Return to the High Arctic

2010-01-17T06:48:00.000-08:00

Well hello there!

Sorry its taken so long to blog again, Its been a very busy week. We've just finished AS101, the Arctic Safety course. Its meant being up at 6.15 every morning and hence correspondingly early nights, so I'm sure you'll appreciate why blogging was low on my list of priorities. To make up for it, heres a nice picture of the Aurora!

Anyway, the safety course. Monday was perhaps the least exciting day, with an introductory talk from the Director of UNIS, a talk about dressing appropriately for the arctic from Fred, a talk from someone from the Governer of Svalbard's office and a first aid theory lesson (it changes every time!!)

It was on tuesday that the safety course really started. In the morning my group (me, a German girl and 7 Norwegians!) had Avalanche rescue training, which taught us how to spot weather conditions which lead to an increased risk of avalanches and terrain which is more avalanche prone. After some theory it was off to the area between UNIS and the Radisson Polar Hotel to learn how to use Avalanche rescue beacons (wave them manically in the air until you get a signal!), avalanche search poles and how to properly dig out a buried victims. After lunch it was a Navigation, GPS and communications lesson with Stephan Stephan. we planned a route from and back to UNIS on a computer program, followed it using global positioning system handsets, and made radio calls and satellite phone calls back to Stephan.

Wednesday was also a good day. In the morning my group went to the rifle range with Fred. We learnt the appropriate use of the rifles, rifle safety and how to use a rifle if you have to scare away or shoot a Polat Bear. We shot in the prone position, knealling and standing. I found it really difficult because rifles are designed to sit in the right shoulder, but I struggle to close my left eye and keep the right open, so I improvised a blindfold for my left eye using my trappers hat, which drastically improved the accuracy of my shooting.

And so it was on to First Aid practical training. we spent some time improvising leg splints and neck supports with whatever we had available, like Ski Poles, rucksacks, roll mats and the upright part of a shovel. we also spent time discussing the symptoms and treatment of cold related injuries like Hypothermia and Frost bites. But by far the biggest part was learning CPR (30:2 now). we were given the obligatory dummies and spent 3 minutes each doing CPR, followed by doing CPR when there is more than one first aider, the person doing the chest compression changing every couple of minutes for 10 minutes. I think CPR for a prolonged time would be a good way to get fit!

Kristin and Eirin CPRing

Eivind and Sindre CPRing (sorry if the names are spelt wrong guys!)

Thursday morning, from my point of view, was perhaps a waste of time. first we were read the health and safety information which is available on the UNIS website anyway, then we had a tour around UNIS with Ruben, one of the student advisors. this took about 2 hours of the 4 hour slot, so we had a 2.5 hour lunch break. The afternoon was much better though. It was Sea Ice rescue. We were taught how to travel on sea ice and and what to do in the event that we ended up in the water. We also had the chance to jump in a hole the staff had cut in the ice and pull ourselves out using a pair of specially designed ice spikes we have hanging around our necks everytime we go on UNIS excursions iver sea ice. We also had a bit of help from the guy holding a safety rope around our wastes!

Kristin and Ingvild perparing for a dip

On Friday we learnt how to set up the two different typespf tent UNIS has, as well as setting up a Polar Bear trip wire around them and using primus stoves. This is only really for use in an emergency such as the weather closing in, or a member of the party needing first aid. The last lesson was Glacier safety, which again started with how to move safely on a glacier and finished with what to do if something goes wrong. We practiced setting up simple rope and pulley systems to lower people into Crevasses to rescue a person that has fallen into one.

And so we get to the culmination of the safety week, the day on Longyearbreen Glacier. last year the temperature was minus 30 something. this year it was about 1 degree! we all met outside Nybyen at 8 o'clock and walked up Longyearbreen, where the instructors had set up 3 different areas. In area one we faced two different Avalanche scenarios, and had good practice at using emergency beacons and Avalanche probes and excellent practice at digging!

In area 2 we had a hypothetical accident involving 4 people on 2 snow mobiles. 4 people played victims with various injuries, some set up emergency tents, trip wires and stoves, and some, myself included, were first aiders. My patient was concious and breathing normally, but was cold and had a broken upper arm. We got her off the snow onto a sleeping bag and immobilised the arm using bandages and the wooden pole of a shovel. we then walked her to one of the tents, and She and I got in. Then, one of the other groups of first aiders brought me a patient with back injuries. So I had my favourite type of patients; conscious ones! at the debrief afterwards they seem quite happy with the treatment they had been given!

Area 3 was the crevasse rescue we had practiced the day before. We twice set up the rope and pulley system (apparently my group had more glacier and mountain climbing experience than all the other groups put together) and lower down and dragged up Eivind, then myself. The third time we lowered down Ingvild with a sling to rescue a patient (I think it was Eivind) so we had a go at pulling up a first aider and a patient together.

With all the practical training complete, it was back to UNIS for the written exam at the end of the safety course, which was followed by soft drinks and pizza supplied by the logistics department. then, at about 5 o'clock it was time to let our hair down after a hard week with a few beers! (maybe a few too many beers!) We had a gethering in the UNIS cantina, which Brendan from last year (who is up here doing some PhD work) and Margrete from last year (working up here) came along to aswell. It was a great night spent trying a encourage a drunken Norwegian friend to do the moose dansce he had told us all about! I got to bed around 1 o'clock and slept in late, a well deserved rest!

see you next time!

Ash

Back to the Frozen North

2010-01-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

Hello!

I suppose I should really tell you all about the last few months, given that I haven't posted for about 8 months! well, I finished my degree in Aberystwyth in July, getting a First Class Honours in my Masters. I then decided I deserved (!) a break, and a bit of time to consider what I wanted to do next. A PhD is the obvious route, but theres so many titles available in so many different departments, and without the internet in my room in Svalbard last year, I couldn't really do any research into what I wanted to apply for. Hence, I took six months off and looked into some position in different Universities in the U.K.

I've always been drawn to the colder regions, I think the promise of study on Svalbard was one of the main reasons I studied in Aberystwyth. Anyway, I decided that I would like to do a PhD on the Polar regions, probably focusing on the effects of climate change in these areas. which leads me to why I'm sitting here in Nybyen, Svalbard, typing the first post of a new blog (or at least renamed old blog!) 'Return to the High Arctic'.

My degree in Aberystwyth was tailored, at least in the last two years, to Auroral and upper Atmospheric physics. But I'm looking at PhDs focusing on the Cryosphere (all the snow and Ice), so I'm back in UNIS studying 'Air-Ice-Sea Interaction' and 'Snow and Ice processes'. which has the dual purpose of perparing me for my choice of post-grad study, and allowing me to live in the arctic for another 6 months!

