{"id":8162,"date":"2020-03-13T03:01:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T03:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/?p=8162"},"modified":"2020-03-13T03:01:15","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T03:01:15","slug":"ski-touring-on-svalbard-the-magnetic-pull-of-the-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/?p=8162","title":{"rendered":"Ski Touring on Svalbard | The Magnetic Pull of the North"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Following in the footsteps of legendary polar explorer Roald Amundsen, Tristan Kennedy heads to Svalbard<\/h2>\n

Featured images by Tristan Kennedy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The man\u2019s mouth is set resolutely in a straight line, and his forehead, framed by the fur of his arctic parka, is deeply furrowed by weather and age. Is that steely determination on his face, or weary resignation? It\u2019s hard to say. But his eyes appear calm as he stares out towards the horizon, and the slate-grey sea that killed him.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cHis eyes appear calm as he stares out towards the horizon, and the slate-grey sea that killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Finding a statue of Roald Amundsen, the greatest of all polar explorers, makes perfect sense in this setting. We\u2019re in Ny-<\/span>\u00c5<\/span>lesund on the Svalbard archipelago, the northernmost civilian settlement on the planet. It was from here, in 1926, that the Norwegian navigator launched his last great achievement \u2013 a successful bid to reach the North Pole by air. In fact, the tower to which his enormous airship, the <\/span>Norge, <\/span><\/i>was tethered is still visible, just a few hundred metres from where his statue now stands. Svalbard was also Amundsen\u2019s destination two years later, when the flying boat he was travelling in disappeared over the ocean. <\/span>
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<\/span>A display in the tiny <\/span>Ny-\u00c5lesund museum<\/a><\/strong>, open by appointment to the trickle of visitors who make it here, tells how Amundsen fell out with the pilot of the <\/span>Norge<\/span><\/i>, Umberto Nobile, after their success. But on hearing that the Italian had crashed on a return mission to the pole, he still rushed to join the rescue effort. On 18th June 1928, he set off from Tromso bound for Ny-<\/span>\u00c5<\/span>lesund, but the plane didn\u2019t make it. Nobile and eight of his men would eventually be saved, but Amundsen\u2019s body was never found.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pictured: Roald Amundsen statue. Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Like a lot of people who are into adventure, I grew up on stories of Amundsen\u2019s exploits. As a Brit, I\u2019d been taught about the doomed romance of Captain Scott\u2019s South Pole expedition at an early age, but I\u2019d always been more interested in the Norwegian who\u2019d beaten him to it. On both that mission and his first successful navigation of the Northwest passage, another goal that had eluded the Royal Navy for hundreds of years, what seemed to have made the difference was Amundsen\u2019s willingness to learn from indigenous people in the polar regions \u2013 as opposed to relying on a combination of imperial arrogance and a stiff upper lip.<\/p>\n

Despite my childhood interest, however, I\u2019d never made it to Amundsen\u2019s stomping grounds myself. So when I was offered the chance to come further north than I\u2019d ever been, and join a North Face ski touring<\/a> expedition on a ship around Svalbard, I jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis exact line? No, probably not\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, this being the 21st Century, we\u2019re not facing anything like the same challenges as the polar explorers of old. But in our own, small way we are venturing into uncharted territory. Svalbard Ski & Sail, the company organising the expedition\u2019s logistics, specialises in guiding skiers<\/a> on virgin slopes. As we peel off our climbing skins at the top of a ridge on our first day, I ask Thomas Hukkel\u00e5s, our guide and the company\u2019s co-founder, if anyone\u2019s ever skied it before? \u201cThis exact line? No, probably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

First descents like this are a rarity in most of the world\u2019s mountain<\/a> ranges, but up here they\u2019re actually more common than not. Svalbard after all has a permanent population of just 2,500, living on a landmass three times the size of Wales. Each evening, our boat sails into a new, isolated fjord and the guides simply take their pick of the surrounding peaks.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA permanent population of just 2,500, living on a landmass three times the size of Wales\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The ship Ski & Sail use \u2013 our floating home for the duration of the trip \u2013 is the refitted 1956 Norwegian coastal cruiser MS Nordstjernen, meaning \u2018North Star\u2019. On the inside, she\u2019s an interior designers\u2019 fever dream of wooden decking, retro brass fittings, and riveted porthole covers. The cabins are small, but comfortable, and the liveried crew do a great job of catering for our every need \u2013 as well as making it feel like we\u2019ve stepped back in time.<\/p>\n

