SAMS at 78° North: Easter trips and polar bears

Hi everyone! Holger here.
The days are getting very long now, it doesn´t really get dark at night anymore. On the one hand it´s nice because the lights of my scooter broke (along with the windscreen and handle heating...) and we can stay out for longer. But on the other hand the constant light messes with my sleeping rhythm.
Us biologists finally finished the last report, it was a difficult one. The data we had to use was not the best ever, because it was from a student group from last year and the fact that we had to make up a topic for the paper from the data didn´t help. Maybe it´s just me but usually scientists come up with a research question first and then go collect data, not the other way around. It was still good to practise scientific writing and the handling of data.
We were on Easter break for the last two weeks and for a change didn't have to work all day! Naturally we went on a lot of trips, I'll talk about the most exciting ones in this blog.

During the first week off, Matthew and I went to Mohnbukta at the east coast of Svalbard. Jamies scooter, the sexy cat, was still in need of some attention, so he couldn't join us. Chances to see polar bears are a lot better at the east coast, and although we didn't actually see a polar bear, we covered a lot of territory. A big glacier is going into Mohnbukta and there was enough sea ice to have lunch in front of a spectacular blue ice front! Of course we had to keep a save distance, because even in winter glaciers can calve at any given moment. On our way back we also visited Tempelfjorden and a frozen waterfall, both of which are worth a trip on its own, but we covered all of it in one day.

Lunch break on the sea ice infront of a glacier

Especially last week was very busy. I went to Paulabreen with a small group , which is another glacier ending in Rindersbukta, a fjord close to Svea. Svea is the smaller mining settlement about 2 hours away from Longyearbyen. It had been quite cold all week (about -20°C) so the sea ice covered all of the fjord and was safe to drive on. The original plan was to camp, but we found a half finished cabin, which nobody else was using. We had to secure the cabin first by nailing some boards over the window openings, otherwise we would have had to have a polar bear watch, there were a lot of bear-tracks all around the cabin. But with the improvements to the cabin we decided it was secure enough, and we ended up having a cosy, comfortable night. The next day we drove back over the sea ice and saw quite a few seals on the ice. And just before we reached Svea, we spoted a polar bear lying on the ice watching a seal hole! The bear didn't mind us approaching at all, so we were able to carefully drive relatively close to it (perhaps 150-200m). Of course we had to stay on our scooters and have them all faced away from the polar bear, so we could quickly drive off, if we needed to. But the bear just looked up once and ignored us for the rest of the time. We watched it for maybe 10 minutes when another tourist group came from the nearby town and drove straight towards the bear with no precaution whatsoever. Of course the bear didn't like being cornered so it run away. Luckily not through either of the two groups....

Please excuse the bad quality of the pic, I don´t have a fancy camera with good zoom. But you can clearly make out the polar bear anyway.

Polar bear!!!

Our home for the night

And myself driving my snowmobile (photo credits Renee Rookus)

The last trip I want to talk about was another cabin trip to Diabasodden. Matthew and his brother, who was here on a visit for a few days, joined the group this time. Jamie didn´t go with us again, because the sexy cat (his snowmobile) was still not ready yet. But at least he found a new gear box and brought it back from the dead. I´m sure he´ll have it running again soon! However, back to the topic. On the way to the cabin we visited the view point, a huge cliff overlooking Tempelfjorden. It was a clear day and we had an amazing view. We also stoped at the frozen water fall again, it´s always worth it! We arrived at Diabasodden quite early so I had time for a little hike up a nearby smaller cliff to take some pictures. Compared to the other cabins this one is pure luxury. It has a small sauna and plenty of space for at least 7-8 people. In the evening we heated up the sauna to 100°C, enjoyed some Scottish whisky and cooled off by jumping into the fjord and rolling in the snow! The last one was a little difficult, because the snow was very densley packed, it was more ice than snow. We had to dig a little pit first and fill it with snow. The next morning we had a nice easy walk and headed back to civilisation after lunch.

Well, that´s it for now, I hope it wasn´t too long. The biologists are going to Barentsburgh (The Russian mining town in Svalbard) on Thursday and Friday to talk to some Russian officials about

environmental management, that´s what you will hear about next time :-)