Meet the Russians

Hello everyone, it's Holger again!


A little later than originally anticipated, but here it is: as promised I want to talk about the trip to Barentsburg Matt and I did with the environmental management course and our meeting with the Russian Consul General. And then I'll talk a little more about other stuff we have been up to :-)
We all got snowmobiles from UNIS to drive to Barentsburg, which is about 2 hours drive away. The visibility was quite poor unfortunatelly, so we couldn't really see much of the landscape on the way. However, we arrived at Barentsburg Hotel in the early evening. A local guide showed us the mining town, it's not pretty but very fascinating. Many houses were abandoned and lay in ruines, a few have been renovated for the local population though. There are also still a lot of traces from the Soviet era such as a Lenin bust in the middle of town. In combination with the coal mining activities the whole place had certainly a "Russian feeling" to it. After the little tour around town we had a look in the museum. It was really small but they had a lot of stuffed animals and information about the history of the Russians on Svalbard and in Barentsburg in particular, which was nice. They also had the heart of a polar bear in a jar, it's as large as a childs head, absolutely massive! We spend the rest of the night in the hotel, having a few beers at the bar and playing cards. Our meeting with the Russians was sceduled for 10 to 11am the next morning. The meeting was very interesting. Everyone was really friendly and it felt pretty official, they even had a translator. First they introduced themselfs and the city to us and then we had about 45 minutes to ask questions. My favourite was "In the light of climate change, do you consider using more green energy in the future instead of coal?" The Consul General was obviously confused and just said: "Why should we? There is plenty of coal left..."
After the meeting we took the obligatory picture of the class with the consul and the translator. I think they take the same picture every year.

The way into Barentsburg, minig ain't pretty...

Some cow barns, they actually keep livestock here.

And of course comrade Lenin!

The local orthodox church at dusk

AB-203 class with the Russian Consul General (photo credits: Børge Damsgård)

The next and last excursion we did with the Environmental Management course was to SvalSat, a comercial ground station for polar orbiting satellites. They do a lot of stuff for NASA and ESA, but also work for weather forcast and so on. We didn't spend that much time there, and Matt and I have already been there with the Northern Lights course in February. They gave us the same lecture as they did then, but this time inside of one of the big satellite dish thingies. The first time I ever had a lecture at -15C, but they provided us with reindeer furs and blankets. On our way home we saw a polar fox, the first I've ever seen! :-)

A one hour lecture under the satellite dish at -15C is not an everyday thing

That's the same from the outside

The last experience I want to share with you for this time is from the trappers trail 2 weeks ago. Trappers trail is a big dog sled race from Longyearbyen to Kapp Laila over 2 days. It's also the worlds northernmost dog sled race! I volunteered myself and my snowmobile to help out, my job on the first day was to put up warning signs whereever the race track crossed main snowscooter tracks or when the terrain was narrow without space to give way to potential traffic. I also had to put up tents at Kapp Laila, take the times for the first day and prepare a small cabin. So lots of work to do, and all I got was a t-shirt. Not that I'm complaining, it's a cool t-shirt :-) It was very windy and snowing on Saturday, which made the actuall driving very difficult. We couldn't go faster than 30km/h due to whiteout, but I had to carry a heavy sledge, so that was probably good for the engine of my little 2-stroke scooter anyway.

Well, whatever, after I did all the tasks I had to do, a few other volunteers and I had some time for a nice BBQ and for the general joys of camping in the Arctic. We saw some belugas in the bay, and allegedly there were orcas as well, which I didn't see unfortunatelly. On Sunday I had to make sure all participants were leaving on time, and generally help out. After everyone else was gone we had to clean the cabin, and follow the race track home, to make sure everybody got home. All in all a very interesting experience, and the doggies are of course super cute :-) I also had a chance to chat with Christine, who was also helping with the race. For those of you who don't know her, she was a student at SAMS a couple of years ago, and now she is living on Svalbard.
One cannot just leave Svalbard, it is the call of the Arctic...

The participants are getting ready infront of the UNIS building in Longyearbyen

Our camp at Kapp Laila. The cabin was really nice but for participants and organiser only...

