Svalbard
In the land of ice and snow where cold air settles close to the earth, things are not always what they seem. Far off on distant horizons fairy castles rise from the sea. Gently sloping outwash plains become tall forbidding cliffs or a city of high rise office towers. Our eyes search the seas for icebergs and bears. Light is scattered bouncing from everything to everywhere. The rays that reach our retinas define the image that we see. But our minds are fooled. We make assumptions that the unseen waves travel straight. Sometimes they do but when they don’t, we might discover King Arthur’s land and the realm of his sister Morgan. Fata morgana, the superior mirage, is common on polar seas.
We stand on the decks at latitude 80 degrees, 1.6 minutes north and survey the shore at Kinnvika, Nordaustlandet. A smattering of weathered gray huts perch on the flat rocky beach. Everything is gray, even the snow patches scattered here and there. What possibly could be of interest there? How we can fool ourselves! One step away from the water’s edge is a veritable flower garden. Creamy yellow poppies with petals dwarfing miniscule leaves snuggled between lichen painted rocks. Pink saxifrage with procumbent stems embraced pebbles of ancient stone. High on the ridge, ocean dwelling organisms from eras past were preserved in limestone blocks. Even the cabins were a surprise. One expected primitive shacks. These instead were insulated, decorated and steam heated. A sauna waited with soap and towels and the galley with coffee and pots. A welcoming note, written by hand on a black board, requested simply that we leave the site as it had been when the author left in August 1966. Built for Swedish and Finnish scientists during the geophysical year of 1957-58, this base seemed frozen in time, ready to burst to life again on a moments notice.
Further north still, the tiny island of Lagoya brought more surprises still. Nesting Arctic terns guarded the flats while brilliantly plumaged red phalaropes flitted and dipped in pools and waves in search of a planktonic meal.
Today we learned to see. We discovered that first impressions could be wrong.
In the land of ice and snow where cold air settles close to the earth, things are not always what they seem. Far off on distant horizons fairy castles rise from the sea. Gently sloping outwash plains become tall forbidding cliffs or a city of high rise office towers. Our eyes search the seas for icebergs and bears. Light is scattered bouncing from everything to everywhere. The rays that reach our retinas define the image that we see. But our minds are fooled. We make assumptions that the unseen waves travel straight. Sometimes they do but when they don’t, we might discover King Arthur’s land and the realm of his sister Morgan. Fata morgana, the superior mirage, is common on polar seas.
We stand on the decks at latitude 80 degrees, 1.6 minutes north and survey the shore at Kinnvika, Nordaustlandet. A smattering of weathered gray huts perch on the flat rocky beach. Everything is gray, even the snow patches scattered here and there. What possibly could be of interest there? How we can fool ourselves! One step away from the water’s edge is a veritable flower garden. Creamy yellow poppies with petals dwarfing miniscule leaves snuggled between lichen painted rocks. Pink saxifrage with procumbent stems embraced pebbles of ancient stone. High on the ridge, ocean dwelling organisms from eras past were preserved in limestone blocks. Even the cabins were a surprise. One expected primitive shacks. These instead were insulated, decorated and steam heated. A sauna waited with soap and towels and the galley with coffee and pots. A welcoming note, written by hand on a black board, requested simply that we leave the site as it had been when the author left in August 1966. Built for Swedish and Finnish scientists during the geophysical year of 1957-58, this base seemed frozen in time, ready to burst to life again on a moments notice.
Further north still, the tiny island of Lagoya brought more surprises still. Nesting Arctic terns guarded the flats while brilliantly plumaged red phalaropes flitted and dipped in pools and waves in search of a planktonic meal.
Today we learned to see. We discovered that first impressions could be wrong.
