View from the Arctic:
A Journey Through the Ice,
from Svalbard,
to East Greenland
Exploring the World of Ice
at the Crossroads of Climate Change
By Mary Heebner | Photos by Macduff Everton
August 27, 2023
I am immersed in a landscape of astonishing beauty, summer’s enduring effulgent light. Striated fingers of land reflect on continuous open stretches of water, or polynyas, where mists of sea smoke insulate the water from freezing over. I feel a profound sense of the sublime; fierce and awesome. Small beings set against the perfect reflection of earth and earth’s illusion mirrored in the polished sea. The Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic is like witnessing the fearful symmetry of God.
We’re headed to the “Cold Coast,” the Old Norse name for Svalbard. A charter flight takes our group of 68 guests from Oslo to Spitsbergen, the largest of nine islands in the archipelago, where we’ll board the National Geographic Resolution, an ice-class Polar Class 5 vessel. From my window seat, peaks of the island protrude from a white frosting of snow cover; graphic, fantastic. I imagine my fingers pressing on soft porcelain-white clay, making depressions, wiggling my hand to create wrinkles in the frosted surface, pouring black paint down slopes creating bold, striated patterns. Wind pillows my parka, as I deplane in Longyearbyen, eager to board the ship and explore the fjords, glacial tongues, and catch sight of some wildlife. We are at 74 degrees North, just 650 miles from the Pole. We are closer to the North Pole, than the Arctic Circle. Pinch me!
[Click to enlarge]
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