Isbjorn!

I've now truly experienced Svalbard.

This was the view from the roof of my school on Friday:

It was in the middle of the Fjord that we live on the shores of. The governor was a bit worried about it though- so a few hours later they tranquilized it and helecoptered it out of town.

Picture this...

Home

Boat trip to Barentsburg (Russian Settlement)

Norwegian independence day parade

Just another evening in the barracks...

Enjoying the last of the snow on the way to Larshjettefjellet with Benny

I have 24 days left on this island. I'm trying not to dwell on leaving and am focusing on loving these last few weeks.

Glacial Hydrology (part 2)

68.7% of the world's freshwater is stored in ice at the poles and at elevation. Despite this huge reservoir of our most important natural resource, staggeringly little is known about the cryosphere and its interaction with global climate. Glaciers are effectively just ice that has accumulated over time and moves under its own weight, but they have a major impact on sea level and freshwater supply for humans. All this is just to say that understanding glacial hydrology is pretty important. In the last several years it has come to light that the predominant theory of water movement through glaciers (the Shreve model) that is the basis for effectively all studies of glacial hydrology is… less than accurate. In fact, it may be fully wrong in predicting water movement through glaciers in particularly cold regions of the world.

The term project that I'm donning here at UNIS involves sensing of meltwater channels in glaciers. I'm comparing maps of meltwater channels that were made through glaciospeleleology (ice caving!) with ground-penetrating radar data from the surface to see how good of a job the GPR does of mapping the meltwater channels. In places like Greenland where the ice sheets are huge, it is much more practical to try to map the channels from the surface, so it is important to know how good of a job GPR does at sensing the channels. I'm really excited about this work and hope to continue it in the future (I'm even talking with my professor about turning it into a masters project..).

Mapping (Photo credit: Alexis)

All done! (Photo credit: Alexis)

Cabins and the Svalbard Bubble

On Svalbard, finding a shelter in the middle of a blizzard can mean the difference between a warm night and turning into a pre-packaged frozen polar bear meal. Thankfully for us accident-prone students, this was discovered long ago, so there are a plethora of open cabins around Svalbard.

Here's how it works: someone builds a cabin (read: 4 walls and a roof, a bit of insulation, a coal stove, some bunk beds). They use it when they want, but leave it open the rest of the time for passing travelers. The only expectations: clean it when you're done and be sure to write in the guest book. The student group here at my university owns two particularly nice cabins that are perfect for weekend get-aways. It is truly splendid to be able to plan a trip into the middle of the bone-chilling arctic wilderness, knowing that a soon-warm cabin and almost-comfortable bed awaits.

The idea of sharing cabins fits right in with the 'svalbard faith' concerning everything else. Doors on houses are always left unlocked. Keys are left in cars and snowmobiles. Skis are left outside. Broken snowmobiles are miraculously found on top of the hill that they were stuck at the bottom of. Expensive outdoor equipment is loaned without the blink of an eye. We even have a free store. Think goodwill, but everything is free. The huge fluffy (almost brand-new) down coat that I live in up here was found there, as were most of my wool socks. The generosity, caring, and faith in one another that is found here is unparalleled by anything I've seen elsewhere in the world. I'm going to miss it dearly.

Student- owned Svea Cabin

One of my favorite cabins near Pyramiden

Fallout

Apologies for my long silence. A week ago my computer started flashing this symbol:

instead of working properly. I’m told that my hard drive is shot and my data is lost… including the 5,000+ pictures I’ve taken here on Svalbard and two half-completed term projects. I remain convinced that if I pay the right person the right amount of money they’ll be able to recover the pictures. Right? Morale of this story: back up your computer. A lesson I’m learning the VERY hard way. New computer is on its way though, so I should be able to share more pictures once it arrives.

The Volcano that is disrupting the rest of the world did not spare Svalbard. We’ve been without milk, eggs, yogurt, produce, and meat for a week now (crackers and peanut butter for breakfast, anyone?) The volcano is non-discriminatory in its cancelling of flights: everyone from visiting mothers to David Attenborough is stuck on the island. No seriously, he is. I have a new favorite teacher-excuse for cancelling class: “BBC wants to interview me.”

