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Svalbard, an island where polar bears outnumber people
Story & photos by Eric Hanscom
Drone Zone – Facebook – Youtube – Dronestag
The very name conjures images of a harsh climate, a land where Darwinism is alive and well, and applies to humans as well as plants and other animals.
I live a fairly comfortable life in Carlsbad, California, a nice little beach community where other than a great white shark attack every couple of decades, we humans sit nicely on top of the trophic pyramid, more worried about interest rates than being killed and eaten. I knew that I was traveling to a different environment – almost from a different era of the evolution, or some would say, de-evolution of the human race — and I had read up on Svalbard extensively, so I thought I knew what to expect. My first step off the plane in Longyearbyen showed me I was not ready for Svalbard.
From past trips to Iceland I knew enough to bring my sweatshirt, hat, jacket and mittens with me in the plane so I could dress before leaving the plane, but walking down the stairs and looking down the runway I knew I was in for a new chapter in my life. The dark sky promised some terrible combination of hail, rain and snow, and the wind shrieked straight out of an icy hell. Hail bullets fell from the sky like frozen wasps, stinging my face with glee as they honed onto the only part of my body not protected by at least two layers.
I walked from the plane to the luggage retrieval and was greeted with a stuffed polar bear. I will admit to being afraid of bears. I don’t know what it is. I’ve been circled by a great white while surfing, I’ve been in the same cage as a mountain lion (long story for another time), I’ve held king cobras (at least the non-business end), but I’m really, really scared of bears. This stuffed one did not help much. It did not look friendly, and its paws looked big enough to . . . I couldn’t stop staring at it and realized that for the rest of the trip I was going to live under a constant reminder that I was on the second tier of the trophic pyramid in Svalbard.
So, why after this initiation to Svalbard was I still amazingly happy and looking forward to my upcoming adventure? I felt alive and suddenly valued life more than I had in the past. A final look at the polar bear’s paws and claws solidified in my heart and mind that humans are not the kings of the trophic pyramid in Svalbard, and I would have to look both up and down that pyramid if I wanted to make it back to Longyearbyen Airport in six days.
I was staying at the Coal Miner’s Cabins, a delightful hotel at the far northern end of Longyearbyen city (and, not coincidentally, just outside of Longyearbyen Airport’s “No Drone Zone”). I caught the shuttle (yes, THE shuttle, Longyearbyen is so small that a single shuttle bus drops people off at each hotel) and set up camp in my hotel room. It was July, so the sun was up 24/7, and would remain so for several months. Since I had departed Thailand three days before I arrived in Svalbard, with one day in Carlsbad to try to keep my office together, my sleep schedule was so messed up I had no idea if I was sleepy, hungry, or just starting my day. So, with the sun being out, I took my drone (one of the two I brought with me) out and flew around the hotel a bit, always looking over my back for large, moving white things that might eat me.
Flying drones in Svalbard reminded me of my first time in Iceland. I had carefully planned out that trip, where I would fly, at what time of day – I even planned out a few flight routes based on where the sun would be at the time I expected to be at certain locations. However, it rained the entire first day of my trip, and by the end, my careful planning had deteriorated into “fly whenever it isn’t raining, and if you can find sun, all the better”. So, with Svalbard located significantly north of Iceland, I wasn’t expecting sunny weather with no wind. That was good, since I had a wait a few days to get good weather.
But, the Mavic 2 connected nicely to enough satellites and I was soon off and flying. The 20-knot wind made it a bit difficult, but I put it in Tripod mode and then Cinematic mode to try to keep the pictures and video pretty. The Longyearbyen valley is basically a wide riverbed with small roads on either side. There were two rivers: one icy gray-green coming from the glaciers and another rusty red, coming out of an old mining area. The two mixed about halfway down the valley into a muddy brown, which I did not find very attractive, but that part was in the “no fly” zone anyway, so who cares?