On the outside she looks like the kind of ship Haddock might have captained in the Adventures of Tintin \u2013 and by the sounds of things, she\u2019s experienced her fair share of similarly exciting exploits. At one stage we\u2019re given a \u2018below decks\u2019 tour, going down to the engine room \u2013 where the original diesel-powered pistons still clang away at enormous volumes \u2013 before being taken up to the bridge. \u201cYes, we\u2019ve been through some very big storms, with waves of 30 feet or more,\u201d Captain Tormod Karlssen tells us, casually.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Days onboard begin with the voice of Ski & Sail co-founder and expedition leader Hilde Falun Str\u00f8m crackling over the public address system. The stairs are too steep, and the gangways too narrow to have everyone putting their ski boots on at once, so groups are called in turn, before loading into the Zodiac inflatables that ferry us to the shore, crunching through icebergs as they go. <\/span>
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<\/span>Once you\u2019re ashore, the ski touring \u2013 or in my case, splitboarding \u2013 is much the same in Svalbard as it would be anywhere else. There are, however, a few significant differences. For starters, there are a lot of guns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cPolar bears are\u2026 everywhere on Svalbard \u2013 and bear attack is an ever-present risk\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As the much-photographed signs warn, polar bears are \u201c<\/span>Gjelder hele Svalbard\u201d \u2013 <\/span><\/i>everywhere on Svalbard \u2013 and bear attack is an ever-present risk. The islands famously hit the headlines in the UK when a pupil from Eton was mauled to death by a bear in 2011, and any group venturing into the backcountry<\/a> is obliged to carry a weapon. <\/span><\/p>\n