Easter trips and polar bears

Hi everyone! Holger here.
The days are getting very long now, it doesn´t really get dark at night anymore. On the one hand it´s nice because the lights of my scooter broke (along with the windscreen and handle heating...) and we can stay out for longer. But on the other hand the constant light messes with my sleeping rhythm.
Us biologists finally finished the last report, it was a difficult one. The data we had to use was not the best ever, because it was from a student group from last year and the fact that we had to make up a topic for the paper from the data didn´t help. Maybe it´s just me but usually scientists come up with a research question first and then go collect data, not the other way around. It was still good to practise scientific writing and the handling of data.
We were on Easter break for the last two weeks and for a change didn't have to work all day! Naturally we went on a lot of trips, I'll talk about the most exciting ones in this blog.

During the first week off, Matthew and I went to Mohnbukta at the east coast of Svalbard. Jamies scooter, the sexy cat, was still in need of some attention, so he couldn't join us. Chances to see polar bears are a lot better at the east coast, and although we didn't actually see a polar bear, we covered a lot of territory. A big glacier is going into Mohnbukta and there was enough sea ice to have lunch in front of a spectacular blue ice front! Of course we had to keep a save distance, because even in winter glaciers can calve at any given moment. On our way back we also visited Tempelfjorden and a frozen waterfall, both of which are worth a trip on its own, but we covered all of it in one day.

Lunch break on the sea ice infront of a glacier

 

Especially last week was very busy. I went to Paulabreen with a small group , which is another glacier ending in Rindersbukta, a fjord close to Svea. Svea is the smaller mining settlement about 2 hours away from Longyearbyen. It had been quite cold all week (about -20°C) so the sea ice covered all of the fjord and was safe to drive on. The original plan was to camp, but we found a half finished cabin, which nobody else was using. We had to secure the cabin first by nailing some boards over the window openings, otherwise we would have had to have a polar bear watch, there were a lot of bear-tracks all around the cabin. But with the improvements to the cabin we decided it was secure enough, and we ended up having a cosy, comfortable night. The next day we drove back over the sea ice and saw quite a few seals on the ice. And just before we reached Svea, we spoted a polar bear lying on the ice watching a seal hole! The bear didn't mind us approaching at all, so we were able to carefully drive relatively close to it (perhaps 150-200m). Of course we had to stay on our scooters and have them all faced away from the polar bear, so we could quickly drive off, if we needed to. But the bear just looked up once and ignored us for the rest of the time. We watched it for maybe 10 minutes when another tourist group came from the nearby town and drove straight towards the bear with no precaution whatsoever. Of course the bear didn't like being cornered so it run away. Luckily not through either of the two groups....

Please excuse the bad quality of the pic, I don´t have a fancy camera with good zoom. But you can clearly make out the polar bear anyway.



Polar bear!!!

 Our home for the night


 

And myself driving my snowmobile (photo credits Renee Rookus) 

The last trip I want to talk about was another cabin trip to Diabasodden. Matthew and his brother, who was here on a visit for a few days, joined the group this time. Jamie didn´t go with us again, because the sexy cat (his snowmobile) was still not ready yet. But at least he found a new gear box and brought it back from the dead. I´m sure he´ll have it running again soon! However, back to the topic. On the way to the cabin we visited the view point, a huge cliff overlooking Tempelfjorden. It was a clear day and we had an amazing view. We also stoped at the frozen water fall again, it´s always worth it! We arrived at Diabasodden quite early so I had time for a little hike up a nearby smaller cliff to take some pictures. Compared to the other cabins this one is pure luxury. It has a small sauna and plenty of space for at least 7-8 people. In the evening we heated up the sauna to 100°C, enjoyed some Scottish whisky and cooled off by jumping into the fjord and rolling in the snow! The last one was a little difficult, because the snow was very densley packed, it was more ice than snow. We had to dig a little pit first and fill it with snow. The next morning we had a nice easy walk and headed back to civilisation after lunch.   

Well, that´s it for now, I hope it wasn´t too long. The biologists are going to Barentsburgh (The Russian mining town in Svalbard) on Thursday and Friday to talk to some Russian officials about

environmental management, that´s what you will hear about next time :-)

 Diabasodden, what a beautiful place


 

The view point

The frozen waterfall, half of it collapsed in February but still impressive!

Sundogs have nothing to do with the sea, but are still quite nice to look at!