Cape Farewell Youth Expedition 2007

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Mark Masin in front of the Noorderlicht.

Hello all,

It’s been a while as we have mainly been on the boat or a glacier and no where near a computer, let alone internet connections! Mobiles don’t work up here as their are no masts, which is good as they would interfere with the research scientists satellite uplinks and other equipment. A LOT has happened since I last wrote anything on my blog, we arrived at Ny Alesund on Saturday afternoon, and spent the evening getting ourselves sorted out. On sunday we went to the Kinsfjord glacier for a reccy and to experiment with makiing artworks from natural materials. As we were walking up the glacier, which was very slippy, I fell backwards, which was quite funny fr about two seconds until my camera fell onto my eyebrow and split open, blod was dripping in my eye and all over the ice, which looked quite cool once I had got over the shock. Christain, the guide who protects us from Polar Bears and provides us with fascinating info and facts about Svalbard (he is a DUDE!!) rushed over and checked my injury out, he says I’ll probably have a scar. Currently have a very nice black eye!!! The kids were great and they were all really concerned, they are such a great bunch of people who are working so well together and doing so much great stuff, it is an inspiration to work with them!

I am soooooooooooooo glad I bought the Arctic weather boots as they have kept my feet seriously warm, wellies just would not have done the job. It is pretty cold here, though today it’s not so bad, I think it’s about 2 degrees celcius, has been minus 5 and with the wind chill factor it gets really cold!!!! We saw a reindeer yersterday, in London, we visited an island called Blomstrand which used to be part of the peninsular when it was attached to the mainland by glacier, however because that has now retreated it is no longer part of the mainland. London was a small mining community, on Blomstrand, that didn’t fare too well and is now just rusting ruins. The reindeer was casually grazing on the sparse foliage and was not that bothered by our presence, we also saw a seal last night, it was in the water so I not sure what type it was. Lots of birds – gulls, guillemots, sandpipers and types of finches. It is really beautiful and peaceful here, I don’t want to come back to smelly, crowded London!

Being here has really brought home the impact we are having on the planet and how fragile life is, we are doing so much damage and not that many people seem to care, it makes me really sad and scared for the future!!

Gotta get off now as live blogs are happening, will try and speak soon!!!

Jess xx

So I’ve now seen my first reindeer up close and personal!!! We were hiking on one of the mountain slopes when we came across a reindeer. It was grazing on vegetation…not really bothered by our presence. These animals are not migratory and not really social animals, therefore you will hardly ever see them in groups. So far, we’ve seen two reindeer and they were both alone.

We found out yesterday that dwarf birch is now being found on Svalbard. A species, which normally grows at or near the treeline in the Arctic. Its presence on Svalbard would generally indicate that the climate has warmed enough to have a change in plant species composition in this part of the Arctic. I cannot imagine what this area will be like 15 years from now. Will we see trees? If so, how will this affect the herbivory patterns of the reindeer?

We spent the day looking at zooplankton under the microscope to see whether there are any changes in the zooplankton communities in a site far from a glacier (more saline) vs a site closest to a glacier (less saline due to an input of fresh water in the ocean). We are still on the hunt for results!

Read more as the das pass…we only have one more full day in Ny Alesund before we sail back to Longyearbyen.

So far, it has been an adventure of a lifetime…

Suba Subramaniam worked with the students to create a group dance/movement piece this afternoon. See the images below of the students practicing the dance piece and an image of the final piece. More soon…

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Jessica Burdett sculpting ice.

Our voyagers will be looking at your submitted questions 12 hours earlier than expected due to scheduling conflicts.  Please make sure to put in all your comments and questions ahead of schedule. They are all looking forward to your support and inquiries.

Please note: the time of video posting and the Q & A section will remain as planned.

We have finally arrived in Ny Alesund! 

It was quite a lot of work to get here. The kids and the adults spent the entire night taking turns on night duty in 2-hour sessions. This involved waking up in the middle of the night, putting all their warm gear on, and standing on deck with the captain to help sail the boat, pull up sails and watch out for icebergs in the ocean around us. The kids worked really hard all night, and as a result, are very tired today.  However, arriving in Ny Alesund made all that hard work worth the while. It is absolutely breathtaking! 

Today, the weather is beautiful…warm and sunny…blue skies all around us.

