beethoven was partially deaf and would have heard his music differently and these are innate senses given to those, others are trained or have developed their own way of perceiving the world around them. It is interesting to look on how other minds have been trained to see and understand this sequence of numbers and shapes and to see a dynamic existence.  I have been given the chance to understand the physical principle about how today’s arctic world functions and possibly how it will change and why recent weather conditions have unveiled. Though difficult I am not alone in my attempt to understand these processes that shape this land that inspires and changes people.

With the new season comes a new terrain, one suitable for a snowmobile or "scooter" as they are referred to here. Purchased before Christmas it has hibernated outside the university since the previous winter. Now however it lies crippled, unable to start it sleeps and waits until healed enough to move. So many scooters that never had the chance to roam again now litter the region and the snow gathers around their carcasses; hollow husks of machines that once dominated the land. The engine got lazy, the dirt collected and had to be cleaned and then with some new spark plugs she breathed again exhaling a smoky mix of petrol and oil. Now my mechanical beast can roam the Arctic tundra once again. The first trip was to Templefjordan where the valley opened up revealing a great mountain with a plateau  top called  Templet. known for its geological stratigraphy, the striped pattern on the mountain side created a lovely picture. The second trip made was to Barentsburg a Russian mining settlement. 

Built during the soviet era, this working coal mining settlement hosts a strange beauty. Much of the old style architecture is still present, some buildings with colourful soviet style murals painted on them depicting the Kremlin. With the icy streets so difficult to move on even the scooters couldn't get a grip, the coal and the dirt covering most of this industrious town and of course the watchful stare of Lenin with the words in Russian "Our Goal Communism" in the background is how I have pictured the Russian people of that era. Strong and independent looking at the world from another viewpoint. I hopefully will visit again to look around more closely at this town from another time and gain further insight into the people that worked there then and work there now. 

Daily adventures and lessons here are a constant, helping to differentiate the day to day more than the rising and setting of the sun; for only now is that becoming a real natural occurrence as the sun is scheduled to hit town on the 8^th March.

I would like to finish this article by also mentioning that a fellow student from SAMS studying alongside myself and other SAMS Arctic students has been hurt during a weekend trip to one of the local cabins. This accident sadly had her taken from Svalbard for further treatment. As I understand she handled herself bravely during the accident and the wait for help. We are all awaiting her return to Svalbard and her refreshing enthusiasm for the work here at UNIS.

-Allan

Hi guys,

Hope your all enjoying being back at SAMS now after Christmas (which seems ages ago) and the the new year - hope you have all had a good one!

So we've now been back here just over 3 weeks which again has flown by - but that is probably because we have been cramming so much into the weeks - hiking, learning, skidooing, eating....and there has been no time to be board.

Figure 1 - Me and my new kitchen buddies hiking up
Sarkofargen with Longyearbyen in the background.

So you heard all about the safety week from Ribanna - which was pretty awesome - hard work and long days - getting up at 6 am everyday was a challenge when the day was still dark all the time... but it was well worth and we learnt sooo much!
The week after that we started our lectures - which for me is both the Biology courses (which I have also been elected to represent in the student council) , AB-204 - Arctic Ecology and populations Biology along with AB-203 Arctic Environment Management. So far

Figure 2 - A three course meal student style.

we have done much more on AB-204 lecture wise - it is quite interesting, lots of modelling for populations. And also managed to meet some of the SAMS lot, Finlo and Collin for Beer and a Burger - which was really nice as we got to catch up on things going on at SAMS!!!
A short course which started last week is the History of Svalbard which i have been taking part in - a two week evening course with a really great lecture makes me actually feel i know a lot more about where i am staying and has been very interesting - including a trip to the little museum here. Another online short course i have also started is part of the University of the Arctic which introduces the circumpolar as a whole - environment, people, industry etc. - I thought I would give it a go whilst its still dark here as i think these short courses are good ways to make links across the Arctic and if i am to continue my studies in another location it maybe useful background knowledge - that and its just interesting.

Figure 3 - Beer and an Burger with Collin and Finlo!!!!!

We also in the second week had some snow scooter training - which was great fun!! initially we learnt a bit of basic maintenance how to check oil/coolant changing the variation belt (that's what the Norwegian name of it might translate too) ; along with how to load and strap a sled for excursions. Then for the fun bit we got to ride around doing turns, speed on the flat, driving with passengers/sleds, going up steep slopes (lots of speed :D) driving on a gradient etc. - all of which was very awesome and along with all the safety lectures on the snow scooters just made me itch to buy one....