Beyond adventures with computers and volcanoes I’ve been filling my time with lots of coursework and skiing (as per usual). This weekend found me hunched over underneath a glacier installing pressure sensors in meltwater. Rieperbreen is by far the most challenging ice-cave I’ve worked in so far… very technical climbing involved. One section was so tight that I almost didn’t fit through it (and my professor didn’t at all). Installing rock bolts by hand (rock hammer and screw, whee!), a dying headlamp, one broken crampon, and no knee-pads made it even more of an adventure, but one I’m likely to repeat in the future. I am beyond excited about studying glaciers.

Plans beyond Svalbard have finally been solidified: I’ll be spending the coming summer in Washington DC doing a geoscience public policy internship with the American Geologic Institute. I’m not quite sure how I got selected for this awesome internship, but I’m looking forward to learning more about how geoscientists and lawmakers interact on the hill!! Check it out: http://www.agiweb.org/gap/interns/internsu.html

Colored eggs and golf balls

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays. Our family traditions involve lots of candy, egg-coloring, and poker. It's a good combination. I was a bit blue about missing my first easter at home, so one of my hall-mates and I organized a big Svalbard-style easter brunch. I taught the Norwegians how to dye eggs the American way and we had a grand time. The day itself was spent thoroughly exploring our local ice-cave, and in the evening I enjoyed (!!) my first-ever steak. My inner vegetarian is dying on this trip.

p.s. there are 6 nationalities in this picture alone

A couple of days after Easter, class started again with a fieldtrip to SvalSat, a collection of monstrous golf-balls on a rather large plateau above town. This is where organizations like NASA and NOAA communicate with their satellites. It makes sense to have a ground station like this on Svalbard because we're far enough north that polar-orbiting satellites (those that travel over the pole with each pass) are able to communicate with the station on every orbit around the earth. In contrast, a station at the equator would only be able to communicate with the same satellite on 1 out of every 14 orbits.

I'd like take a moment to thank SvalSat for existing-- without whom I would not be able to update this blog. The 890 miles of undersea fiber optic cables that are currently supplying me with high-speed internet were installed for SvalSat, and 1/4 of our bandwidth is reserved for uploading and downloading satellite data.

I was able to take pictures outside the facility, but security was much tighter inside. Inside the huge round ball is a rather impressive satellite dish.

Other good news-- 4 washes later and I now have a functioning sleeping bag! The rest of my gear still has a bit of an eau-du-gasoline, but nothing unbearable.

Misadventures

Recipe for Disaster

Ingredients:
10 L Gasoline
1 leaky jerry can
1 sled with bad suspension
1 fast driver
120 km of rough terrain
1 large bag full of arctic survival gear (read: food, tent, sleeping bag, all of my warm technical clothing)

Mix. Best served at -25C and a 1-day drive away from 'civilization.'
Enjoy!

Trying to dry a gasoline-soaked sleeping bag in arctic gale-force winds.

In other news, it's spring break! I've got a 3-week break in which to explore this beautiful island. The last two weekends have found me taking long snowmobile trips, while the weeks have been spent exploring local glaciers on skis (and yes, doing schoolwork too. It's not ALL fun and games up here).

Both weekends have involved exploring the area northeast of Longyearbyen: Templefjorden, Billefjorden, Pyramiden, and Tarantela. Pyramiden is an abandoned Russian mining town. Before 1998 it was a thriving coal-town of 1000+, but on January 10th 1998 it was abandoned virtually overnight without informing the local government or any of the surrounding communities. It is still unknown why the Russians left in such a hurry. Today there are 2 caretakers that 'ensure' that tourists don't get into any mischief (they don't do a very good job). What is left now is a virtually intact town that is perfect for exploring while singing creepy horror-movie tunes.

