10.3.2007 Day 10. Saturday
Since we had almost done all must-do sampling and we needed some free time after last evening’s event, we decided to take off Saturday morning. We slept 30 minutes longer and took a walk on the mountain on north side of the camp. Regardless of their earlier names, we decided that we have a claim to rename some particular places in Rijpfjorden. The mountain is now known as Arctos toppen after (polar) bears (Greek ?????? = “bear”) and the network currently working there. According to Jørgen’s watch, the peak of Arctos toppen is 285 meters a.s.l. and we are not allowed doubt any data that Jørgen’s watch gives…The lake behind the camp also has a new name. It is called Sirjohnskulpen after the most important person in the expedition.
Jørgen, Sir John, Stig and Henrik standing on freshly renamed Arctos toppen.
Stig and Henrik walking. On background you can see Arctos toppen.
After the relaxing stroll, we picked up amphipod traps this time from the Northern transect. After amphipods, the schedule showed time for lunch. Menu was Drytech™ as so many times before.
Right after lunch Henrik and I went out to deploy the amphipod traps on the Southern transect, while Jørgen started to measure the amphipods we caught earlier, and Jonh & Stig started to make tripwires around the camp as an unpleasant surprise for stalking polar bears. The stove in Sukkerbitten, which for some reason decided not to burn anymore, interrupted the trip wire session. John started to fix the stove, while Henrik helped John, and the rest worked in the lab.
During the day, temperature dropped almost twenty degrees. When night fell, a planet (apparently Mars) was seen just above the horizon gleaming incredibly bright. After 22, it turned bloody red and slowly faded to the horizon. An impressive moment. When John finally got the stove to work, we ate dinner and started to plan sleeping. Because of the stove, there was one more tropical night in the High Arctic for Henrik, who was sleeping in the upper bed of Sukkerbitten.
11.3.2007 Day 11. Sunday
During expeditions, it is better not to change routines in the middle of the trip. This day was proof of that…We slept late and woke up at 900, because I made a terrible mistake the night before. I accidentally turned off the alarm clock, while loading weapons on the cabin table (key for a slightly safer night). After the late morning, almost everything went wrong…
While Stig and I were happily sleeping in Bjørnehiet, Jørgen didn’t dare to wake us up and had time to mercilessly make the Plan II, which was a new edition of Eva’s & Janne’s “the Plan” . Jørgen kindly promised to take feedback for the Plan II, but he wanted all the feedback via e-mail, so I made an educated guess that we were going to follow the Plan II quite exactly, regardless of what we thought about the Plan II.
During breakfast, I was sure that there were not so many raisins in the porridge as there had been earlier mornings. Another bad sign for the coming day. After an extremely slow morning, we finally got the sledges packed up and left for the zooplankton sampling around 1100. While we were sampling, John decided to stay in the camp and have a conversation with the stove in Sukkerkubben. It still didn’t work properly.
We headed towards the Seal-hole. Our plan was to continue from the Seal-hole and find a deeper sampling station for zooplankton. When we arrived at the Seal-hole, Stig decided to try and see if the ice on the hole was thick enough to carry a man.
It wasn’t.
Stig took a refreshing bath in -1,89° C sea water. The Seal-hole station is now renamed. The new name is “the Stig-hole”.
After swimming and changing clothes, things finally started to roll as they should. We found a place for the new station, we didn’t have over-curious polar bears messing up our sampling, and we got a lot of nice small calanus to guarantee enjoyable moments with the microscope for the people who sort the samples after the bottles have collected enough dust somewhere in a dark basement in the city of Tromsø.
Sampling started finally to roll smoothly after really difficult morning. Here you can see our WP2 sampling setting.
After the easy-going zooplankton sampling we headed towards the amphipod traps, which guaranteed us a nice catch and enjoyable moments with the microscope in the quite cold lab tent in the wilderness of Rijpfjorden. Then it was dinnertime.
Because Stig got his first swim in natural waters this year and because John succeeded in persuading the stove to choose K -life strategy, we decided to open the surprise bag Katrine and Laurel had given us when we left. Thanks for the bag, girls! It really warmed…
12.3.2007 Day 12. Monday
By this day, we started to approach the point where there is nothing new to tell about our routine. We learned a lesson from yesterday and tried to stick to our routines as much as possible. We were quite successful and made a boring lab day. Nothing special to tell.
Some pictures instead:
Luzula arcuata ssp. confusa or just reindeer food. Here is a proof that there, at least, has been actually growing something in Nordaustlandet.