Every morning the first boat to land takes two guides armed with bolt action rifles, who stand watch as the rest of us disembark. The last person to leave each day is also armed. More often than not, this is Hilde herself, who carries her own .357 Magnum in a holster made of seal skin \u2013 the product of a previous hunt.<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The second major difference is the light. At 78 degrees latitude, Svalbard doesn\u2019t see the sun for four months during the winter season, but when we visit in May, it never gets dark. The sight of the sun spinning circles in the sky takes some getting used to, but it means that there\u2019s very little pressure to get out and up the hill early. You could start touring at five in the afternoon here, and still easily enjoy a full day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If anything, the difficulty becomes knowing when to stop. It\u2019s not so much the ski touring, which operates on a strict schedule (Hilde is a masterful organiser, and runs a super tight ship). But once the group is back on board and the beers come out, it\u2019s all too easy to find yourself standing in your snowboard<\/a> boots, enjoying \u201ca couple of apres pints\u201d, and suddenly realise it\u2019s after midnight. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWalls that would put even the best efforts of Game of Thrones\u2019<\/i> CGI team to shame\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Time seems to pass at a different speed up here, helped along by the fact that the scenery is never anything short of stunning. By day, each ridge we climb reveals further rows of untouched peaks, broken only by the occasional tongue of a fjord, glinting in the distance. By \u2018night\u2019, the ship skirts along the calving face of glaciers \u2013 vast, blue luminescent walls that would put even the best efforts of <\/span>Game of Thrones\u2019<\/span><\/i> CGI team to shame \u2013 and we eat our dinner listening to the creak and crack of the ancient ice moving. Every time we set sail, inquisitive guls and fulmars swoop low over the wake, and although we never actually see a polar bear, the thought that they\u2019re out there definitely adds to the sense that this is a wilderness on a different scale to anywhere I\u2019ve ridden before.<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Famously there are more of these massive predators on the archipelago than people. Yet, despite that, Svalbard isn\u2019t completely devoid of human habitation. Ny-\u00c5lesund, with its permanent population of just 30, hardly counts, but before we board the ship we get the chance to spend a day in Longyearbyen. The largest settlement on the islands, it\u2019s home to all but a few hundred of their inhabitants. Hendrik Sanio, our guide on what\u2019s rather grandly billed as a \u2018city tour\u2019, shows us the \u2018sights\u2019 \u2013 the school, hospital, airport, and, from a distance, the post-apocalyptic <\/span>Global Seed Vault<\/span><\/a>. Perhaps more interestingly, he also sheds some light on what makes this remarkable community tick.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cYou could start touring at five in the afternoon here, and still easily enjoy a full day\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The territory is technically part of Norway, but since 1925 has been governed by a unique international treaty which gives all signatory countries equal rights, while simultaneously banning any military presence. The upshot of this is that anyone, of any nationality, can live and work here visa-free. For most of the past 100 years, when coal mining was the only industry in town, there were just a handful of hardy Norwegians and Russians. But as tourism grew steadily from the mid-90s onwards, a truly international community began to emerge in this least likely of locations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI think we have 52 different nationalities living here now,\u201d says Hilde, who arrived from the Norwegian mainland in 1995. Hendrik, originally from Germany, tells us proudly that there are locals who hail from as far away as Uganda, and that the third largest national group \u201cwith 142 and a half people,\u201d is Thai. \u201cThe half,\u201d he jokes, \u201cis my son\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of where they are, cooperation is the key to survival on Svalbard. \u201cI think you build stronger connections because you need them,\u201d is how Hilde explains it. \u201cIn this environment, I think <\/span>we get kinder as humans \u2013 to each other, but also to nature, to the wildlife and even to ourselves. Being exposed to nature does that to people.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This impressively egalitarian community, and the pristine landscape that supports it, are now under threat as never before, however. Global warming is more pronounced the further north you travel<\/a>, so a two degree warming at the equator amounts to four degrees at the poles, and the impact of the climate crisis up here has been severe. <\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWhen I arrived in 1995, it was quite common that the whole Isfjord [the inlet outside Longyearbyen] would freeze,\u201d says Hilde. \u201cI could drive more than 50km across it on my snowmobile, seals would always give birth to <\/span>their cubs on the sea ice, and the polar bears never had any challenges getting any food.\u201d<\/span>
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<\/span>Hungry polar bears are obviously not great for the islands\u2019 human inhabitants, but the greater threat comes from the landscape itself. Landslides and avalanches are increasingly frequent as the winters become less stable. \u201cWe have to evacuate parts of the city every summer now,\u201d Hendrik tells us on our tour, while Hilde tells the story of a catastrophic avalanche in 2015, which \u201cburied 17 people inside their houses, sweeping some buildings 80 metres,\u201d and killing two people \u2013 including a two-year-old child.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel connected here. Like I\u2019m a part of something bigger\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Faced with such hardship, you might think locals would start to pack up and leave. But the small amount of time I\u2019ve spent in Svalbard is enough to make me realise that there\u2019s something about the place that will always exert a pull on people. It\u2019s the same magnetic attraction that drew Amundsen and his ilk to the frozen polar regions time and again, even at the expense of their own lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to put your finger on what that appeal is, exactly, but Hilde perhaps explains it best: \u201c<\/span>It\u2019s the light, it\u2019s the nature, it is the wildlife, it\u2019s all of those things, but it\u2019s mostly the feeling it gives me \u2013 it\u2019s a grounding. I feel both vulnerable, and humbled because of all the forces around me. At the same time, being out here, in this very harsh environment, I feel very strong. It might sound like a bit much, but I feel connected here. Like I\u2019m a part of something bigger.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tristan\u2019s trip was organised by The North Face<\/a>. You can read his review of their Summit Series Ski Touring gear on our sister site, <\/span><\/i>Outdoors Magic.<\/i><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: Tristan Kennedy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

You May Also Like<\/h2>\n

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The First Time I Went\u2026 | Snowboarding<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Ski Touring on Svalbard | The Magnetic Pull of the North<\/a> appeared first on Mpora<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following in the footsteps of legendary polar explorer Roald Amundsen, Tristan Kennedy heads to Svalbard Featured images by Tristan Kennedy The man\u2019s mouth is set resolutely in a straight line, and his forehead, framed by the fur of his arctic parka, is deeply furrowed by weather and age. Is that steely determination on his face, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snowboarding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koolboards.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}