Arctic magic

Last week I was up north, in our archipelago in the Arctic at 78 degrees North.  The archipelago is basically the continental shelf lifted above sea level.  It’s one and half times the size of Denmark, and more than half of it covered by glaciers. The rest of the land is free from snow and ice in the summer.

One week away from the modern world, away from cell-phone coverage and wireless networks. It was the last week of midnight sun, and still light around the clock. We stayed in a nice and comfortable ship that took us around in the fjords. When I woke up one morning and pulled the curtains to the side, the first thing I saw was a Beluga playing outside of the window.

It’s cool to hike around with geologists, because they know everything about the landscape we pass; how and when it was made. Layer-cake mountains and rivers, valleys and fjords, carved by the glaciers of the ice ages.  Present-day glaciers flow slowly from the mountains to the fjords. Sometimes ice bergs break off the front of the rugged ice, and exhibit the bluish ice core.

In the morning we went by Zodiaks to work, from the red and white ship to shore. There were smart and shy students, and loud professors with big egos, and everything in between. All of them were nice people. We had a great time.

We hiked over shorefaces and plains with scares flowers, into the valleys, and up in the mountain sides. At interesting exposures we stopped to study the rocks, and to get a lecture by an expert. The outdoor classroom, as stunning beautiful as it can possibly get.

Polar bear scouters armed with rifles were ahead of us and out to the sides. This is the kingdom of the polar bear. It’s his home, we are only visitors. We must behave according to this. 

The polar bear is the perfect raptor, waiting patiently by the seals breath holes, climbing vertical cliffs to get to the bird nests, and running twice as fast as Usain Bolt. The polar bear is the king of the Arctic, and one of the few raptors that hunt humans.

The Arctic is magic, the Arctic is addictive.  I had to get home before I got stuck.  But I’ll be back >:)

(I took more than a hundred pictures last week. Above are just a few of them)

Summer in Winterland

It’s June, and there are signs of summer. The trees are dressed in green leaves. I have cut the grass once already.

Last Sunday, we had a nice and warm day. Little boy and I biked to town in shorts and T-shirt to buy ice cream.

Yesterday it was snowing.

Today I’m wearing wool socks.

It’s summer in Winterland.

Summer in the north doesn’t mean it’s warm. It just means it’s light all the time.

The light summers are addictive (and the dark winters too). When you’re used to living in the north, you won’t consider living anywhere else, at least not for a long time.

The nature of the north is like a chubby woman, shaved by the cold and harsh winters, and then in the spring her fur grows back, just as it should, just where it should, leaving the highest mountains bare >:)

 (I took the picture above on a late summer night about a year ago, when I walked across the old town bridge on the way back home from a late night in town.)