Looking up the valley I could see several glaciers slowly creeping their way toward global warming, while at the other end of the valley the Isforden Bay was gray and grim. The storm clouds raced across the sky, promising changes of weather every 10 minutes for so. I had set up my lift-off zone right near some beautiful tiny flowers (all the plants in Svalbard hug the ground to escape the wind and grazing reindeer), but close enough to Coal Miner’s Cabins that I could grab my drone and run back under the roof overhang when the 10 minutes of sun was replaced by 10 minutes of rain or snow . . . or if a hungry, large white thing showed up.
Upon retreating to my hotel room sometime around 2 in the morning, I could still hear the wind doing its best to tear my window off. I wondered exactly how great my footage was going to be if this weather continued, but like Iceland, I knew that weather in Svalbard could change overnight.
And change overnight it did. I woke up sometime around 6 AM – thanks to my sleeping goggles slipping off and the 24-hour sun shining in my face. I carefully listened for my windows rattling and they were silent. I rushed downstairs to an absolutely fantastic breakfast buffet. After gorging myself (I think it was my dinner time and I was hungry!) on bell peppers, fresh bread, some amazing cottage cheese and more than one cup of coffee, I was ready for desert. Several decades ago I was introduced to Gjetost cheese by my cousin when we were both going to UCSD. It was an expensive delicacy made from goat’s milk. Being a college student on a budget, it remained a rare treat. However, sitting in front of me, at the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, was a huge slab of Gjetost. Desert.
After eating half of the slab of Gjetost (sorry about that Coal Miner’s Cabin, I’ll understand if you ban me from the breakfast buffet next year when I return), I rolled out of the cabins ready for my first guided trip: A “Fossil Hike with Pack Dog”.
Normally when I travel, I just rent a car or hike to where I want to fly my drone. It worked really well in Iceland: rent a car, drive to the scenic spots (which is basically the entire island), park car, walk to where I won’t bother people with the drone, fly until battery is low, return to car, drive to next scenic place, repeat until all batteries dead. However, from my research I knew that this approach would not work in Svalbard because a) there are no roads between the “cities” of Svalbard (Longyearbyen boasts slightly over 2,000 of the 2,667 residents of Svalbard, which doesn’t leave many for the other metropolises), and b) it is illegal to leave cities in Svalbard without a gun (and knowledge of how to use it), or a guide with a gun in case you run into any big, white hungry things. So, since my entire experience with guns was the time I was seven and I borrowed my grandfather’s .22 and went out shooting in the desert (hmm, maybe I shouldn’t admit to this?) I decided to go on guided tours with an armed guard.
So, for my first day, Daniel from Green Dog picked me up. His pack dog was one he was training to be a lead dog, so he liked to bring him along on trips like this to build up the working relationship. “Captain” was a Greenland husky/Alaskan husky mix who looked quite capable of hauling a sled or chasing off a polar bear. Daniel was from Denmark originally where he served in what sounded like the Danish military’s version of the Navy SEALs, and then went on to be a bodyguard for the Prince of Denmark before running dog teams 12 months a year in Svalbard (including the winter, where the sun does not come out for months). He showed us his gun and explained that he liked the Mauser because he could kick open the breach if it was frozen and he needed to get off a quick shot. I was suddenly feeling quite comfortable walking off into the wilderness . . . with Captain and Daniel in the lead and me hiding behind them.
We hiked across the riverbed, crossing the river on a real contraption made from pallets somehow tied together. There are no trees in Svalbard so all wood is either shipped in from Norway or salvaged from the driftwood that piles up along the beaches. We then arrived at “Green Dog’s Box”, where the rock pick hammers were. We each got a hammer and headed up the glacier. After a rather embarrassingly tiring hike up the glacier, I was sweating like a pig and removed my jacket – for about 5 seconds. I quickly decided that I would rather be sweaty than frozen, and would avail myself of the free washer/dryer at Coal Miner’s rather than freezing to death.