So, now you're up to date with the last few months. getting here was pretty similar to last time, except it wasn't new Year's eve/day, so I was able to get some food this time. Before Leaving Oslo we had to change planes because of a fault with the de-icing system, and we were delayed in Tromso due to snow on the runway, consequently arriving in Longyearbyen about 3 hours late. This time I'm living across the road in Barrack 4, which is now barrack 10 (for some reason), and everyone seems nice, but, again, theres too many names to try to remember!

The plan for today is to dig out Malibu, Brendans Snow scooter, to see whether it still works! Bren is here working on his PhD project up at EISCAT Svalbard Radar, but he goes home a week today. watch this space! tomorrow we start the safety course, which should be more pleasant this year because its nowhere near as cold as it was this time last year, only about -16 degrees celcius. just hope this weather holds.

perhaps I'll have some more exciting things to tell you next time, and some pictures too. but I felt I had to catch you up with the last few months first.

Bye for now

Ash

Kitchen2Kitchen!

2009-04-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to a very drunken edition of dispatches from the high arctic! hope everyone had a good Easter holiday. Apparently Easter is a drinking holiday over here! So, anyway, to leave you no longer in suspense as to why I'm wearing Bunny Ears and a milk carton and sipping from a plastic cup (with my little pinky out, classy eh?) let me tell you all about one of the greatest UNIS traditions: the Kitchen2kitchen party!

the idea is very simple, there are four kitchens in each barrack, and those that choose to participate make a welcome drink, decorate the kitchen and dress up in that theme. as most readily demonstrated by the Zoo in Barrack 4! well done to Margrete, idunn, Andrea, Laura, Jordan and the others!

but its not just us whole semester students that get in on the fun, the short termers, dressed as penguins, just added more kitchens to the crawl!

So, let me take you, as best I can, on a drinking tour of Nybyen. It all kicked of with a rave themed kitchen in barrack 11 at 7 o'clock, although the organisers of this kitchen had been drinking for much longer! then it was off to a kitchen themed 'old peoples home'. then, braving the cold to barrack 4 it was mango flavoured drinks in the playboy mansion and a drink in the Zoo.

then it was off across Nybyen to the short term barracks (beer jackets on to stay warm!) to the south pole kitchen, where they'd cleverly made a tent into an igloo, which got ridiculously crowded, so we unzipped the back, and found ourselves trapped in the corner of the room!

from there it was on to the other short term barrack, where I ended up drinking baileys from the bottle with someone from Bergen! I love international universities! i even managed to find some more Brits, although they were on their way home the next day!

by now, the majority of us students were quite tipsy and it was time to move on to the best barrack of all: 9! we had to run past the hotel, doubtlessly waking up all the tourists, who thoughtfully came to the windows to wave at us! the first kitchen in 9 was themed after a popular advert here, for tine brand milk, featuring the song, I think by Herman's Hermits 'No milk today', so we all drank cocktails that were supposed to contain milk (like white russians), but without milk! then it was whiskey and hot chocolate in the outdoor themed kitchen, and cake and vodka jelly in the kids party kitchen. going well, only one more barrack to go, think you'd have made it?

Brendan, Dayle, Sara and Judith. the boys looking a little worse for wear!

so on to Barrack 13, Austrian Alex obviously very drunk by now, judging by his dress and dancing! where it was a few more drinks and then time, at 1.30 to call it a night!

Ben finds a guitar to continue partying

recovered yet? not sure I have! Easter, otherwise, was generally quite uneventful. with plenty of work and procrastination to be getting on with! but we had gorgeous weather most of the time (except for quite a big snow storm) and we even spotted a Halo around the sun one day

I should also mention, primarily for Hannah's sake, (I was on the phone to her at the time) that Dayle's Lisa balloon (He jokingly insulted her one time too many and consequently promised to make the next day 'be nice to Lisa day' which included trying to make a hot air balloon!) managed to support its own weight, but just wouldn't take off.

I was sitting on my windowsil watching and taking pictures with my long lens, when I again heard the immortal words: "Dayle, Fire!"

Although this time it wasn't so bad!

other than that Easter was a great oppurtunity for dinner parties (mostly pizza and spag bol!) and watching films, Easter sunday was the best, as we had a giant easter brunch, with cooked breakfast and lots of cake and chocolate!

oh, and I almost forgot, we made a giant tin can phone across from barrack 9 to barrack 4, but I don't have any pictures, so I'll try to get hold of some and post them next time!

With Easter over, its back to UNIS and back to the routine, of friday gathering that is! in fact it was so nice outside this friday that we decided to have the first hour or so on the roof! which offers fantastic views of the residential part of longyearbyen

and up the valley towards the glaciers and Nybyen

what better place to sip some beers after a long week of learning than here, overlooking the mountains and the frozen fjord?

I think Ben, Jenn and Elisabeth agree!

thats it for today, i've got work to be getting on with

bye for now and thanks for reading

Ash

2009-04-02T02:40:00.000-07:00

Hello there, sorry for the delay in blogging this time, especially to Vicky, who apparently is my most avid reader! I’m on field work at the EISCAT Svalbard radar this week, a facility that measures Ionospheric parameters (but more about that later!) so its been hard to find time to write.

The weather here has been pretty much fantastic lately, except for a huge snow storm on Thursday night/Friday morning that prevented us from getting EISCAT for our introductory look round. Its still pretty cold though. The temperature is about minus 20 still. Today is the last day that we have ‘night’ and in about two weeks time, on April 19th the sun is still above the horizon at midnight; the midnight sun! The transition between 24 hour darkness and the midnight sun has come so quickly. So I was right, the Aurora from the previous blog is the last we will see.

To take advantage of the beautiful weather and rare time off, Me, Colin and Dayle went on a short scooter trip to the other side of the airport, but we couldn’t go any further because of the lack of a rifle and the potential presence of Polar Bears in Bjorndalen valley, not much further on.

We luckily (unluckily?) didn’t see any Polar Bears despite the optimism we exhibited by bringing telephoto lens and binoculars! We did however see a curious and friendly reindeer:

Other than EISCAT, that concludes my escapades beyond Longyearbyen since my last blog! We did however engage in the very British tradition of going on a pub crawl! This, of course required a warm up session by Me, James and Colin at Friday gathering!

On Saturday night a large group of us headed down to Barentz pub in the Radisson SAS hotel for food and the first drinks of our pub crawl (I had a cider that wasn’t Kopparberg, but it was £4 a bottle!) most ate giant Pizzas, the Italian one looked fantastic, covered in rocket, there was a beef pizza and the one I had, a taco pizza which had beef and tortilla chips on it! Its probably the best food I have eaten this year, which is not so much a compliment to the chef at Barentz pub, but an indication of the below par food available in the supermarkets here (especially on a student budget!)

Kjersti, Sarah, ‘Shirley’ and Ben

‘The Cave’ – James, Colin, Matt and Ben outside the Radisson

So it was off to the next pub on our crawl, Karlsberg pub, which must have the largest collection of whiskeys and cognacs I’ve ever seen. Using my immense knowledge of scotches (!) I selected (little better than closing my eyes and pointing really!) an Isle of Jura scotch, a double of which setting me back over £10! The rest of the party was similarly ripped off for drinks.

