One feels insignificant in the vastness of this land. The horizon and sky blend and we find ourselves enveloped in a sphere within which we are only a tiny particle floating through time.
There was silence in the night as we sat at anchor off the southeastern coast of Nordaustlandet, the second largest island in the Svalbard archipelago. Outside a glacier flowed, its smooth and rounded upper surface seemingly tugging the clouds with it on its journey to the sea. Its scalloped face blended laterally with gravelly ridges. They too were draped with snowy frosting that emphasized the hills and valleys of uplifted previous shorelines. Ancient whalebones nourished the miniscule plants of the arctic desert while wind blasted rocks sheltered scattered slow growing mosses and lichens. At the tip of the nose of Torellneset a steamy mound of blubbery walrus squirmed. Periodically a flattened face with a large toothy grin emerged seemingly to nudge its neighbor.
Eight thousand square kilometers of ice sit precariously atop this island, slowly squeezed peripherally in all directions. It slips down valleys and pours over low hillsides, its tongue floating upon the frigid waters until the weight can no longer be supported. Drawn along this fractured façade we followed it for hours. Frequent calvings stripped away air containing ice revealing the gelid blue of densely packed ice crystals. Snow drifted down obscuring its beginning and its ending.
Upon the deep dark waters platters of sea ice drifted like lithospheric plates. Collisions pushed up pressure ridges demonstrating mountain building. Periodically one plate subducted beneath another, its tilted edges exposing yellowish diatoms and tiny surprised polar cod. Guillemots and kittiwakes winged by disappearing into the invisible distance. Tracks upon the ice told of seals and fox and bear that were no longer there. How did they navigate in this white and endless world? Without a compass or an electronic track we would have been as aimless as a snowflake upon the wind. No landmark could be found to tell from whence we came.
Fortunately our navigators are prepared and as our energy drains and seeks renewal, the ship heads south for Freemundsund, our gateway to more adventure in the morning.