Daniel explained how the rocks there were strewn haphazardly in front of us were formed, and how certain ones have fossils in them. He pointed out that the ones with orange veins may have had biological material in them, which means they might have fossils. After half an hour banging on every orange rock I could find without success, Daniel suggested a rock for me to try and, of course, there was a gorgeous leaf fossil just waiting for me. Once I found “the look” I was looking for, I quickly nabbed a few more fossils before flying my drone.
The wind was only around 10 knots on top of the glacier and it wasn’t raining or snowing, so the Svalbard flying conditions were “magnificent”. Daniel also had flown drones, so we hung out with Captain a bit and I went through the QuickShot menu on my Mavic 2. Quick shooting was appropriate, as with my hands freezing, I could only fly about half a battery at a time before I began to doubt my ability to control the landing (and in the talus field, I had about four feet of landing area in between large rocks and there was no way I trusted my fingers for an air-grab). So, I found myself more and more selecting a pre-routed shot sequence, then putting the controller on the ground and putting my gloves back on until it was time to select another sequence.
But, the time in the air was well worth it. Looking (and flying and shooting) down the valley toward Longyearbyen, the clouds made an upper blanket around 1,000 feet, with the “V” of the valley focusing my attention on the tiny red and green buildings of Longyearbyen and the slate blue ocean. Looking up the side of the valley I could see remnants of the mines that had given birth to Longyearbyen in the early 1900’s. Sitting in my three layers of clothes, with my head covered with my sweatshirt hood, a balaclava, my Russian peasant hat, and the hood from my jacket, I could only marvel at the tough people who had lived here and actually had to work back in Longyearbyen’s earlier days.
In all my awe at my surroundings, upon reaching Daniel’s van, I realized, in horror, that I had left my controller back on the glacier “somewhere”. Visions of the entire rest of the trip being shot by my backup drone danced before my eyes like a hungry polar bear with a key to my hotel room. Daniel very kindly took me back on the afternoon’s “Fossil Hike with Pack Dog”, where I very gratefully found my controller (along with a few more fossils and another battery’s worth of flying time).
After having had an amazingly emotional day, I was pretty drained. Long hike, finding fossils, hanging with a real sled dog and his owner, taking drone pictures of a beautiful area, losing my controller and thinking my trip was ruined on the first day, going back on a second, long hike, finding my controller, making it back to my hotel. I should have been blasted, but it was broad daylight out and I just couldn’t bear to leave a full battery in my backpack so I staggered out through the talus field toward the river. It was all I could do to concentrate on not taking a face plant into the rocks, so I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. When I reached a relatively flat spot, I put down my drone backpack, opened it up and began setting up for my flight.
I was having problems finding satellites, and the high iron content in the rocks was telling me I had to recalibrate. When I recalibrate, I find the easiest way is to just hold the drone in a stationary place and walk around it. After a few spins around the drone I was very dizzy, but had to hold it together while I finished the calibration, so I sat down and completed the rest of the calibration (I was an avid surfer in my youth – before ear plugs became de rigueur – and have undergone three “surfer’s ear” operations, which have resulted in some fairly serious vertigo problems).
Anyway, with my head spinning I put the drone on the ground and realized that I was too dizzy to stand up. I don’t know if it was the cold, the ever-present danger of vertigo that lurks in my brain, the hour of the day, or the fact that in the past four days I had flown from Thailand to Japan to the US and then one day later from the US to Svalbard on eight separate planes, but in any case, I sat there and the world spun around me. Some instinct that had somehow still remained in my DNA from thousands of generations ago reminded me that I hadn’t looked behind me since I had left the cabins. I turned around and wished I hadn’t. I’m nearsighted and hadn’t brought my glasses, but I could see big, white, and moving toward me.