Figure 4 - Snowscooter course - wrapped up and ready to go!
 (Photo Mekie Huntmann)

There has been other stuff (even more... so busy) going on too - last weekend was the one of the 1st conferences for the Youth Arctic Coalition http://youtharcticcoalition.org/ which myself and around 9 other students at UNIS. including Ribanna, got involved in. The video conference had a few technical issues as it was their first one however we were able as an active hub (as there was 10 of us) able to discuss given topics in the Arctic and give feed back to the conference. The conference itself was held in Ottawa, Canada but there were hubs in Denmark, Russia, Finland  and various other places and people from around the Arctic Circle. Minor some technical difficulty it was a great weekend to be involved in as it marks the beginning of this organisation and hopefully UNIS members can continue to be involved as it grows.

Figure 5 - Youth Arctic Coalition Conference Day 1 (Photo R. Dittrich)

This coming weekend myself and a friend, Caitlin Frankish -who studies Marine Biology in Southampton, are both doing some dive instructing for some of the locals in Longyearbyen. We have managed to get hold of some pool time so are hoping to get all their pool work done for their PADI open water courses which we maybe able to then complete in May - time dependent. Non the less it will be nice to get back to some teaching - even if its taken a bit to juggle and coordinate!

And the last exciting bit for this week (at least for me) is the purchase of my very own snowmobile!!! Well half of one! Its an old school machine but fingers crossed it will run for a few months and then i can manage to get out and about around Svalbard as there is soooo much to see!!!

That's all for now - sorry about ramming it full of text it's been a busy couple of weeks!!

Hope your all still enjoying!

Luci

Back to the edge of the world

I (Ribanna) arrived back in Longyearbyen on the 8th after spending an entire night at Oslo airport so that the first day consisted of unpacking and sleeping only. All the new students arrived within the next 4 days as of 13th of January there was the mandatory safety course we had to attend for being allowed to stay the spring semester.
Before the course started, I joined an exciting scooter trip to Cole's Bay which is only about one hour away from here (by scooters). Cole's Bay is an old Russian settlement which is abandoned since the 1960's. In the dark, a very creepy place, but quite cool and interesting at the same time. I have never sat on a scooter before and midway between here and Cole's Bay, I was allowed to take over. Such great fun to drive these scooters. The trip itself was also amazing, we had 1-2 quite tense situation when the scooters came very close to the cliff and/or a scooter got stuck in deeper snow, but after getting out of these situation, there was just happiness running through your body ;) We spent the night in an old Russian cabin which was really cozy.
Figure 1: Russian cabin in Cole's Bay (Credits: Maxi Claussen)
                                          
                                           Figure 2: Inside the cabin

                                        Figure 3,4,5: Inside some of the abandoned, Russian buildings


The safety course was pretty exhausting but good fun at the same time. We learned what the risks are being up here in the winter and spring season. This included first aid, glacier rescue, rifle handling, navigation and communication, HSE and administration stuff, emergency camp, sea ice properties and rescue and avalanche rescue.
The first aid course consisted of basic first aid plus what to do in the cold and how to wrap up victims properly to save them from hypothermia. The most entertaining part was probably when we learned how to treat deep, open wounds: For this reason, the lecturers supplied some big pieces of pork in which they injected fake blood und kept it pumping so that we could learn how to detect the open blood vessels and how to stop the bleeding (by stuffing with bandage material).

                                                                Figure 6: Stuffing real pork's fake blood

In the glacier rescue we learned the dangers of glaciers (e.g. moulins and crevasses especially in the dark season with new snow as they might be covered) and how to abseil and rescue victims that might have fallen deep into a crevasse. During the emergency camp lessons, we had to set up an emergeny tent, trip wires and emergency stoves which is necessary if there are severe accidents and you would have to persevere hours or even days until a helicopter would be able to get to you. During the Sea Ice Properties session we learned how to access unknown areas of sea ice and also - probably the part most people might have heard about - how to get out of the freezing water in scooter suits which we actually practised in an ice hole near Longyearbyen. I did both parts, rescue another victim in a survival suit and getting out by myself. The suits suck the water up pretty quickly so that they get really heavy. The only aid you have to pull yourself out of the water are small ice picks. The water was icecold but luckily, the air temperatures were pretty high that day so that we didn't freeze too much.