Savouring the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought!

And so it was on to the ohh so comically named Svalbar, I bet someone is still congratulating themselves for coming up with that. The last bar on the crawl. Okay, admittedly it wasn’t much of a pub crawl, but this is the Arctic, so we did the best we could!

And so on to my fieldwork at EISCAT. EISCAT (European Incoherent SCATter) is a European scientific organisation that operates incoherent scatter radar dishes up here in Longyearbyen (EISCAT Svalbard Radar), and UHF and VHF system in Tromso, northern Norway, as well as receivers in Sodankylä, Finland and Kiruna, Sweden.

A powerful beam of radar waves is transmitted into the Ionosphere (the part of the atmosphere between about 90 and 600 km up) where solar radiation dissociates ions and electrons and the Aurora occur. The interaction of the waves with these charged particles causes a weak backscattered which is detected by the receiver. Some complex maths is done (which we have been learning about in the ‘Radar diagnostics of space plasma’ course) and a spectrum is produced from which the electron density, Ion and electron temperatures and the bulk flow of the ionosphere can be obtained. Typical results look like:

Which are the real time analysed data plots for the experiment we are running at time of writing.
The facility here on Svalbard has two huge dishes, a steerable 32m antenna and a fixed, magnetic field aligned 42m antenna.

The fixed 42m antenna looks directly up the magnetic field line.

While the steerable 32m antenna (seen from below the 42m antenna) can be pointed anywhere or can be used to scan different portions of the sky.

Its all operated from a modern bank of computers

Which have the best office view in town!

But all this luxury couldn’t last. In return for antenna time we had to go into the 42m antenna to dig out snow!

But being inside the big dish did make for some good group pictures!

Kjellmar (lecturer), Nils, Dayle, Brendan and Halvard (EISCAT engineer), seated Colin

And we had a bit of fun after too, Colin taking his turn at supporting the big dish!

So what else is there to say? Well, there a big Avalanche risk at the moment. On the way home from EISCAT on Monday, Dayle was in the front car with some EISCAT engineers and our lecturer Kjellmar, whilst me, Brendan, Colin and Nils were in the second car. Dayle says as they approached the road below Mine 2b, 5 minutes walk from Nybyen, the engineers started swearing and saying ‘Avalanche’. The snow had fallen all the way down the mountainside on to the road, making it impassable. My barrack mate Jennifer had been walking along the road at the time and ran out of the way. Its a good thing we hadn’t been on the road a minute or so earlier.

Big blocks of snow on the road below mine 2b

Passersby survey the avalanche.

The avalanche just makes it to the road, preventing traffic getting through.

In an attempt to avert further avalanches, the Sysselman (governor) carried out a controlled explosion of the cornices (snow overhangs) near mine 2b, another avalanche in the same are occurring just before the explosives were detonated! We have now been told to avoid walking along the bottom of the mountainside at Nybyen, and to move the snow scooters from behind barrack 9 into the valley and not to use the scooter track along the valley side. Evidently the Sysselman thinks there is a danger of further avalanches in the area, but isn’t taking very direct action. There were reports that the Larsbreen glacier was closed but these turned out to be false.

I guess we all just have to be extra careful from now on, makes me glad my room is on the valley side!

Bye for now

Ash

Drinking Jenga, Arctic BBQ, High School Musical and the last Auroras?

2009-03-23T03:38:00.001-07:00

Hello there! i've been a proper little tourist this week and walked down to the Polar bear sign down by the docks, with my tripod on my back to take the customary picture of me standing by the sign. Apparently Polar Bears "concern all (Gjelder hele)" of Svalbard. other than that its been work as usual, learning about reconnection of the Interplanetary magnetic field with the geomagnetic field and the large scale structure of the Earth's magnetosphere, as well as discussing our up coming trip to Eiscat Svalbard radar with our lecturer.

On thursday night a contingent of barrack 9 ventured to barrack 4 (my favourite watering hole!) to put James' drinking Jenga through its paces. this was followed by another heavy night at friday gathering. which brings us to the weekend.

Sunday started with Dayles idea to go skiing as it was such a lovely day, but there were very few skis and even fewer boots left, so whats the next best thing to do on a sunny day in the Arctic?...ARCTIC BBQ!!!

thus the men, in keeping with traditional gender roles headed out to hunt for some meat (which was conveniently killed, processed, frozen and sold by Svalbardbutikken supermarket), on returning to barrack 4 we left the women to prepare the food (chopping onions, defrosting the bread and microwaving the frozen meat) whilst men make fire, ugg!

Unfortunately, we had to use disposible BBQs in lieu of real fire! (how much of a market is there for disposible BBQs in the Arctic?!)

Colin with nicely cooked burgers and burnt sausages, it wouldn't be a BBQ without burnt sausages!

Me, now fully fledged beef eater (through necessity!) munching on a beef burger

Colin, Lisa, Judith and Dayle around the BBQs

the same group moments later, included solely because its such a flattering picture of Lisa and Dayle scoffing their faces!

Judith and Brendan

Colin posing with a burger.

Apparently me and Colin's singing around the 'campfire' reminded Judith and Lisa of High school Musical (not sure whether thats a complement or not) and that we simply must go inside and watch High School Musical 2 and 3, with ice cream. By this point it was so cold and the offer of ice cream so tempting (don't point out the obvious stupidity of that sentence, I haven't had ice cream for nearly 3 months!) that we were powerless to refuse.

Paul and Hannah would have been proud of me, watching 2 and 3 back to back. in the necessary break between the two, it was decided that what we really needed to cap off a day of unhealthy eating was a cake, so I quickly through together a chocolate sponge mix, which the girls filled with chopped up toblerone, delicious!

sounds like a good day so far? hmm, maybe some Aurora to finish it off, eh? so with the Sun barely down (still quite light on the western horizon) out we went for what could be the last Aurora I'll see because polar day is pretty much here.

Nybyen and Longyearbyen at 11 o'clock

Barrack 11 in the twilight

Green Aurora over Sacrofagen

Longer exposure, Green (and maybe some red) Aurora over Sacrofagen.

bye for now

Ash

Brace Yourselves!

2009-03-16T04:13:00.000-07:00

Brace yourselves indeed! In fact, you might want to put the kettle on before you go any further, because this is going to be a long one! perhaps its just been an exciting week, or perhaps I'm feeling guilty about the paucity of photos and information in the last few posts, but this one is positively epic. lots of fire, sliding down hills and sea ice, no baked goods!