Back in the earlier days of the human race, when Darwinism actually worked, my ancestors lived to breeding age because they thought quickly and either ran quickly or fought strongly against large animals. In retrospect, I was actually quite proud that these genes were still in my particular DNA, as in a split second I realized I could still think quickly, but I couldn’t run quickly and I certainly couldn’t fight strongly, so I was dead. In that split second I also had all sorts of pictures from my past flash before my eyes (yes, it really does happen) and a darkly funny thought originated, percolated, and flew through my head at light speed about whether my life insurance company might try to deny my policy, calling an idiot who walks into polar bear territory without looking over his shoulder suicidal.
I staggered to my feet as my world swam and swirled in front of me and I almost blacked out, trying to make myself appear bigger, holding my drone in one hand and the GPC case in the other, but then I saw . . . antlers . . . skinny legs . . . and people. My somewhat slower thinking brain now comprehended that the big white thing had antlers and that people were bothering it, which is why it was walking toward me. OK, so it was a big reindeer and tourists were trying to take pictures of; it was a bit annoyed and in moving away from them it was walking toward me. With further life suddenly not just a low probability for me, my droning DNA (don’t ask me where I got that) suddenly told me that I would not be “harassing” the reindeer if I held my ground and let it approach me. So, I quickly got the drone airborne and began snapping. The reindeer coolly walked by, gave me a bored stare with its eye that was facing me, then crossed a river, and sat across the icy gray river, knowing full well apparently from past experience that none of the tourists would cross it to bother him. I respected his distance and just shot from over my head, but wow, what a thrill.
The tourists reached me and commended me for being in the right place with the right “flying camera” at the right time. Yeah, no biggie, you hang out and sometimes the subject just walks right up to you. I was pretty cool about it, and then walked back to the hotel to replace the five gallons of sweat I had just lost. Upon downing my fourth or fifth glass of water, I casually asked the waiter about the reindeer. The waiter was apparently on a first name basis with the reindeer, as that one hung out around the hotel a lot “since we almost never had polar bears near the hotel”. I laughed. It was a strained laugh but I don’t think the waiter caught on. Being on the second tier of the trophic level wasn’t all that great.
I did not sleep well that well that night and got up around 5 AM to do something other than dream of polar bears with skinny legs and antlers. The buffet wasn’t opened but my drone batteries were charged so I headed out to see what I could see. I took a look out my window and there was the reindeer, casually munching on the tundra about 20 feet from the window. Hey, I know you! I quickly walked downstairs and sat down by the edge of the hotel ramp. My reindeer took a look at me and kept munching. I took out my cell phone and began shooting. He just hung out; he even let me take some selfies with him. I generally don’t take selfies, but with my reindeer, I couldn’t pass it up. (Notice how it had become “my” reindeer by now?) We hung out together for a while until some other tourists showed up with telephoto lenses and began clicking. The reindeer either didn’t like the crowd or the clicking and meandered back across the river. I flew both up and down the valley from him, keeping a respectful distance as he casually munched the morning away.
My guided tour that day was again with Green Dog. In planning my trip to Svalbard I had written all the companies to see if they were open to me flying my drone as part of the tour, and I picked my trips accordingly. Some were quite obvious about their distaste for drones, but others, such as Green Dog, had been very open, so it was Green Dog again. This time my guide was Lasse, who was also Scandinavian, and also brought a gun with him. I was going dog sledding today, but since it was summer (with expected highs in the low 30’s), there was not enough snow so we did our dog sled run on a wheeled sled. The weather was thoroughly miserable (to me) and I didn’t get the drone out of the backpack, but I had an absolute blast.
Lasse has three dog teams for days when he has multiple clients or trips, but I was the only one today so we only took one team out. He let me help him hitch up the dogs to the sleds. Each dog had its own elevated doghouse, but all of them were out in the elements. Lasse explained that this weather was “comfortable” for the dogs and they would be “too hot” inside their doghouses. He mentioned that the biggest problem they had with the summer trips was when the weather got too hot (like the low 40’s?) and they had to cancel trips to keep the dogs from overheating. Indeed, I now follow Green Dog on Facebook and sure enough, a few days ago they posted a public apology for having to cancel so many trips because it was “too hot” for the dogs (yeah, like 44 degrees?).
