The mountains are calling, and I must go.

Hey! 

Sam Black here and I'm back on Svalbard. I've been here for the past two weeks and sadly now, Its time to leave. So, for old times sake, here's what I've been up to.

Now I wouldn't say my trip to Svalbard was for business or pleasure. Over the past 13 days I've been carrying out my dissertation lab work alongside a marine molecular biology masters course. Firstly let me highlight that I'm no molecular biologist. If only I'd known what I was getting myself in for...It's been a tough week of learning the ropes of DNA extraction, PCR and all the various lab protocols to avoid contamination etc. Safe to say I'm now pretty skilled with a pipette, or at least I am when this repetitive strain injury in my shoulder goes away.

I arrived on the 1st of November to a wet Longyearbyen. I was informed, by almost everyone I met, that all the lovely snow had recently melted. This big melting event had left a town of deadly ice where 'friction' is a cruel mistress. Arriving back during term time left me feeling nostalgic. At first I felt intimidated with all the new faces but I quickly settled in. The first week of lab work involved meticulously weighing out small pieces of sea weed, DNA extraction of said small pieces then learning about how to run PCR's. It was a steep learning curve but incredibly I made it through the week in one piece and on schedule.

In the evenings I joined back in with the sports I used to play; volleyball, basketball and football. The world famous Longyearbyen vs. Barentsburg sports competition was taking place that weekend, so I was keen to get into the team. As the temperature had dropped over the week and the snow had returned I took a trip on Saturday morning to the ice caves with 3 Danish anthropologists who I'd had over for dinner earlier in the week. The glacier and the cave had changed dramatically over the summer, it was incredible. I couldn't recognise any part of the cave. I took some quick photos and headed down to down in a hurry as I was up against the Russians in the volleyball team at mid day.

Volleyball went well and in the end we won by only 2 points! Funnily I was interviewed and filmed by the BBC who are producing a docu-soap series up here over 8 months. After looking into the camera numerous times I doubt my mug will be on your screens any time soon. I was roped into refereeing the football game straight after where Longyear lost 4-2. I'll leave that one off my C.V for now. Basketball was great fun and we won by a large margin.
Afterwards we all headed to a nearby restaurant and ate a lot of free pizza and drank a lot of free beer. Longyearbyen now has its own brewery producing some fine beer - I can highly recommend the pilsner, pictured here. The night ended in the only club on the island, Huset. I found myself sliding my way home on the ice at 4am under the northern lights - old habits die hard here on Svalbard!

The following week of lab work didn't go as smoothly as the first where I spent three days trying to fine tune my PCR set up. After numerous tries I found the magic formula and managed to get the successful products I needed. Sparing you the details, the rest of the week involved selecting the samples that I wanted to use, washing them over magnetic beads and preparing them to send them away for sequencing. Easier. Said. Than. Done. This weekend I've managed to fit in a trip to the mine, a night in the pub playing pool and some fat bike rides in the valley.

Then today at 6pm, after my 60th hour in the UNIS lab, I managed to finished my lab work (for now). What a relief! I've heard a picture says a 1000 words, so here's two that sum up my time here.

Me: 2 weeks ago

Me: Today

Until next time Svalbard, lots of love, Sam.

Goodbye sun, hello winter...

We are now past the last sunrise/set (there wasn't really much in-between) of the year and so now the best we get is a few hours half light in the middle of the day. Today is also the first day to be above freezing in a couple of weeks and so everything is incredibly slippery as the snow covering the ice on everything is melting a bit. The weather should be back to what we are used to pretty soon though. We had our final field trip of the semester on Wednesday in -16 °C, digging snow pits to look at the structure and composition of the snow pack; our transport for the day was the belt-wagon, a wonderful contraption built using the same basic principle as two tanks attached together minus armaments.

We've also been hiking in the snow a few times over the last few weeks, managing to capture the elusive creature that is all three of the SAMS students in one place, at the same time, and positioned in front of the camera (although Kendal wasn't quite on script!). See evidence below.

 

Less successful was our attempt to make it to the top of Nordenskiöldfjellet, the highest mountain in the vicinity of Longyearbyen, but we still had a fun hike in the snow which caused a few moments of people descending into an unseen dip in the topography and up to their waist in snow, much to everyone else's amusement. The reindeer have definitely fluffed up as the weather has got colder so now resemble teddy bears more and more:

I also got to fly a drone during fieldwork a few weeks ago which was lots of fun once I'd taken a minute to got the knack of it, especially since the one we used didn't have a live view camera on.

"It must be up there somewhere...."  Photo credit: Susanne Lindholm

Last weekend I volunteered to help move and set up/dismantle equipment for the Dark Season Blues, the world's northernmost blues festival, and most likely any music festival. This entailed lots of carrying and coiling, plugging and unplugging and interpreting a few instructions in Norwegian (far simpler than apologising and explaining again); it is amazing how much you can get from the odd word and pointing! The weekend was quite a lot of work and I realised how little lifting and carrying you normally do up here, despite the generally active lifestyle; I had lots of fun though and I got a crew pass for the weekend and freebies to wear. All the volunteers got free pizza and drinks this Thursday night, which made leaving for uni at 7:30 on Friday hard work!

We're hurtling at alarming speed towards the end of the semester: this week is our final week of lectures and a final midterm, report deadlines, presentations, and then final exams are in the pipeline soon. Working when it is nasty weather and dark outside is far better than when it was sunny and always light though so it isn't too bad! 

I think that's everything of note that's been happening up here really; I'm sure there will be plenty more to report back in a couple of weeks.

Jamie