                                                               Figure 7: The ice blocks cut out for our wee ice hole

                                                    Figure 8: Getting suited up for the rescue

                                                     Figure 9: In the water to rescue a victim

                                                    Figure 10: How to set up a "snow angle" for abseiling into a crevasse

For me, the tensest session, however, was the avalanche rescue. After we learned theoretically how avalanches form and when and where to be most careful, we went outside to practise using beacons and probes to find potential victims in an avalanche and how to dig them out most efficiently. It was the most interesting and exciting thing to do but at the same time, you are aware of the real dangerousness of the situation: Basically you have 10 minutes to find and dig out the victims. We really became aware of how important it is carry a beacon with you all the time.

On saturday we had the final practical exercise which meant that we were sent out to Longyearbreen, a glacier right behind Nybyen, where 4 stations were set up. At each station, we had to run through different scenarios, i.e. scooter mobile or crevasse accidents, emergency camp set-up and avalanche rescue. As it was pretty stormy and windy that day, conditions were very realistic, even though it wasn't too cold. Students that have stayed here last semester were appointed to lead the groups through all week and also this day, leadership was most important.
We managed to have different leaders for each situation, depending on who feels most comfortable about it. I have to admit that it is a hard job to control a group of people in stormy and very stressful conditions. It is hard to keep a clear head and track of what is going on. However, a lot of us were put into these situations so that a lot of people got to know how hard this job is even if you are not necessarily physically working. It is pretty much like keeping young children in check....just add a huge portion of seriousness, yelling and stress.
But still, it is great to learn these things as they make you aware of where you are and even more give you the chance to have enjoyable trips being on the safe side.
After the practical exercise, we were driven back to university to write an exam about the safety course week which was then rewarded with chili con carne and beer for all of us. Today we have had the first day of lectures. I am taking the Biology module "Arctic Environmental Management" which is all about the Svalbard Treaty, politics, environmental issues, pollution etc. The other module I have chosen for this semester is Geophysics "Sea-Ice-Air Interactions" covering all about sea-ice, its formation, its structure, its distribution etc. I already enjoyed the first lectures and can't wait for this semester to start properly.
We will have a cruise and several daytrips, but also privately, I am planning on having another amazing, incredible and unforgettable semester up in the Arctic!

One last blog entry this semester. I will be leaving Svalbard on friday for christmas. I will see the sun, birds, trees. All these things that are so normal, just not here.
The last couple of days have - once more - been an amazing time. One would (and I did) believe that the darkness is going to be a tough one and that it will be depressing and extremely sleepy all the time. Of course, we are all looking forward to see the sun again (actually it is mentioned in every single conversation at least once), but the time here has been great, unfailingly! Every single day, something extraordinary was going on. And it might just have been extraordinary because we are in the Arctic and it is dark 24/7.
Today we got a lift back to our barracks and the car got stuck in deep snow so that we spent more than an hour to dig it out and in the end we needed another car to drag it along.

Figure 1: After one hour and a big hole in the ground later: The van is out of the snow

Yesterday, we experienced a power outage. The whole town was out of electricity for about 20 minutes. All the people that are still in Nybyen gathered on the road waiting for the electricity to come back and discussing the worst scenario and horror films (e.g. "30 days of night" started somehow just like that). Great fun! After that we went to the Santa Claus mine which, by now, is illuminated because - as we all know - Santa is really busy this month. We took some mulled wine and cookies with us and were just enjoying the last days. However, we couldn't find Santa.
Our way back was ridiculously fast: We used butt sledges and were at the bottom in less than 10 minutes while our way up took at least an hour. After that we spent the night in the hot tub one last time.

 Figure 2: Hot tubing and northern lights. (credits: Ole Divino Randmæl)

 Figure 3: The last bunch of people in Nybyen before christmas (credits: Luci Marshall)

Figure 4: Santa Claus Mine in december

On sunday, we finally went hiking after weeks of revision. It was my first hike in the total darkness. We went up the plateau on the western side to get the full darkness-moon-stars-and-northern-lights-experience which worked fine: We've had a golden moon shining on us while the northern lights were dancing next to it. AMAZING! The way uphill was hard work though due to snow drifts that let us sink in deeply so that we ended up crawling up on all fours. Luci could take some great pictures from both the hike and the santa claus mine night.