The love he had for his dogs was obvious, and it was equally obvious that all the dogs wanted to go on the outing. There are eight dog houses in a “row”, that house the dogs that always work together, so when he selected the lead dog from one row of dog houses, the dogs in that row began to jump up and down and bark excitedly, while the dogs in the other two rows moped and whined. I had initially had some reservations about making sled dogs “work for me”, but upon seeing how the other two rows of dogs were so despondent at not being picked, I wished I had gone on three rides that day so each group of dogs could have gone.
Pulling out of the dog yard I was able to get rid of my guilty feelings once the whining of the dogs left behind was drowned out by the howling wind. Tearing down that trail with eight sled dogs and a guide with a gun through blistering sleet, snow, brilliant sun and rain really made me feel like I was a polar explorer, a regular Amundsen or Shackleton, well, except that my clothing was made in China rather than from a polar bear I had personally killed and skinned with a pocketknife.
We were making great progress until we came to a stop. I asked Lasse what was up and he said it was the dog’s drinking time. Apparently even though it was snowing, the dogs might get too hot so they had to have a water break three times during the trip. Just amazing: I was cold in four layers of clothes, the dogs were getting hot, and Lasse was wearing a baseball cap and a thin sweater. My respect for the humans and animals that called Svalbard home grew with each hour.
After their second water break the dogs were obviously still pretty warm (it was only lightly snowing now) and so they charged into an icy river to cool off. Another water break and we made it back to Green Dog, where I helped Lasse unleash the pack and we headed up the main house for some very welcome coffee and biscuits. First though, the dogs had to be fed and Lasse carefully walked along each line of his dogs and gave each of them a nice big slab of fish. Even the two lines who hadn’t been chosen for the adventure seemed happy now.
I went back to my hotel and was greeted, again, by my personal reindeer. By this point I felt that he was kind of my temporary Svalbard pet, so I walked out, sat down near my favorite 2 cm flowers and watched as he walked past me. I was later informed that every living thing that has adapted to Svalbard is either very close to the ground, has a lot of fur, and/or has a round body to store heat. The reindeer look pretty much like cylinders on legs, and they seem to have plenty of fur as well. In any case, it was nice to see my pet again before I took off on the boat the next day.
The next morning, I was greeted promptly at 9:00 AM by Magnus from Spitzbergen Guide Service (one thing about Longyearbyens, they are always on time). We drove through downtown Longyearbyen – a startling mixture of the 19thand 21st centuries – and arrived at the Spitzbergen Express. The Svalbard sky promised bleak weather and the wind was reminding me of why every plant I had seen in Svalbard was under ½” tall.
Our captain was a nice fellow named Bjoerner, who, along with Magnus – also a captain but serving as a guide on this trip – would show us Svalbard from a boat. I stowed my gear in the berth that was to be my home for the next four days and headed back up for our safety briefing. Bjorener began by telling us that at this time of year weather conditions can influence where we go and since there was so much chop in the channel between Svalbard and Prince Charles Foreland – a thin but long island the creates a semi-protected channel up to Ny-Alesund — we would be rerouting the trip slightly.
No problem for me, as we quickly headed across Isfjorden to one of the glaciers just south of Ekmanfjorden. We slalomed through some icebergs and then got out the dingy to go ashore. As would be the custom, Magnus would go with us while Bjoerner cooked the meals. Upon reaching shore, Magnus showed us his rifle and warning flares. He told us that, if possible, a polar bear showing threatening behavior got three flares shot in front of it, and if it continued, it got the bullets. One of our party asked if the bears got any warning bullets. Magnus explained in a rather James Bondian deadpan that it usually took more than one bullet to stop a polar bear and there was limited time to get off enough shots to stop one, so, um, no, they didn’t get any warning bullets. Fortunately, most polar bears were either not interested in the guests or were scared off by the flares. In any event, the gun went with us whenever we were on land – a constant reminder of who reigned supreme in Svalbard.