I guess the most obvious thing is; THE SUN IS BACK!!! I saw it briefly above Larsbreen Glacier one day on the way back to Nybyen, by the next day the clouds had disappeared, and the mountainsides glowed with reflected sunlight (and this at half 8 in the morning), by the time we got to the travel companies offices on the hill above UNIS the Sun was rising above the town. Polar night is well and truely over, and it isn't long now until the Sun sets for the last time! which probably means the Aurora of Firday night were the last I am going to see (alas, I did not have my camera with me!) but they were very good, dancing across the night sky.

The Sun over the residential part of town. UNIS and the hills across Adventfjorden bathed in sunlight!

In fact the days have been so nice, we've been going for quick wanders for the pleasure of it! Me, James and Colin headed down towards the Sea Ice, more in hope than expectation of seeing any seals (!) and were afforded spectacular views both of the valley and the Sunlight over Longyearbyen. Some intrpid souls were venturing out on the sea ice, so we left, because James said he didn't want to get wet and cold rescuing them if they fell in!

Well, From ice to fire (I promised there would be fire!). As part of the Sun festival here in Longyearbyen, there is a competition called Ta Sjansen. For this teams build sledges out of scrap and race them down a mountain side! Given that Dayle and Brendan were still in posession of a scrap snow scooter (With no track, I may add) that had been used as a engine parts donor for their scooter, it was decided to turn this into Ta Sjansen sledge. So off we ventured to the Sea garage.

There, we set about sheding some of the weight of the scooter by removing engine parts. Dayle decided the softly softly approached adopted by myself, Brendan and Colin was, shall we say, insufficient for the job and decided an angle grinder was a far more pertinent tool for the job than the hammers, screw drivers and allen keys so far employed! he did, however forget one important thing: remaining fuel plus sparks equals fire!

Dayle tried to smother the small fire using his welding gloves, but this didn't work. the amusement at a small fire soon turned to concern as Brendan and Dayle between them couldn't get a) the fire extinguisher off the wall, and b) when they did couldn't get it to work. As they pulled the scooter out of the sea garage and started throwing snow on it, I flagged down a passing UNIS van and the guy calmly removed his portable fire extinguisher and put the fire out. He returned shortly after, with a new, persumably working fire extinguisher for the sea garage. Crisis over! and thus ended my participation in the project!

after this the theme of the sledge became fire. It was made to look like a dragon (well, judge for yourself) and the team called themselves the 'inflammable gods' after an email we had recieved a few weeks previously from the people responsible for the housing up here, advising us to keep "inflammable gods" (goods) in a certain location near the barracks!

Saturday of last weekend turned out to be a fabulous day and we left early to get a band wagon (like the one used to get us to the Kjell Henriksen observatory) across Adventdalen valley to the base of the mountains you can see behind UNIS in the photos.

Looking up the mountain, track to left, James and Jenn (on Polar bear watch) contemplated going to get a burger.

Looking back down the mountain (Dayle in his snow scootering gear in the foreground) at the Longyearbyen valley and the Sun above the mountain where Eiscat and the KHO are.

The inflammable gods dragon, which used to be a snow scooter

There was even entertainment!

The first of the UNIS sledges "Rosa Isbjørn" (the pink polar bear) containing Juni, Stine, Anna and Anya makes its way down the slope...

... its mast soon detaches...

...then its inflatables start to pop and its all downhill from there!

theres nothing for it, they'll just have to get up and walk...

...which brought to mind that scene in Cool runnings!

they still got a big cheer as they crossed the line!

Next UNIS sledge is Carl, who has cunningly parcel taped skis to an office chair...

...he got pretty far...

...before the inevitable happened!

And it turned out getting it going again wasn't that easy...

...not that easy at all...

this one speaks for itself!

In the end it was much easier to run down the slope, ski-office chair in hand and throw it over the finish line!

My favourite sledge of the day was the reclining polar bear made from a snow scooter

Although all credit to the 'prirates of Spitsbergen'!

and the team who thought music and flashing lights was more important than speed!

and the team who couldn't even be bothered to get out of bed for the race!

So finally I come to the Inflammable gods, by this point my extremities are frozen and my camera is complaining its too cold by showing low battery warnings (it took 307 photos before finally packing up, 1 photo after the final sledge). After moving about 5 metres from the Start line, Colin, Matt, Brendan, Dayle and Erik are already backwards!

then they finally decided that enough reversing is enough and get off to turn around and push. at which point the sledge accelerates and Erik, who has been pushing the back, falls over!

In a desparate attempt to gain speed Matt decides to pull the sledge down the hill

Better luck next time boys!

On the way home I was towed on a sledge behind brendan's, now working, scooter. which I have had a few opportunities to drive, which has been great fun. Unfortunately, whilst Brendan was returning from Barentsberg yesterday, he heard a loud clunk in the engine which instantly lost power, leaving him no option but to be towed home and facing the posibility of major engine work to be done. oh dear.

After a well deserved lie in on Sunday it was time to do something else fun, so off we went up Longyearbreen Glacier. passing the terminal moraine, old mining bits and pieces and lots of Polar fox tracks. I tried to go to football that night, but was thwarted by the giant bruise on my leg from last week, so am now more determined than ever to go swimming on tuesday and thursday mornings. I didn't make it last tuesday, but I did 60 lengths on thurday morning before my 9 o'clock, for which I was suitably proud of myself!

The only other news here is that there has been Two avalanches, one up on Longyearbreen glacier and one high up on the mountains on the opposite side of Adventfjorden, in which a guy on a snow mobile was buried under 2 metres of snow for 45 minutes. Unfortunately he died later in hospital. Although none of the students here new the person, there was a really subdued atmosphere around the barrack last night. After the safety course we were all so respectful of the dangers the environment here poses, but as time goes on and you become accustomed to your surrounding, you treat it with less respect. I think this accident has brought it home to everyone just how careful you really have to be around here.

sorry to end on such a depressing note.

thanks for reading

Ash

2009-03-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

Well, its certainly getting lighter here, although I still haven't seen the Sun! this weekend was the start of a fortnight long celebration called something like Sunfest, but its been overcast and snowing, so the Sun maybe above the mountains, but I still haven't seen it! As you can see though, we've had some nice blue sky over the last few days.

We somehow managed to miss the majority of the festivities this weekend (Brendan and Dayle mucking about with their scooter again) so we decided to go for a walk past some of the abandoned mine paraphenalia instead. this eventually took us down to the sea ice (a lot of which had gone since friday, meaning there were no seals to be seen this time!) and finally for a nice lunch in the Lompen centre.

I guess I should apologise for the lateness of this blog, I found it difficult to find something to talk about, so I'll tell you about my transformation to domestic god! this week I've made bread, cheesecake and, with Colin, chocolate covered marzipan balls. the problem with food up here is that if you want it to taste good you either have to pay a ridiculous amount for it or make it yourself. I would like to point out to Hannah, if shes reading, that I can not only make a very respectable victoria sponge, but also a great lemon cheesecake (no photo, you'll have to take my word for it) and passable bread (which is about the best you can hope for up here!), at least it doesn't cost about £3 per loaf!