News flash: the weather forecast is predicting snow and sleet as of tomorrow (17 September 2007) and possibly the rest of the week, which means our internet connection may be slow or affected by the weather.   We expect that our blogging and videos will be posted as scheduled, however it may changed slightly if we are not able to properly connect.

We have arrived at the Sverdrup Institute. We were greeted by Carl Petter Nielsen, an optical engineer, who has gratiously allowed us to use this facility as a basecamp for scientific analysis and art composition.

Saturday. 15th Sept 2007.
Up at about 7.45. Josef (one of the students) knocking at my cabin door telling me there’s an arctic fox on shore and I should film it. Turned out to be a Reindeer. This place is seemingly so empty and devoid of life. So little to feed on I wonder how an animal as big as a Reindeer can find enough to eat.

The Noorderlicht anchored overnight in Trygghamna (Safe Harbour), near the mouth of Isfjord. All the glaciers snaking down from the mountains end way before they reach the waters edge, dumping their load of shattered rock in massive piles on the shingle beaches. We went ashore by Zodiac, across the transparent, steely blue water, for a walk with our Danish guide Christian, armed with a rifle and pistol.
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Two puffins and a polar bear! We set sail last evening, at about 6, having had to get all the luggage – including camera, media and scientific equipment, on board by carrying it through another ship! We sailed out of Longyearbyen for a few hours and moored up in a bay called Trygghamna, which is Norwegian for “safe harbour,” very beautiful place, surrounded on all three sides by snow capped mountains. We ate a very welcome dinner of salmon and pasta, followed by grapes and cheese! Anna, the cook, is fantastic and keeps making us all lovely food to keep us going as it is rather cold!!!!

It’s around about zero degrees and getting colder as we travel north. Yesterday we went to visit the school in Longyearbyen and met some of the teachers and students, they showed us around there school, as there are a lot less students there than at Kidbrooke they teach them as a year group and the teachers teach lots of different subjects, though they have specialist rooms for gym, art and tech. The students made us a lovely soup from vegetables and sausages and one of the students played their guitar for us, apparently he taught himself how to play and has played for the King of Norway, he was very impressive!!

Woke early this morning and rushed onto deck as an arctic fox had apparently been spotted, except it was a reindeer!! Just goes to show how distance and scale are very hard to judge here, especially because there are no trees. That woke us up bright and early and after breakfast we were ready to go for a long trek, Christian the guide had to give us a safety lecture on how to behave if we saw a polar bear and he showed us what he would do with his flare gun and rifle if a bear came too close. However, he said, it was unlikely we would see a bear in that area at this time of year so we were not to worry. Off we set, walking along the shoreline and spotting whale bones and different varieties of lichens and vegetation.

As Christian guided us up a rather steep slope at the bottom of a mountain one of the students spotted the carcass of an arctic fox, most of the body had been eaten but its tail and paws were still intact. A few metres on we came across the carcass of a reindeer, Christian thought that it had probably fallen down the scree and broken it’s neck, it was rather sad looking! We walked under a mountain called Bird Ledge where hundreds of seabirds nest – very noisy! After walking for two and a half hours the Noorderlicht sailed to us and sent the zodiac to come and pick us up from the shore.

On our return we had to raise the sails, which took a lot of organisation and effort – need strong arms to raise sails, and we were taught how to tie nautical knots – very useful!! We then sat down to lunch, at which point the Captain came in to say he could see a polar bear on the shore!!! We think had been attracted by our scent! It was an amazing sight and though it was far away I managed to get some really good shots, everyone was on deck capturing the bear in as many forms as possible! As we were staring in awe at the bear a pair of puffins flew by!! I am sooooo happy now, I really wanted to see a polar bear and some puffins and I got see both at once!! WOW!!!!!!

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My team were on watch for the next two hours and we hoisted sails and tied knots and steered and learned a lot about how to sail a ship! Whilst keeping an eye on the polar bear until he decided to toddle off over the mountains! We also saw some guillemots and some arctic gulls, it really is amazing experiencing all this wildlife! Jethro is now strumming on his guitar whilst we are blogging, writing diaries, making tea and chilling after a hard days work – team 4 have just raised the mainsail! Having such a fantastic experience so far, hard work but well worth it!! Speak soon, Jess x