We hiked up the glacier without seeing any polar bears but I quickly became fascinated by the surface of the glacier. The slope we walked up was not extreme, but the slipperiness of the ice made it a bit nerve-racking. About a third of the way up Magnus found a vein in which pebbles were embedded in the ice, giving us some natural traction so we formed a line and followed this vein to the top. Upon reaching the summit, it was not that windy and only snowing slightly, so I got the drone up and shot some quick stills and video. Flying over the ice crevasses gave me a never-ending irregular sequence of white and blue in all shades. Turning the camera down reminded me that if the drone fell in this area, it was gone to the glacier and would probably get spit out into the ocean in a few thousand years as it worked its way slowly over the land into the sea. Since it was the first day of the trip, I brought the drone down fairly quickly and packed it away.
We got back to the boat and enjoyed a hearty lunch of asparagus soup. Bjoerner and Magnus pointed out how much further out the glaciers had been even a few years ago, and I felt fortunate to perhaps be one of the last ones who would see these glaciers actually calving into the ocean.
As we began cruising away, Magnus spotted some Arctic Terns divebombing something. I had already been warned about the Arctic Terns; there were extremely aggressive birds that defend their nests by flying above an intruder – be it human, polar bear or arctic fox – and pecking its head until it left. Magnus told us that he had seen Arctic Terns bloody the face of a polar bear so badly that the polar bear gave up and ran away rather than eating the Arctic Tern eggs that were just lying on the ground in front of it.
This time the intruder was an Arctic Fox, who tried to hide under rocky overhangs as it ran through the nesting territory looking for eggs and young terns. This was not the first rodeo for the Arctic Terns though, and they didn’t waste their time trying to peck the fox when it was under an overhand, but rather waited, somewhat impatiently, for it to make a run for the next cover, at which time at least five terns would dive-bomb in after it had only take ten or so steps. It was hard to figure out who to root for. The fox was trying to steal eggs, but it was taking such a beating from the terns, and Svalbard didn’t exactly have a whole lot of berries and other food for foxes to eat.
We headed north for another half hour and soon pulled over in a protected bay. The peninsula in front of us was covered with around 100 walruses. Having involuntarily felt the Svalbardian ocean a few times so far, I understood why walruses needed to have such thick layers of blubber, but up close and personal, well, you had to see it, hear it, and smell it to believe it.
I tried to find appropriate adjectives for these huge slabs of meat and muscle, and “uncouth” seemed most appropriate. They were completely without manners, consistently selfish, stinky, loud and obnoxious – I thought they were great. As we arrived, three exceptionally large walruses slowly rolled themselves out of the water and began a slowing wiggling toward the main herd. Since it was apparently so exhausting for them to be out of the water, they would only make about 20 feet before lying down and resting for a bit.
Once they made it to the edge of the herd, it reminded me of a reality TV show shot in a trailer park full of fat, drunk rednecks with mullets. The recent arrivals just plowed their way in between some of the smaller walruses, bellowing loudly and smashing the other walruses out of the way. The smashed walruses bellowed back and slashed back with their tusks before giving way and rolling over upon whatever unfortunate walrus was next to them. The larger the walrus, the more effective it was in getting closer to the center of the herd (the warmest place and the most protected from polar bears).
After the three newcomers had found their “proper” places within the herd, the walruses went back to doing what walrus do best: sleeping and farting. We were downwind and it got a bit rough for a bit as we traded off the idea of moving further away for less stench, but we ended up concluding that no one knew when we would be smelling distance from a bunch of stinky walruses, so we stuck it out.