I've also decided that if they are not going to give us much work to do, and if I haven't got a snowmobile to be off visiting places, then i should use my time in an attempt to get fitter. to this end, I yesterday attended 5 aside football in the Svalbardhallen sports centre. due to my lack of trainers, I am suffering for it today! I have cuts or blisters or something under both big toes, a bruise on the inside of my foot, and worst of all a slight swelling where my leg impacted a goal post! We'll see how committed I am to getting fit at 6 oclock tomorrow morning when i have to get out of bed for morning swim!

I'll keep you posted!

Ash

KHO, Icebreaker and a black out

2009-02-25T03:13:00.000-08:00

well, it turns out it was the latter (although not completely), our trip to the Kjell Henriksen observatory was a bit of a wash out because cloud cover prevented us from seeing any Aurora (and we could see from satellite and magnetometer data, and a live feed from Eiscat Svalbard Radar) that there were precipitating particles and hence would be Aurora. We spent some time looking at the different instruments and performing what the lecturer kept refering to as a 'filter tilter calibratrion' on the Meridian scanning photometer (anyone interested should visit the KHO website!). On the third day, despite the cold and the snow in the Air, we braved going onto the roof to preform the seasons callibration of two of the instruments which involved shining a light at a mirror, but turned out to be more difficult and time consuming than you can imagine. i spent most of the time wandering around with the rifle on Polar Bear watch!
The fact we had to look out for Polar Bears should give some indication of how isolated the KHO is. in fact, it is inaccessible by road. we have to take a minibus to mine 7 (the only mine in Longyearbyen still active if I remember rightly) and then travel the rest of the way up the mountain in something the lecturer refered to as the 'bandwagon'. it turned out to look like some sort of left over military vehicle:

Colin, Nils, Marta and Brendan in the back of the bandwagon

so, other than a bit of time on the roof and looking at some instrument. we spent the rest of the time watching a 'coupling' dvd Brendan had brought and monitoring computer screens. All-in-all not a very successful trip to the observatory!

So, I could enjoy a nice long lie in saturday morning, after being at the observatory until half one in the morning, right? wrong! I had to get down to UNIS early to set up my Viking longboat themed table for the ice breaker party. which ended up taking a few hours, erecting the mast proving the most problematic. but I must say I think it looked really good (as did all the other decorations), and I'm strangely proud of it!

So before long it was time to party! everybody put lots of effort into dressing up, which was great, the food and Cake were good (and there was loads leftover to eat the next day whilst cleaning up) and everyone seemed to enjoy the party games and disco!

(left to right): James from 'the end' table dressed as a Palin supporter (later brandishing a sign saying 'Palin 2012'), Lisa the alien from Future table, Silje as a pyramid, 1960s Brendan from the woodstock table, Max (taking the 'before humans' theme a little too literally) dressed as a sperm cell, Marta also from the 60s

Yesterday, the world started crumbling around us here in Longyearbyen. first we lost the internet, then, with half an hour left of the Man U v Inter football game (and apparently, Desperate housewives!) the power and consequently the water supplies went off. Being sensible students, we all decided the best thing to do would be to rush outside and look at the stars:

(2 minute exposure) which were really amazing with no artificial light to ruin the view, the milky way was clearly visible, people were pointing out constellations and we were watching satellites traverse the sky. Well, I've given away what the first instinct of an electricity deprived group of students in the arctic is: to go outside. any idea what the second and third are?

Second: huddle together for warmth, and jump up and down to warm up. we must have been quite a sight, about 15 people huddled together in the middle of the road in Nybyen jumping up and down. at least the lights were off!

third: decide to drink until the lights come back on! the lights went out at 10ish and we spent about an hour outside, so we had mainly brandy and whisky (to warm up) or, for the more interpid, frozen beer from our cold room (!) until the lights came back on at midnight. At which point we decided we weren't ready for the power to come back on, so we turned all the kitchen and corridor lights off, and continued!

Thats it for today, I've got another lecture and then its 'Mamma Mia' at film night. Woohoo!

Ash

Igloo drinks, Aurora and the Icebreaker party preparation

2009-02-18T05:12:00.000-08:00

Hello there and sorry for the delay. I've either been busy or lazy, I'll let you decide which it is! First, continuing a recent theme, heres an Aurora picture from friday 13th. On that day the cantina was busy, so we held friday gathering around a camp fire outside the Barracks in Nybyen

but far more exciting was our drinks in the Igloo, as you can see (and I'm ashamed to admit) the roof requires some tinkering, as it started to collapse inwards!

Colin and Brenda enjoy some cans

Despite our intention to make this Longyearbyen Gentlemen's club, we were also joined by barrack 4's Judith and Lisa.

James, Colin, Lisa and Erik in the Igloo

But for the moment anyway, rebuilding the Igloo has been put on hold. Every semester the new students organise a party called the Icebreaker party, with different groups organising theme, food, drink etc. The theme this year is periods of time, so we have tables themed 'before humans', 'Vikings', 'ancient greece and Rome', 'stone age', 'Knights and princesses', 'cowboys and Indians' and the interestingly themed 'the plague' and 'the end'! each table is decorated according to its theme, so I've been hard at work building a stern and bough, a mast and sheilds for a Viking Longboat.

its all built from carboard and tape! the head, modelled, I assure you, on a dragon, reminds me of the worlds most evil mallard! I'm planning on having the bough and stern connected to each end of the table, with the mast between the two connected to a sail hanging from the ceiling and shelilds on the back of each chair. Watch this space for pictures!

About the only other thing of interest at the moment is that we are off to the Kjell Heinrichson observatory tonight 5 til 12 and the same on thursday and friday. However, its really cloudy and most of the instruments are for optical Auroral observation, so it could end up being wasted time! again, watch this space.

Well, I'm off now to finish my longboat, until next time, goodbye!

More Aurora, Polar Jazz, Snow Scootering, more Jazz and an Igloo

2009-02-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

Well, you wait ages for the Aurora, then they all come along at once, only a couple of days after I posted the previous Aurora pictures, we were treated to another display, which the more intrepid of my barrack mates watched from the roof!

For the more photographically inclined of us, it was another cold hour or so out near Sacrofagen, with tripods and fleeces, taking long exposures. the photograph below is a 30 second exposure which shows some, albeit faint, sign of the rarer red Aurora. I think everyone was left cursing the almost full moon and light pollution around Nybyen.

This 15 second exposure doesn't show the red Aurora, but shows nicely the variable structure and the magnetic field lines the particles are spiralling down.

However, since the third of February, we have seen no more Aurora, despite the clear skies, heres hoping for the next few nights.

I should also mention that its got a lot colder and a lot lighter at midday here. I'm not sure that its as bright as daylight at midday, because its been so long since I saw daylight that I have no basis for comparison, But it gets brighter everyday, and is lighter for a longer time everyday, so going out to take photos of the valley is irresitable. Also, It seems to have got cold enough for ice to form on the fjord, so maybe we'll see some seals!