A group picture without John Inge this time…
13.3.2007 Day 13. Tuesday
Yesterday’s call to Longyearbyen gave us some information about the weather forecast. It was predicted that there would be a storm over the weekend. When you have seen Rasmus and Gammel Erik separately in bad mood in the middle of your camp, you don’t really want to see them having parties to together. Since our work was almost done, we decided to order the helicopter a few days before the plan II gives permission. The only free helicopter was for Thursday, so we took that one. Staying over the weekend in good weather would have been awesome, since we practically didn’t have any free time during the expedition, but in the Arctic you must respect the bad guys. Sometimes the weather may be a bit bad…
In the morning we headed to the inner basin to establish a new zooplankton sampling station for the last time. This time our plan was to take WP3 in addition to WP2. I was a bit skeptical about our chances to succeed with the WP3 (everyone who has seen it knows that it’s quite big), but working with the net was surprisingly easy. The snow scooter didn’t have any problems pulling the huge net from the sea and our quite thin sampling rope held. We again collected quite an impressive amount of calanus for the people somewhere in the dark basement in the city of Tromsø.
After returning to the camp, Henrik and I went to retrieve the last amphipod traps of the expedition, while John and Stig took the last water samples for POM stable isotope analysis. Jørgen worked with amphipods and microscope.
After dinner we were allowed to open Jørgen’s successbox, which he had made in case we succeeded at doing the job. Everyone agreed: we did the job we came to do. All of the samples were taken.
14.3.2007 Day 14. Wednesday
Last full day of the expedition. Before lunch, Jørgen and I finished the amphipod samples. Henrik, Stig and John packed the samples to prepare them for transfer to the dark basement in the city of Tromsø. All of the work with the samples was done.
After tasty lunch, Drytech™ chicken with both tastes, we started to take the camp down. There wasn’t much work to do, because John had already made an effort sorting and cleaning equipment while we were sampling yesterday. After the camp was tidy and ready for the parties Gammel Erik and Rasmus (=bad guys) predicted to occur over the weekend, we had time to take a nice camp fire session. While watching all the trash and garbage we had made during two weeks burn (and for some reason explode at least once), we had some time to enjoy the great weather we had that evening. Finally, it was time to play cards and find the idiot, while one of the game’s constant losers was away…
A group picture without me this time…
Tomorrow, if Gammel Erik and Rasmus (=bad guys) allow we are going to fly to Longyearbyen. Living for two weeks in the middle-of-nowhere in the high north was a mind-blowing experience. Something about the force of the old Norwegian bad guys – check out the storm which broke our weather station couple days ago. When the station apparently fell down the wind was blowing during a gust 40 meters / second. Beaufort scale defines such a wind, if continuous, as Number 12 and Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale as a first Category hurricane. Exceptional strong winds, even for Svalbard, are probably caused by Vestfonna and Austfonna, third largest glacier in area in the world right after Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets. Our camp is located between these two great ice-caps.
Jørgen and John Inge left Longyearbyen on the 19th of April to repair the weather station and prepare the camp for rest of us, who will arrive in Rijpfjorden on Saturday the 21st of April. So we should taste more of the same quite soon – may the old bad guys have mercy on us…I can’t wait to see and feel Nordaustlandet again – there, if anywhere, you feel like you are really living. But before going back we must finish the story and fly to Longyear.
15.3.2007 Day 15. Thursday
Gammel Erik and Rasmus (=bad guys) were merciful and they gave us nice flying weather to Longyearbyen. Around 11, the helicopter arrived as planned, and at least I got one of the most impressive one hour and twelve minutes of my life. Completely clear sky, sun, snow, polar bears, ice flocks, glaciers…those were only a few of the reasons. If Svalbard is a beautiful place seen from the ground, it is something unbelievable seen from a helicopter, while flying low between a huge glacier and steep mountain cliff. Unbelievable indeed. I can’t explain. I don’t have words. It was one of those things you have to experience yourself.
…But luckily, we had a video camera and there is YouTube. Just for You (and for us all), var så god:
NOTE for the video: I am sorry for the bad quality of the video and the fact that I didn’t dare to put the video to music on YouTube because of copyrights. The original video is available for UNIS people in the server (Located: StudentsReadOnly => AB => Rijpfjorden 2007).
After this silencing experience we arrived in Longyearbyen. I have to admit that a sauna and a beer felt quite good after being very dirty for two weeks. It was time to end the expedition with a dinner at Kroa. Thanks for all the meat (and real butter), guys.
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THE END
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Text, photographs and videos: Mikko Vihtakari / Ice Edge Programme
PS. A big thanks to Laurel for revising the language of this story; to Jørgen for giving me this great opportunity to work with such a superb project; to John Inge for giving us a chance, with the highest quality logistical support, to do the job; and to Stig and Henrik for awesome company and help during the trip – and of course thanks to UNIS, certainly the best university centre in the world, for making this all possible. All the honour, if there is some, belongs to the (royal and majestic) Norwegian Polar Institute, of course...