Ghost town

Unfortunately for me was the cooking of the 'Disaster' previously mentioned. I arrived in Billefjorden with gas soaked gear and food bags. Thankfully my friends were well prepared with extra food, and I kept warm enough at night by dressing like the Michelin Man in their extra clothes. I'm now feverishly researching methods of cleaning gas from down so that my sleeping bag and warm clothes survive the adventure. Anyone have any good tips? Till they're clean I'm stuck inside. My coursework and to-do list will probably thank that silly leaky jerrycan.

The highlight of the trips has been visiting two calving glacier fronts. When a glacier or ice sheet enters the ocean (or a lake) it fractures and large chunks of ice are able to fall into the ocean. This is a natural process that has been occurring for millennia, though rates of calving along some glaciers and ice sheets are accelerating (perhaps due to climate change). Calving fronts aren't the safest place to hang out and sight-see, but my inner glaciologist was dying for a close-up look. Right at the base of the glacier we found polar bear tracks!

This is why I want to be a glaciologist.

And this is why we carry rifles everywhere!

Oops.

Ice crystals in the air!

We love Svalbard (countries represented: US, Sweden, Denmark, Germany)

Happy and tired after a long day of driving

Alien landscape

Just another afternoon ski

On top of a Pingo (hill made of ice that forms in regions with permafrost)

The view out my window last night

Why I haven't been taking too many pictures recently...

Why my room smells like a 2-stroke engine

Svalbard might be the only place on earth where:

You can walk in to a bank wearing a face mask and a carrying a rifle and they don't really mind

Classes are cancelled when the sun rises

Living in town gives you the right to free helicopter rescue missions if you fall through sea ice or into a crevasse

Teachers hand out rifles and snowmobiles before field trips to ice caves

There are no McDonalds or Starbucks

You can go 2 months without seeing a single living organism other than humans, reindeer, and half-dead grass

But the biggie... the trump-card, if you will... Svalbard is THE only place on earth where environmentalists own snowmobiles


World, meet the first vehicle I've ever owned (that's me in the picture, I promise). She is a yet-to-be-named 1999 Polaris Indy 500 that I'm sharing with a friend. Why, you may ask? Because if you want to see more than 25 km beyond town, you have to have one. There aren't roads here, and as much as I'd love to ski across the whole island, it's just not possible. I still prefer to explore this place on skis, but now I'm able to scooter to a distant glacier, THEN ski up it.

Bliss

After 53 days of darkness, I finally saw the sun again today.

Neither this picture nor anything I type will express my monumental joy.

Glacio-speleology

When snow and ice melts on the surface of a glacier, it flows from the top of the glacier to the bed. This flowing water cuts through the ice and forms a channel, much like a river cuts through rock. In winter, there is no active melting, so there is no running water. Snow falls and closes the top of the channel. What's left is a narrow, tall ice cave. Over the course of the winter, some water is able to move through the channel and form intricate icicles and crystals. There are a few other ways that caves within glaciers can form, but it all comes back to flowing water.

My glaciology professor is the 'it' guy when it comes to studying ice caves. He wrote the book, and has been using the caves to study patterns of glacial melt and mass balance for two decades. I'm helping him with a project that will use radar to map the caves from the surface of the glacier. We did our first fieldwork on Friday. It was the third ice cave I've been in: I've already explored the cave systems in Larsbreen and Longyearbreen, the glaciers right behind my barrack. The Larsbreen cave is quite long and requires technical rope work (repel down in, and several 'waterfalls' to climb up and down once you're inside). Some friends and I spent much of last Thursday in the cave. We took an hour and half longer than we thought we would, and our worried friends back home called the governor and red cross. By the time we got back, the red cross had mobilized a crevasse rescue team, and tensions were running high. Thankfully the situation was resolved without much difficulty-- the governor decided that no party was at fault and everyone had acted how they should have. This is a dangerous place, and its nice to know that the systems that are in place to keep us all safe really DO work.