Other than the usual chat about the cold, the light and the Aurora, I must admit I've got quite a bit to talk about this week, its been a busy week. Theres been a Jazz festival on here; Polar Jazz (Cold place, Hot music, or so there slogan goes!) so a large group of us students attended the opening concert (which just happened to be the cheapest) at the Radisson SAS Polar Hotel down by UNIS. It was a very good and well attended night (So full I had to sit on the floor) of which the highlight (for me anyway) was a male voice choir singing Billy Joel's longest time in Norwegian! there were also some good instrumental groups and singers. After the concert it was a choice between over priced drink in the hotel bar or (relatively) early night. I (perhaps unexpectedly) opted for the earlier night so I could go to the free swimming for UNIS students down at the Sports Hall, requiring waking up at 6am!

On Friday all Geophysics and Technology students attended a snow scooter course, But I, sans driving license, was relegated to the back seat. We first learnt about vehicle maintainence and operation and packing a trailer, then after lunch came our practical experience. Because by now it was the middle of the day, it was quite light so we were afforded a fabulous view of the valley through which we rode. We crossed the Advent valley (just to the right of pictures of UNIS, the Fjord and the mountains) and into one of the valleys on the otherside, where we practiced turns and shifting our weight to keep the snow scooters balanced, as well as what to do if you become bogged down etc. On the return we were able to test the speed of the machines, but as the UNIS speed limit is 45, the less I say about that the better! we also saw the Adventdalen Auroral station and Eiscat Svalbard radar stations where we will be conducting field work in the near future. oh, and there were reindeer out in the valley, but no Polar bears!

So, that brings us to friday, which of course means friday gathering. After a few cans it was off to Huset (Bar, club etc) for another night of Jazz (and continued drinking!). this is perhaps part of the reason why I felt a quite saturday was in order! Sunday, though, is a whole different story. for we built an igloo! Well, it was already a good few feet high sunday morning, but over the course of sunday we added a roof, and L shaped entrance tunnel (so the wind doesn't get in) and dug out the floor to leave bench around the outside. We cut blocks of snow and ice out of the perma frost and wedged each layer in or poor small amounts of water in the cracks to freeze then in place. The roof, as could be expected, was the hardest part, but we did it!

Jørgen delicately shapes another roof tile with a saw!

Fellow Igloo construction experts Colin, James and Jørgen.

This picture was taken whilst it was still light. By the time it was dark the roof was finished and the last thing to do was lift two massive blocks of snow/ice (which required 4 people) to cover the entrance tunnel. I'll post some pictures of the finished Igloo in the near future, we plan to christen in with a few beers tonight (if my aching muscles allow it!)

bye for now, and well done Wales!

Ash

Northern lights

2009-02-02T03:23:00.000-08:00

well, I've been here a month now and on Saturday night we finally saw some good Aurora. I'm going to assume in this case that a picture says a thousand words, and just show you the Pictures I took. For anyone interested they are long exposures (mostly 10 seconds) at 10mm (16mm equivalent) f/3.5, ISO 800.

I think this is my favourite (I have 84 to choose from from Saturday, so its hard to be sure!) Barrack 9 is on the right with Hotel 102 on the left and the ghostly figure of Colin standing centrally watching the display.

This one is looking past barrack 9 to barrack 13 in the distance, I love the twisty structure visible in the arc just before the mountain side.

This is looking across the road from barrack 9 to barrack 4, by now you can see that the Aurora really did fill the sky the other night.

As a Physicist, I like this one because there is evidence of vertical stripes in the arc which represent the geomagnetic field lines the charged particles are following.

Looking Southward at Barrack 9 and 4 shows how impressive the display was.

After a while we trekked up past barracks 11 and 13 (the Longyearbreen and Larsbreen glaciers are in the far in the background) this is another contender for my favourite shot!

And finally (just to show I don't just shoot landscape) the Auroral arc over the western side of the valley behind barrack 4.

Finally I can justify the cost and transport of my tripod, the shots would not have been possible otherwise, with shutter speeds this long, handholding is not an option and any shorter shutter speeds are too dark to show any of the structure.

I guess, given I have posted so recently (I couldn't wait to put these pictures up) I haven't got much else to say. The temperatures are finally starting to fall again, perhaps by as much as 10 degrees today alone, which means we'll probably be around minus 20 this week. Having said that, the wind is really picking up so its going to feel alot colder! Its also snowing alot here. I went with Dayle on his snow scooter up to Longyearbreen glacier yesterday in an attempt to find the elusive snow cave, but the visibility was bad (due to snow) and we decided that straying off the scooter track would not be a good idea.

other than that, nothing to report, but I here there is an Earth directed coronal hole, So I'll keep a look out for more Aurora, but it seems that, due to the snow, we're not going to have many clear nights for a while. I've seen green Aurora, now I want to see red ones!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I did!

Ash

2009-01-31T05:05:00.000-08:00

I'm free! since being up here in longyearbyen I've had the spectre of my Semester 1 Aberystwyth Exams looming over my head. This is perhaps part of the reason why my blog hasn't been more exciting a read of late, I haven't been trekking along Glaciers and Mountains and visiting Ice and Moraine caves, learning to ski or digging and sleeping in Ice caves. i've been revising (although, as you may remember it hasn't all been work as witnessed by my swimming last week). but now I'm free! I've had a very busy week though, my exams in Electromagnetic theory and Quantum physics were on tuesday and wednesday, so all my lectures from The Upper polar atmosphere and radar diagnostics of space plasma had to be moved to monday, thursday and friday. consequently we've had 6 hours of lectures some days, which, trust me, with material like this can be quite heavy going! I should probably, before moving on to more interesting things than work, say a little more about the exams. well, to be frank, none of us liked them, but i think on the whole we are reasonably confident we have passed because our coursework grades have been pretty good, but only time will tell!

Ok, moving on, I've been told to put more pictures on my blog (not quite sure what that says about the quality of the text!) so this week i'm trying to put up quite a few, including some from this morning. As you can see its getting much lighter here in the middle of the day (although the sun still hasn't made an appearence which is starting to affect Colin!), meaning on the way to UNIS you can see the hills on the opposite side of Adventfjorden (who wouldn't want to go to a university in a setting like that?), and can look up towards the Glaciers from Nybyen and see views like the one to the right (from this morning). It also means I can show you a picture in which you can actually see the barrack that is to be my home from the next few months (woo! Brakke 9!) and not just an outline of a building in the dark as per earlier posts. quite a winter wonderland, I think you'll agree! which leads me nicely on to the climate. Its still too hot! I walked home from friday gathering last night with no hat or scarf or gloves and with my sleeves rolled up, but I guess I did have my beer jacket on! There was a rumour circulating last night that the worlds most northernly kebab van was going to be open, it wasn't when I passed at about 11.45, but apparently it did open later, but which point I was safely tucked up in bed!