Our next stop was the Russian town of Pyrimiden. When Svalbard was put under Norwegian control by the Svalbard Treaty in 1920, the signing countries retained rights to fish, hunt, and exploit mineral resources. The Russians have taken advantage of this right by maintaining the coal-mining town of Pyrimiden. As we walked through the now nearly-abandoned town, the Russian architectural style made me feel as though I was walking through Moscow a century ago. Rectangular gray buildings, straight streets just begging for military parades, and even a statue of Lenin in front of the gymnasium. We walked along, mostly in silence, and I was once again struck at the toughness of the Russian coal miners who voluntarily stayed in Pyrimiden through the three months of pure darkness. What a life they must have led!
The harsh Svalbard winters have not been lenient with Pyrimiden, and many of the old buildings are now home to nesting birds. We walked by a few workers who were repairing one of the buildings. I tried out the few words of Russian I knew and they responded in English with hearty waves. Small world. We made it back to the boat for dinner, and I felt as though I had already visited two countries from different centuries in one day on the same small island.
The next morning, we pulled out of Pyrimiden and drove up along with western coast of Svalbard toward Ny-Alesund, the northernmost city in the world. As part of the treaty of 1920, various countries have also set up scientific research stations at Ny-Selesund. So, as I walked through Ny-Alesund, I passed by scientific research stations from a number of countries. The international feel was emphasized as I walked the streets and was greeted by a number people of different nationalities.
A trip about the northernmost city in the world didn’t take long, although I did stop for some time to marvel at the tiny “belly flowers” on the ground. Such amazing magenta and white colors against the brown and gray earth. A small spring spurted forth from the ground nearby, creating a clear, meandering glimmer of water that meandered its way to the ocean. The moss was bright green along its edges, the greatest amount of green I had seen in any one place since arriving in Svalbard. A little further down the road I came upon some families of geese who were trying to make sure an Arctic fox knew that he or she was not welcome. The Arctic Fox didn’t seem to like me much, so took off as I walked further on the street.
Polar bear warning signs were clearly placed at the end of every street and sidewalk, a constant reminder that you weren’t always safe on Svalbard. With polar bears on my mind, I was not ready for the one time I was actually attacked by an animal on Svalbard. I was walking by a radio tower that was protected with a large fence topped with barbed wire. Arctic terns rose out of the enclosure and began shrieking and trying to peck my head. Fortunately, I had on my Russian hat so all they accomplished was to take a few years off the life of the hat and give me a bit of exercise as I ran away from the enclosure. Magnus later told me that he believed that the Arctic terns liked to next inside the enclose because foxes (and bears) couldn’t get in to eat their eggs and young, and they were just defending their turf. I guess they didn’t know that I didn’t have a key to the gate.
The next day I awoke to sunny skies and no wind. The fact that it was a smidgen above freezing didn’t matter that much as I knew I was in for a good day flying my drone. Little did I know that it would be the best droning day of my life. We tore out of Ny-Alesund and made great tracks over the smooth water. I grabbed a spot on the bridge and watched our wake peeling back in both directions like a perfect wave. Whales spouted on either side of us and puffins raced our boat. Some gulls flew right on either side of our bow to catch the lift from our bow wake.
Bjoerner said we would go as far north as the pack ice would allow. An hour or so into the trip we began to slalom through icebergs and pretty soon a wall of white filled the horizon like a gently threatening cloud that suggested we not go further. Fortunately, right in front of the pack ice was a flat iceberg with six walruses resting. Bjoerner got us as close as walrus-respect would allow and they just lay there, oblivious to the fact that they were giving three tourists the view of a lifetime.
We then found a nearby iceberg, without walruses, and Bjoerner expertly maneuvered the boat up to the edge, allowing the passengers to get off and experience life on an iceberg. I, of course, already had my drone in the air and couldn’t resist trying to land it on the iceberg. Fortunately, I picked a dry spot and no harm was done. I then switched between flying over and around our iceberg and the walrus’ iceberg until my hands got too cold to fly any more.