I'm hooked on caving though. I want to keep exploring. I want to learn about formations. I'm curious as to how the caves can be used to study glacier dynamics over time. They allow you to explore the inside of a glacier- an incredibly unique opportunity that is otherwise only possible with extensive drilling.

I'm still really bad at ice climbing (what happens when you give a naturally clumsy person shoes with massive spikes and two ice axes, then ask them to climb something slippery? Bad things. I have huge bruises to prove it). Turns out I'm also quite bad at snowmobile driving-- I flipped my scooter 3 times while doing fieldwork yesterday. Oops. Hey, driving in 4 feet of soft powder on steep slopes is really hard.

Morale of my rambling stories: I LOVE ICE CAVES!

Jeanette being lowered down

Inside the Cave, looking up

Edward Ice-Axe-Hands

A day in the life: weekday

6:30 Alarm

6:35 Stumble into kitchen, blearey-eyed, and make a hasty breakfast/lunch of 1/2 loaf of home-made bread, traditional norwegian brown cheese, salami, and bananas with peanut butter.

6:45 Get dressed for -25 C and begin walk to the gym. Fall on bum once thanks to ice.

7:15 Morning swim-- it's free for students on Tuesday/Thursdays!

8:30 Leave gym, properly awake this time, just as 10,000 adorable norwegian children arrive for swim lessons.

9:00 Arrive at UNIS in time for a quick tea with friends before class.

9:15 Geography Class: cartography and remote sensing from a guest lecturer grad student who could model for GQ.

11:00 Lunch, study, research-work, hang at UNIS. Plan to get more accomplished than I actually do.

2:00 Grocery shopping, walk back to Nybyen. Hitch-hike a ride for the last 1/2 km.

3:30 Ski up Larsbreen (steeper of the two local glaciers), enjoy the pink-color on the mountaintops. The sun will return soon! Enjoy powder on the moraine, curse the ice on the glacier. Safety equipment carried: rifle, avalanche beacon, avalanche probe, shovel, extra clothes, cell phone, first aid.

6:30 Cook lasagna dinner with barrack-mates, then watch trashy vampire TV show because it's fun to be scared during 24-hour darkness. Learn 4 new Norwegian words and 1 new Finnish word over the course of the evening (not including the trashy pickup line I was forced to repeat).

9:00 Student council meeting-- argue about the budget, talk of UNIS administration drama. Digress to skiing-talk.

10:00 Celebrate random swedish holiday that nobody knows the reason for by enjoying traditional cream-filled sticky buns.

10:30 Learn to drive a stick-shift from the taxi driver who came over to celebrate the random holiday. Successfully navigate the 2 roads in Longyearbyen and don't slide off the road or hit a reindeer.

12:00 Skype/email/IM friends from home till the sugar wears off.

1:00 Crash into bed, promising myself that I'll go to bed earlier tomorrow.

Some days I climb in the evenings instead of swimming in the morning. Some days I have 6 hours of lecture and lab or field trip. Some days I go ice-caving or hiking instead of skiing. Some days I have volunteer work in the evenings other than Student Council. Some days I eat 6 meals instead of 3. Some days we celebrate a random norwegian holiday instead. But you get the idea.

p.s. see new pictures in the 'changes' post farther down the page

Ghost towns and mines

Last weekend was spent skiing to Colesbukta-- an abandoned Russian mining village in a nearby valley. It was 45-ish km of skiing over 3 days and involved traversing the length of 1 glacier, going up and over one mountain (twice), and following a river valley. We saw the ocean, spectacular northern lights, -20C, a broken stove and a broken sled, 2 cold nights, one bear-scare, zero blisters, and many many kilometers of seemingly untouched Svalbard beauty. Winter camping in the arctic makes summer camping in Oregon seem SO cushy. I'd never before had to worry about keeping a water bottle inside my coat so it didn't freeze, or sleeping with someone else inside a 1-man bivy-sack so I didn't freeze!

Me and my trusty Pulk (sled) named Fred. He's such a drag.