Anyway, back to climate, the forecast is for the weather to get much colder on monday, back down to around minus 25 degrees with stronger winds, but encouragingly its going to be quite settled and clear, so we may have a good chance to see some Aurora when the particles from an earth directed coronal hole reach the geomagnetic field some time next week! we're starting to believe that the Aurora are just a myth perpetuated by scientists who make a living lecturing about them! whilst on the subject of science, we have a new lecturer on the radar diagnostics of space plasma course who is hopefully taking us up to the Adventdalen Auroral station next week to see the Eiscat Svalbard Radar (something with which we get practical experience later on in the semester), which is used to measure various plasma parameters in the Earth's ionised upper atmosphere.

okay, on a less scientific note, it was barrack mate Marie's birthday on thursday, so we had a hat party, I, having got home from lectures quite late decided to make a cake (I know Hannah, two in a week!) which turned out to be one of three at the party, which was probably a good thing given the number of people who turned up. we were encouraged to wear a stupid hat, or if we lacked a stupid hat, to make one. I, ever inventive and environment conscious, recycled six pages of quantum mechanics revision notes and fashioned then into a large (although not large enough for my head) Bishop's Mitre! various other people made indian headbands or hats out of beer can boxes, whilst others wore snow scooter helmets, caving helmets and russian hats! Hope you like the pictures of Pirkka, Nils, Marta, brendan and Michi (left) and Jennifer, Laura and Margrete (right) enjoying stupid hats and Amsterdam Beer in the kitchen!

So, as you can see its been a quiet week! other than all this, I've also managed to obtain a D number, which kind of makes me a citizen of Svalbard, which is quite cool, and entitles me to the same hunting and national park access as locals (I think), meaning I'm no longer a tourist! However, given I'm now free and Svalbard is ready to be explored, I'm starting to get mixed feelings about not having a driving license. I'm disappointed that I don't have one because i can't (legally) drive a snow mobile, but relieved because if I could i'd have probably bought one by now and hence would be living off corn flakes for the next few months!

Ash

2009-01-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

I'm alive mum! admittedly it was a stupid idea, but about twenty other people seemed to think it was a good idea, and so, today, we went swimming in the fjord in the Polar night! Apparently the strong wind we've been having the last few days blew some of the ice from the fjord away, so the water was accessible. Its still relatively warm here, so I think it was a good day for it. We walked down to the ice edge, stripped down to our swimming shorts and costumes, or, for the more adventurous, less and all got in together!

I include, to the left, some proof that the stupidity of students, particularly those deprived of sunlight for three weeks, knows no bounds. I do, though, have to admit one thing, When I say 'swimming' I actually mean, wading in until the water is deeper than your waist, splashing each other a bit and then running back to the ice and getting out. We were in the water for a very short period of time, but it was sufficient for pretty much everyone to loose the feeling in their feet! once out it was important to get clothes on as quickly as possible, so it was off with wet swimmers and socks, on with a towel and as many clothes as possible as quickly as possible! next time, if there is a next time (!) logistics are hopefully going to let us use the suanas to warm up! well, I have to go, its friday, which means friday gathering down here in UNIS, a few 1 pound cans of Cider and an early night is just what I need, plenty more electromagnetic theory revision to be done this weekend

Thanks to Jørgen and Elisabeth for the photos!

Ash

2009-01-22T03:43:00.000-08:00

So, buy now you should be reasonably upto date with the environment i'm living in and the lecture courses I'm following and so on, so time for a more light-hearted post. I'll start by telling you about making a cake. The other day I guess I felt all homely and decided to back, under the pretence that I would present Dayle with the cake for his Birthday. however, this is not quite how things panned out, it seems the smell of cake brings my flat mates out of the woodwork, and hence, by the following day I was only able to present Dayle with a quarter of the cake! I took it to UNIS with candles and matches, so i could give it to him at the lunch break, unfortunately all the matches had been used, so it didn't have quite the desired effect! however, we did sing happy birthday in the middle of the canteen so i think he was suitably embarrassed. After yesterday in UNIS I continued with some work whilst Dayle and some friends went to the Moraine cave at the glacier, and then popped over to his party later on. I can't wait to get the exams out of the way and start seeing a bit of the area around Longyearbyen!

Given that now we're all pretty much settled in and into the routine of lectures, I should also tell you about some independent research I'm conducting. Many of you may remember that before I left Britain, My Uncle Paul presented me with a parcel which he suggested would be necessary for my survival in the high arctic. However, I have no idea what they are designed for! I have included a photograph so that you can see the aforementioned items, and perhaps suggest possible uses. I have only had a little time to conduct research I have so far only been able to find one possible use:

anybody with further suggestions is invited to comment on this post and I will endevour to test out your hypotheses!

Ash

2009-01-19T02:54:00.000-08:00

Hello there! Its now the second week of lectures, so I find I increasingly have to drink in order to have anything interesting to say! No, I'm kidding, but it was quite a heavy weekend, what with friday gathering in UNIS and then some drinks in one of the down stairs kitchens on saturday night! There was quite a few different spirits on offer, so much Cognac, Whisky, Vodka and rum was consumed by all. People here seemed to have got into the swing of being in the Arctic now, so people are often out skiing, snow mobiling, ice caving, and walking up the hills and glaciers. Me, on the otherhand, well I've been a good boy and have been revising for my exams! so instead of telling you about the wonders of Longyearbreen glacier, I would have to tell you of the wonders of particles in three dimensional infinite potential wells; so I'll spare you that.

So, instead, perhaps a little bit more about Longyearbyen. Well, this is the view from my window in barrack 9 of the rest of Nybyen, across the road is barrack 4, and there are a few 'hotels' and 'art galleries' in the other buildings. longyearbyen is at the end of the valley. We've had a really mild weekend, with temperatures as high as minus 6! its really surprising how quickly the weather can change here. as i've said before the temperature was really low (between minus 20 and 30) for the last few weeks, but now its warmed up considerably. perversely, it now feels quite warm out, and wearing the amount of clothes I was wearing last week causes rapid overheating! On the way to UNIS this morning I had to take my hat, scarf and gloves off (sorry Nan!)

In other news, we had a really bright moon

recently, so we were afforded the best view to date of our surroundings. this photo is taken from the front door of my barrack (so you can see more of Nybyen) but the mountains in the background are on the other side of the Fjord UNIS is next too, giving you some idea of the walk in the morning! and i have 9 o'clock lectures everyday! We haven't seen any more Aurora yet, but a solar wind stream hit last night, which means an increased solar wind speed and density and hence more probable Auroras. looking at the data on the internet it seems there would have been good Aurora over Longyearbyen at about 3 this morning, so i certainly didn't see them! its also a tad overcast here. However, If you look to the south in the middle of the day, the sky is considerably brighter than it was when we got here, so it won't be that long until the sun rises! I believe the sun rises properly on the 14th February, which coincides with our 'icebreaker party' (which I'll tell you about in due course) and the Wales vs England rugby match. thats going to be a really good day!