 Figure 5: Crawling uphill

 Figure 6: Night hike with a golden moon shining! (credits: Lucianne Marshall)

 Figure 7: oh yeah, northern lights as well (credits: Luci again :) )

The last couple of days were filled with good byes. That's the only really bad thing about Svalbard: We've met people from literally all over the world. We will see some of them next semester, but we had to say "Goodbye and enjoy the rest of your life" to most of our friends which is making the last couple of days also quite sad. As Allan mentioned in his last blog entry: friendships are developing extremely fast and close up here because we are all sharing the same adventures and problems.
The northern lights have been very active the last week so that we've spent a great amount of time outside. Also, a friend discovered fresh Polar Bear tracks when being out for field work no more than 3.5km from Longyearbyen followed by two more tracks from different polar bears discovered in the next days all pretty close to Longyearbyen. A couple of weeks ago, two fellow students had to be rescued from Sysselmannen after being out for a hike where they sighted two bodies in the distance which were just too big for being reindeers only. So also the frightening feeling of having these animals around when being out for a hike makes it even more exciting.

Figure 8: Huge, fresh polar bear tracks in Endalen (discovered and photographed by: Michael Lawrence)


I am very excited for next semester. New people, new challenges, new modules AND 24 hours daylight. I wonder if that will play with our food and sleeping patterns as much as the darkness.
For now, I can summarise that I love Svalbard for being extreme in all directions: Latitude, daylight/darkness, wildlife, snow and ice, adventures and - most important - the incredible bunch of people up here!

One of my barrack mates made this beautiful time lapse video of the Polar night. All time lapses are taken right from around the barrack I am living in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETSi7QGz598
See you next semester!

Its all fun and games until someone gives you a deadline

"There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil." Ecclesiastes 2:24

In Svalbard there is a city called Longyearbyen, in Longyearbyen there is a bar which is named Kroa, in that bar there is a menu and on the last page of that menu is the above passage from the bible. I thought on this for some time as it struck me as a very suitable quote; not only for a restaurant but also its associations with the daily lives of the people in Svalbard and the time that I have spent here.

Some of the best moments I have had in Svalbard over the last couple of months have been centred around a table surrounded by friends and colleagues, with a nice drink, a plate of good food and all with a good laugh and the hard doings of the day behind us ;whether these hard doings involved you spending a day in a hole in the ground reading the sediment, being out at sea for seven days surrounded by fog or even just walking to school in the morning against the snow and biting wind. Everything here needs that extra bit of effort that extra bit of perseverance, patience, energy. This is even more so for those that maintain the city; the construction workers the labourers. Now the constant darkness adds a new element of maintenance an element of effort.  For the past month I have watched the new student housing be built. Day by day, in all-weather be it snow, snow or snow the workers go on and now it’s beginning to look more and more like an actual building, a building that will one day house students who will spend time out in the field, with the wind the freezing rain and the bears.  

Those that come to Svalbard become close, you’re never really alone. Going out on hikes sharing a kitchen with several others even walking to school your likely to bump into someone. We are similar in the way that everyone enjoys outdoor activities, enjoys what they study but we are similar in another way; the common struggle. Whether its cold hands tired feet or a report deadline (of which I now have many) you can guarantee you’re not alone and what better way to celebrate this camaraderie than to all pitch in and share a meal in the fashion previously described.

With this I would add to the opening passage ... “and that this is shared with his comrades that have shared in the toil.”
- Allan

Hi everyone,

sorry for the lack of a weekly post - its all getting manic now with work - so this will be a short one too.
Ribanna and i have our 1st final exam on Monday (aghhh) so we are studying and cramming like mad. Had a fair few hand in deadlines on top of that, hence why we have been so quiet!

Kitchen to kitchen  (essentially a fancy dress pub crawl but with kitchens) was very successful! my Kitchen was lord of the rings theme and although it takes a hit at my vanity i may a damn good Hobbit, figure 1. We had 3 rooms decorated - a hobbit hole, Rivendel and Mordor!

Figure 1 - The fellow sip of the ring + some baddies (Photo: Caitlin Frankfish)

Ribannas' kitchen was the red light district so i am not going to say Ribanna made a good hooker - but she did look like something out of the pretty woman era! (fig. 2)

Figure 2 - Ribanna pretty woman style! (Pic: H. Bell)

Figure - Hobbit, Hooker and a traveler lost in Africa - Pic: Caitlin

With pit stops at each kitchen from outer space, to harry potter, Africa, childrens birthday parties it was quite a night and the next day I even managed to attempt cross country skiing which consisted of me falling on my butt a lot! But entertaining non the less!!!

Today I am going to squeeze in some time to help a friend make a photograph to support the 'Save the Arctic 30' petition which I will hopefully post the results at some point!
It is now dark all day! I am struggling to go to sleep at night and get up in the morning, it seems my body wants to rise when its lightest 12 noon  but now I am getting in more of a routine which is better!