Next on the agenda was lunch, and Bjoerner’s vegetarian hot taco soup hit the spot like very few meals have ever done. With my hands a bit warmer, I burned through another battery just flying circles around the boat, ever increasing the radius of my flights. Having dropped more than my fair share of drones into various oceans over the past few years, I swapped micro-SD cards with every battery, hoping to save as much footage as possible just in case my Mavic 2 went swimming. But, even at 80 degrees north latitude the satellites kept me locked in and although RTH wouldn’t work as our boat and the iceberg were moving, I was able to reel it back in and hand grab from the boat.
Following lunch, we went to Magdalena Fjiord, generally considered to be one of Svalbard’s most beautiful, although by this time I viewed Svalbard pretty much like Iceland: there are no “non-beautiful” and “non-amazing” parts, so just fly whenever you don’t have rain or snow. We got into the zodiac and Magnus did his usual expert job of steering us to a low promontory that bisected the fjord. Because of the constant threat that a sudden wind could blow the pack ice across the mouth of the fjord and trap us there for a few days (which didn’t sound like much of a “threat” to me as I would have loved a few more days here), the ever-cautious Bjoerner anchored the boat on the ocean side of the point.
We got out on what Magnus explained to us was an old whaler’s graveyard, with some graves dating back hundreds of years. The entire area was roped off as the area was a major archeological site, but I was able to fly over the hill and Magnus pointed out some of the graves on my screen. What history must lie in this Svalbardian version of Boot Hill.
Just inland of the graveyard was a perfectly calm bay with a few icebergs floating around. Having been born in Hawaii and raised in Southern California, then marrying a woman from Thailand and building a small resort there, I haven’t been exposed to cold weather and icebergs that much, so perhaps I was overly excited about the icebergs, but there was something truly mesmerizing about flying a drone a few feet off the water and circling around icebergs. Each iceberg has a different shape and with the shadows and textures, each had a different pattern of colors ranging from stark white to all sorts of aqueous shades of greens, blues and grays.
Magnus was studying archeology and he told me that his dream was to be stationed here in a small cabin up on the mountain that afforded a view of the fjord and the graveyard. He pointed out the cabin and it was, like many Svalbardian research cabins, small, compact, and with a view to kill for. I could just picture him with his rifle and fishing pole, living off the land and archaeologically unraveling centuries of whaling life.
The wind began picking up toward the end of the day so we retreated back to Ny-Alesund for the evening. I took another short walk around the town, avoiding this time the Artic Tern gang turf. At the edge of town, dirt roads stretched off into the distance, promising journeys to other valleys and glaciers, where, with drone and guide-with-gun, I could see myself walking off to explore. That night the arctic cod came off the grill in endless quantities, and after a Norwegian ice cream desert, I retreated into my cabin and didn’t wake until I smelled the coffee next morning.
We took a leisurely route back, including some interesting chop-crossing getting across Isforden. There was no way to get through other than to meet the chop head on, and so for twenty minutes or so I learned what a punk rocker drummer’s snare drum feels like. We ended up near Grumant, where thousands of sea birds floated through the air in search of goals specific to each species, be it finding fish, protecting a nesting spot, or preying on other birds. It was a slow-motion dogfight of wills and wiles.
After making it back for a final (as always delicious) meal, we said our goodbyes and I stashed my bags at the nearest shuttle stop. I had a few hours so I walked back up the Longyearbyen valley, looking for one more meal at Coal Miner’s Cabins and one more greeting from my reindeer. The food was, as expected, great, but my reindeer was nowhere to be found. It was snowing and windy but I got my drone up for about 45 seconds and took a few symbolic shots down the Longyearbyen Valley, before beginning the walk back to the shuttle.
Along my meandering walk back, I turned a corner around a house and there was my reindeer. He stared at me out of his eye and then went back to scraping a living off the land. How little he knew about how much he had affected me trip. I can’t wait to see him again next summer.
