by aramatzne@gmail.com | 11 Nov 2019 | Roads Taken
Blues and purples
All of the photos on this page were taken on the same day in the same location. The variation in color from one to the next shows the range of effects that light, cloud, distance, time of day, and falling snow can have on images. At first, I found the eternally blue light on ice distorting and disorienting, but this is the color of the place and most everything in my memory has an indelible wash of shades of blue.
We did a morning landing on a barrier beach; an open channel along the side allowed access to the lagoon at the front of the glacier. I tried out the new waders, walking in the lagoon among the icebergs until my hands no longer worked. After lunch, we went again to a different spot on the spit where the icebergs were clear, aquamarine. It was cold and snowing but there was no wind and it was spectacular.
After an hour or so, the Zodiac picked us up and we motored across the lagoon and along the glacier face. The water was like mercury, calm, flat, and reflective in the fading light. The icebergs were beautiful shapes and the water surface was trying to congeal. There were thunderous rumbles from deep within the glacier. The textures and colors are so unimaginable, blues and purples I’ve never seen before. Sarah said she had never seen the glacier this way, the clouds and snow gave the colors new intensity.
We started moving before dinner was done and motored through the night, north. I “helped” with the 0200–0600 watch as we sailed. Fill in the logbook; do the rounds. I didn’t go into the engine room – that seemed impossible. The water was pretty rough and I had waves of nausea – I was fine and then felt terrible, fine, and then terrible. At one point, I stood at the rail and threw up what little was in my stomach and then was fine again. The 1st mate (Marijn) was on when I started and switched with the 2nd mate, Annet, his wife, at 0400. The time went remarkably quickly, and the light was beginning as we were released at 0600. In time for breakfast. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep before I started the watch at 0200; that left me pretty wasted and with a sleep-deprivation hangover.
The residents are doing presentations during the trip. The first group went the other night. Kristin is a novelist for young adults – fantasy kick-ass girls. She had her first NYT bestseller 10 years ago but she looks like she is ~35. Christina was a publisher, and now is working on a book about climate change. She is also an artist and is drawing the maps for the book – on seaweed. Andrea is writing a book on Barents, the explorer who “found” this land. She has two previous books, including one on concentration camps across time and continents. Isaac does city murals. Starting with graffiti, he now has a crew that does public murals on commission for cities all over. Very intimidating. Not the people, but their accomplishments and the paths and personalities that have taken them so far.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 14 Oct 2019 | Roads Taken
Fluid time
It appears that I am out of sync. Dates in my journal and dates on the photos and the memory of each day’s locations do not agree. I realized too late that I did not reset the day or time on my camera to the European time zone, so each day in Svalbard is split across two dates. The words below belong to the photos in the last post. This adds to the flow and non-flow of time in the Arctic. Read on.
4 October Fridtjovbreen
The trip guides are four women, ~30-ish. Sarah is Dutch but has lived in Svalbard for ~10 years. Kristin and Åhsild are Norwegian, and Emma is Dutch-Australian and lives in London. Kristin and Åhsild are fantastic sources of information about glaciers, geology, currents, and animals, among other things. I haven’t spoken with Emma much yet. Sarah is the lead, well organized, and coordinated. It is an amazing dynamic. They carry weapons and flares and are layered in leather and Gortex, and each has wild hair that says, “Fuck you, patriarchy, I’m a woman, and I’m badass.” Sarah also brought her dog, Nemo, an old husky mix who is very cool and knows the ship routine. They inspire fun and joy and verve.
Lena says the captain looks and acts distressingly like an old boyfriend. Alas.
We were going to sail yesterday with the square sails but, when we got to the wind line at the mouth of Isfjorden, there was no wind. We motored to our next spot, another fjord – there are three openings at the mouth with a barrier island, a narrow strip of rock barely above water, that stretches almost the width of the opening, leaving a narrow channel on either side with wicked currents in each. We came in on the north side, then turned into a small bay with a glacier at the base. A narrow opening after a narrow opening. And we did a landing in the north wind along the spit at the mouth of the bay.
Loose ice from the glacier is piled up against the spit at the mouth. We were given another perimeter, along the moraine, above the main fjord. There is pancake ice packed there and beautiful crystal globes of ice from the glacier. A trapper’s rack hangs carcasses high above the beach out of non-climbing polar bears’ reach.
Motoring out in the morning yesterday, we passed a herd of reindeer, a sub-species only on Svalbard. They are shorter and bulkier and live on the few plants and lichens that live here. Their survival here is stunning.
There was a giant black guillemot colony on the cliff face at the mouth of Isfjorden. Kristin said sailors all know this as the entrance to the Isfjorden. It was a massive triangular wall – I don’t think I took a photo in the end – though I have taken a thousand photos already. So much to see. Landscapes, of course, but also patterns and textures, colors, skies.
Birds on the water – non-sailing yesterday, we saw a lot of birds on the water. Not the summer din and numbers but nice to see eiders, guillemots, a tubenose – fulmar (maybe?), gulls. There were some auks, I think also. The eiders dove and flew ahead of the ship as we came to anchor. I tried to get a few in flight, alongside the boat and water.
The water is sublime. As we left anchor yesterday morning, we moved through pancake ice, very thin and newly formed. This time of year, the freshwater is still flowing into the fjords. Since it is less dense than saltwater, it floats on the surface and freezes easily and earlier than the saltwater. If it stays cold with an early winter, it often holds and thickens.
We have had beautiful days –sun and warm air for this time of year. The sailing wind did not come in yesterday when we wanted to sail, but it arrived when we got into the bay and was brutal on the shore. Odd since we were in the protected fjord by then. The crew is talking about the north winds, how strange and strong they are. There are three low-pressure cells backed up to the south of Svalbard being fed energy from northern high pressures, so it is uncertain what will come from that.
I love the sweater I bought in Longyearbyen and can’t imagine where I would be without it.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 30 Sep 2019 | Roads Taken
The landscape equivalent of surround sound
One in the valley
Glacier-ice close-ups in large format
Gold foil-covered rocks bring bright spots to the monochromatic landscape
Gullstrandfjellet from the edge of Fridtjovbreen
In the fallout zone at glacier’s edge
Glacier ice, smooth and blue, and gray and rock-filled
View from Fridtjovbreen Glacier
Hisingerfjellet across the bay
Antigua at anchor
Fridtjovbreen and its mountain companions
The face of Fridtjovbreen