Sad attempts at aurora photography. -15 degrees C + no tripod + a frozen camera battery = a LOT of blurry shots like this. You get the idea though.

Sleepin' with guns under our pillows... Everyting we do is with bears in mind.

Such peace. We saw a lot of reindeer in this river valley.

The whole crew on top of the mountain (the second time), nearly home, bodies sore.

A few days later I explored an abandoned mine near my dorm. There is a long and complicated history of mining in Longyearbyen, and remnants of this history are found both in the culture of the town and surrounding it on the hillsides. Exploring a condemned mine on a day when school was cancelled seemed like a good idea. I've been watching too many vampire movies though, and was creeped out the whole time.

My Finnish friend Jussi and I trying to look scary.

The walk back into town from the mine. After a while we gave up on walking and slid on our bums instead.

Classes are going very well. I spend surprisingly little time in lectures and even less time studying. They don't seem to believe in homework in the arctic. I was feeling the need for a little more... academic rigor... so I went and talked to a professor about becoming involved in a research project. I'm going to start a project with him looking into how to sense the meltwater within polythermal glaciers. We'll be skiing to nearby glaciers to do fieldwork once the light returns. I could get used to this...

p.s. It wasn't really a bear. It was a sign that reflected like eyes did. Who would be silly enough to out a sign like that out in the middle of polar bear country???

Changes

Walking to UNIS on 2/17 at 1:00 pm

Walking to UNIS on 1/29 at 2:00 pm

Spitsbergen up-and-down

Trollsteinen is the mountain that sticks through the Larsbreen glacier behind my barrack. Every winter, residents of Svalbard compete in the Spitsbergen up-and-down, which is a race up and down Trollsteinen. It is 7.5 km round trip with 800m of elevation gain.

I bought a new pair of AT skis this week. They cost about 1-term's worth of tuition money, but I'm going to make it worth it by going out as often as I can. (For my ski bum friends: Dynafit Vertical ST bindings, Dynafit Zzero4 CF boots, Black Diamond Joule skis. For my non-ski bum friends: they're pretty, fast, and light). I figured that racing up a mountain was a good way to try out the new gear. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Most Norwegians are born with skis already on their feet. They also work out at least 50x per day. I was totally and completely in over my head. I realized this about 30 seconds in. Despite my relative skiing inability, the views were jaw-dropping. The stars and moon were spectacular (I kept getting distracted by finding new constellations). Skiing down was a bit of an adventure because my quads were totally shot and I could barely make the turns. The snow is pretty bad right now, so the combination of darkness, extremely steep slopes, -20C temps, wind-blown ice, and a dead body was quite... epic. At one point when I was about to sit down on the snow and start crying for mommy because my legs hurt so much, the song "Yellow" by Coldplay started playing on my iPod ("Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do"). I'm not normally a Coldplay fan, but in that moment those words gave me the strength to keep chugging up the hill.

Got back to the main event's tent in time for the awards-- I won an award for being in last place! I'm not sure how they introduced the award (it was in Norwegian) but I imagine that the guy said something to the effect of: "this award is for the bravest new skier here. She was so slow that our polar bear guards had already come back to the tent by the time she was skiing down. We're going to give her a flare gun holster and suggest she buy a flare gun for future trips, just in case she's the last one on the mountain again."

All in all a grand adventure. I believe I was the only female UNIS student to finish the race (two other started but couldn't finish). I LOVE my new gear, and I'm sore beyond belief today, so I went on another ski trip this morning. Mistake? Maybe. But totally worth it. Sorry legs.

Photo credit: Jussi. Water break on Longyearbreen glacier this morning.

Want to contact me?

I might even respond, assuming the internet is working and I'm not stuck in a crevasse...

Norwegian phone number: 4681-1097 (if you're calling from the states, it's 011-47-4681-1097. And you'd better have a good reason for calling).