The amazing news we have all been waiting for is..... WE HAVE ALL GOT A PLACE NEXT SEMESTER!!!!! so I am very very happy about that! I will be doing the two biology modules and it think most of the others are doing the geophysics courses - and we will have an additional blogger,  Rachel Vezza, as she has also got a place and will be joining us in Jan.

So all smiles here - even if the pressure is now on! 

That's all for now, hope your all enjoying the blogs!

Luci

Hello to everyone,

It has been a busy last week for myself & Ribanna with lectures pretty much from 9-5 everyday along with the report and term project work building up!! its also getting harder to get out of bed when its still pitch black at 7:30 in the morning, the light is really closing in and although its around (in a blueish grey dusk colour) at 10 am it is dark again by 1330 now. That being said the light on the mountains in the evenings and the silhouettes of them at true night are incredibly beautiful, fig 1.

Figure 1 - Night time view of Nordenskioldfjellet from Sakofargen

In Marine geology we have been working with some programs which have been really cool tools in plotting cruise tracks on a a map. We spent about three days getting familiar with the program GMT through a Linuxs system, learning the different commands and how to manipulate the settings - all of which was surprisingly good fun as you could get some really nice results, figure 2.

Figure 2 - Map of our marine geo cruise track, core points (the yellow stars)  and CTD points (black spots) created by me :D

We have also been given some term projects for Marine Geology, the class has been split betweens either sediment core analysis and bathymetric projects. I have a bathymetric data set which i need to map and process with Fledermaus (a program good for 3D manipulation of data). We are to reconstruct the past ice flow extent and dynamics using morphological analysis of the submarine landform assemblages. I have been designated Palander & Wahlenberg sytem,  which is a fjord system south east off of Nordauslandet ... you can check it out on this cool online map http://toposvalbard.npolar.no/.

So i should be getting started on that shortly.

 Ribanna and i also had a wee field excursion looking into snow physics in snow pack which was a pretty cool afternoon. We had to take the band wagons out across the now frozen river system in Adventdarlen to a Pingo located there which usually has a fair amount of snow around it. The band wagons, figure 3, are pretty awesome machines, although in the back it can be fairly bumpy due to the terrain - all great fun though!

Figure 3 - The Band Wagon! 

The air temperature whilst we were working out there was around -15-16 degrees so we had to wrap up well wearing UNIS scooter suits, boots and mittens along with some woolens. first we had to make a snow face, figure 4, that exposed the layers within the snow for analysis. We had to measure the length of the core and then divide it into sections based on the visible layers (it could have been divided into many layers but for our learning purposes it was divided into 5 or 6).

Figure 4 - Snow physics wall

The analysis then conducted on the sections was temperature, density of snow pack, hardness of snow deposit, snow grain size and shape - similar to the analyse that would be made on a sedimentary core.




The hardness was measured in a fairly rudimentary way - could you push your fist into it? four fingers? one finger? a pencil? or a sharp knife? this corrisponded to the Swiss Rammsonde measurements. you can see my fist attempts in fig4. needles to say after that my hand was freezing and my mitts went straight back on and a bit of a run around the area to warm up again was also needed. Various people in the group did each measurements and then we compiled them into a basic log of the snow pack core, figure 5.
Our professor, Carl also demonstrated the layers that are found in snow pack
using a back light to highlight them,figure 6.

Figure 5 - Field log of snow pack.

Figure 6 - Carl Edge Boggild - snow layers

Figure 7 - Arctic hydrology and climate class wrapped up warm for our snow physics excursion (Photo courtesy of J. Skaar, 2013)

Friday gathering was last night and we had a cool snow board film - the art of flight - also a few beers which my big luxury English breakfast helped cure this morning!Today Allan (who you all know) and Greg from our geology class have organised a Lord of the Rings marathon projected at UNIS for everyone which has been epic.... obviously all the extended versions.... long but great fun day!!!! Also will inspire us for our kitchen to kitchen party as our floors theme is going to be Lord of the Rings too!!

Applications for next year are in to stay here and it is now a really painful waiting game! I originally applied for Arctic geology - The tectonic and sedimentation history of Svalbard along with Arctic biology - populations and ecology however these don't really fit in the time table well and there have been around 73 applicants for the geology courses. Thus i was advised to withdraw my AG application and go for both biology courses instead - I just hope I get in as I am having such an amazing time up here (as much as I do miss everyone at SAMS) now I am just keeping my fingers crossed.

That's all for now from me - I hope everyone at SAMS is well :D
enjoy,
Lucianne.