Address: Kiya Wilson
Nybyen Brakke 11 Room 109
9170 Longyearbyen
Norway

Email: wilsokiy@onid.orst.edu

Skype: kiya.lihn

Matters of Money

The best way to spend 20 Kroner on Svalbard:
-- Take a taxi with 7 friends so you don't have to walk the 3km home in the blizzard with winds so strong it's knocking people off their feet. We are accumulating a bit of a snow drift in the entrance hall from a tiny crack in the door. Classes have been canceled for today and tomorrow, and we are all hibernating in our barracks.

Me with the statue in the middle of town. At the time it seemed like a good idea to take a self-portrait with a statue during an epic blizzard.

The best way to spend 10 Kroner on Svalbard:
-- A beer at the weekly 'Friday gathering' that is held in the school cantina. After class in the evening we normally sit around a fire place telling stories and slacklining between the room's pillars.


--Bake a loaf of bread. Bread is ridiculously expensive here, so most people bake their own. The barrack always smells lovely. I make all of my own food in the kitchen across the hall from my room. Staples include anything frozen or packaged. Fresh produce and dairy products are about 5x more expensive here as in the states (No joke. About $2 for a banana, $4 for a small carton of yogurt, $6 for a small pack of lunch meat).

RJ's delicious italian-esque bread recipe a-la svalbard

The best way to spend no money on Svalbard:
--Dig a hole, build a bonfire, sit around it while warming your hands, look up and enjoy the stars and the moon. Do you know how glorious it is to have an almost-full moon? It's like a miniature sun, hovering just high enough in the sky to cast an eerie glow on Longyearbyen.

Last Friday's evening entertainment. It was another pinch-me experience (am I really here right now? Is this all a dream?).

Photo credit: Alexis

--Go to class. UNIS is fully funded by the Norwegian government, so there isn't any tuition. Courses are revving into full swing. My schedule has changed a bit-- I'm taking Arctic Environmental Management and Physical Geography of Svalbard. My geography teacher is a hilarious Scottish grandpa-like man who is very excitable and loves glaciers dearly. He has us all looking forward to a trip into several ice caves next month. I'm also sitting in on a glaciology course and a history of Svalbard course (just for fun).

--Visit the library to escape the weather. There are always cute children there, plus a good selection of books in English, Norwegian, and Thai (the second largest country represented in Longyearbyen, strangely).


--Do anything outside. Skiing. Ice caving or climbing. Snow-mobiling. Sledding. Hiking. Skating. You name it, we do it. I'm living in an untouched wilderness, and I'm going to do my best to explore it while I'm here.

(OK, maybe not while this blizzard continues)

Long Overdue Pictures

Photo Credit: Alexis. View from the school yesterday (at about 2:00 PM). See how there's some light on the horizon? It's terribly exciting. There is now 23.5 hours of darkness a day and .5 hours of darkness plus some color on the horizon. Also notice the layer of ice on EVERYTHING.



Photo Credit: Alexis. My barrack (red one on the left), looking towards Longyearbyen.



Photo Credit: Alexis. The inside of UNIS (my school). It's super funky cool and the floors are perfect for running and sliding. The tilted walls and ceiling aren't a camera trick.



Photo Credit: Wes. Me jumping through sea ice as part of the safety course (wearing a heavy snow-mobile suit). I then pulled myself out with metal spikes. COLD and PAINFUL is an understatement.



Two flat-mates and I after seeing the best northern lights yet. We were rather excited (and cold).



The closest thing I've seen to a live polar bear. There are more bears than people on Svalbard, and everything we do has an element of bear safety, but 24-hour darkness means we don't see them often.



View of Longyearbyen from the top of Longyearbreen (a nearby glacier that I skied up). Other than that tiny speck of light, there's not much else to see in the dark, other than distant mountains with an eerie white glow from the moon and stars.



Where I spend my free time when I'm not in class, skiing, swimming, or hanging with crazy Europeans.

... I'll try harder to publish my photos with stories in the future. Thanks to Alexis for letting me steal a few shots. Check out his Svalbard photo site at: http://www.longyearbyen.sitew.com/#Home.A