Ash

2009-01-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one today, last night i was hard at work, revising for exams (honestly) when I was told that there were some good Aurora. So, bravely, out I ventured in slippers and a fleece to capture this shot. I had to go in then because I was freezing and I think it was towards the end of the 'display'. i'll keep an eye out for the next few days, it seems that the sun is finally starting to play ball!

Ash

2009-01-12T01:54:00.001-08:00

Hello there reader, I believe when we last spoke I had one more day of the safety training left before the practical exercise. Well, on the friday we went out onto the sea ice (the Fjord at the bottom of the valley in which Longyearbyen is located is frozen over) and did various activities. We used axes to cut holes into the ice to check its thickness (it was 60cm thick) but apparently you can walk and ski on 10cm (4 inches), and use a snow mobile on 30cm (12 inches). I some how don't fancy walking over a Fjord on only 10cm of ice!

We then practiced what to do if someone falls into the water, which basically consisted of tying a rope to a gerry can and throwing it in their direction. Its surprisingly difficult to get any distance on your throw! we also practiced crawling along the ice using small metal picks, which we are supposed to use to get back on the ice if we fall in the water. it was difficult enough to crawl on them never mind lift yourself out of the water, although I guess if you're in that situation, you'll find the strength to use them!

the final part of the safety training was instruction on setting up an emergency camp (say if you are out in the field and one of the party gets injured and you have to set up a camp to wait for the emergency helicopter) which consisted of putting up tents (inside, so using duct tape instead of pegs!), setting up polar bear trip wires around the camp with flares to alert you of their presence and use of the emergency stove.

So, now it was time to put all the skills learnt to test out on Longyearbreen glacier. We met on saturday morning outside the barracks in Nybyen, and walked up to the terminal morraine (rocks and snow etc.) at the snout (end) of the glacier. we were split into three groups to rotate around the practical training. My group first did practical first aid and emergency camp, I helped set up a large 5 person tent (there was one 5 person and two 2 person tents) and set up a polar bear trip wire around it. Meanwhile the other half of the group tended to 4 'casualties', One unconscious, one broken arm, one broken leg and, I think, a neck injury. The broken arm and the unconscious guy were brought to my tent, which i was unluckily inside at the time, which made me the person responsible for them, along with a scottish guy who was part of the casualty evacuation team. The unconscious guy seemed a little annoyed that I hadn't talked to him, but we kept him warm and checked he was breathing, leaving him in the recovery position. It seemed more necessary to talk to the conscious patient (with the broken arm) to keep her spirits up until the hypothetical rescue helicopter arrived.

Next we practiced avalanche rescue, locating buried 'victims' from their emergency beacons or visible clues on the surface of the avalanche, probed the area with avalanche probes and dug them out with shovels. At least the digging kept us kind of warm! Then last station was crevasse rescue, where we rigged up a rope system to lower a person into a 'crevasse' (more down a steep slope really), to rescue a further casualty.

By this point my toes were freezing! I was wearing virtually everything I own, long sleeve thermals, long johns, thin fleece, thick fleecy coat, two pair of socks, boots, scarf, face mask, goggles (although they steamed up, so i had to take them off, at which point they froze!), hat, one or two pairs of gloves. I was glad to get off the glacier after 5 hours and get on the (kindly provided) bus back to UNIS. wiggling your toes is no replacement for getting to somewhere warm!

In UNIS we were given some time to eat our packed lunches, the pasta and sandwiches i had made had frozen, so i microwaved the sanwhiches, which were still cold in places, but warm and soggy in others, and also ate a bar of chocolate I'd bought from the reduced to clear bin in Coop. I didn't feel guilty about eating lots of chocolate because apparently we'd burn up to 4000 calories on the glacier. I also found that sharing chocolate around is a good way to make friends, especially after 5 hours at minus 30ish!

After lunch we did the written test which completes the safety course, followed by some beer and pizza provided by the logistics department and the friday gathering booze! then, a well earned lie in. I awoke the next day at seven, went back to sleep and got up at 11! Sunday was an uneventful day, about all worth mentioning is me and Colin's, pretty successful, attempt at making pancakes (although the American guy disagreed that they were actually pancakes!)

Its now monday and we've just had an introduction lecture to the upper polar atmosphere course, which is to be followed after lunch by a lecture about the other course, radar diagnostics of space plasma. In other news, apparently there has been a Polar bear sighting in the next Fjord over, but the Aurora are still conspicuous by their absence. It seems the Sun is very inactive at the moment. But my wide angle lense is constantly attached to my camera, on the tripod, set to manual with a reasonably long exposure and wide open aperture, just on the off chance!

well thats enough for now, its all lectures this week (i get a lie in tomorrow) so maybe I've told you all the interesting stuff for a while! Watch this space

Ash

2009-01-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, as promised i'm posting some details of the safety course as they are more interesting than the previous post! the less i say about monday the better, we all got dressed up in virtually all the outdoor clothing we own in preparation for a day outdoors (and this week its been around 30 below 0!) and we spent the whole day in a lecture room listening to the governer of UNIS talking about the place, the Sysselmannen's cheif of police and cheif of environment (Sysselman being the governer of Svalbard) talking about administration and the environment and one of the crew of the rescue helicopter based here in Longyearbyen talking about first aid; slowly. As I said, the less i talk about these the better, so I'll leave it there.

The rest of the week so far has been much more exciting. We have been put into groups of around 12 and we rotate around 8 different activites, two per day. I knew about half of the people in my group at the beginning, so it was nice to see some familiar faces (albeit only having met them in the previous few days) and to be able to meet some more new people. I'm starting to remember people's names now, but theres quite a few people who I am sure have introduced themselves to me, which I can't remember!

On Tuesday morning we learnt the procedure used to rescue someone who has fallen into a crevasse or meltwater channel of a glacier (glaciers cover 60% of Svalbard if I'm not mistaken, so I guess its important) from a guy who is part of the local glacier rescue crew. This involves a lot of knot tying (or seemed to) so we spent quite a while practising Viking knots and french knots and double 8 knots etc. etc. I was able to do them all at the time, but I'm not sure how competent I would be in a few months time, panicing, on a glacier, in the cold, with gloves on. I guess the lesson was to not get yourself into that situation and if you do, phone the professionals. That lesson concluded by simulating, in teams of four, tying ropes and pulleys and harnesses etc. to someone to lower them into a crevasse to rescue someone. Our substitute for a crevasse was a balcony on the top floor! We managed to tie everything correctly, winch the guy down from the balcony and then pull him back up again successfully, so i guess we passed that part!

That afternoon we learnt about the danger of avalanches and how to rescue someone buried under the snow. this lesson was even more about prevention being better than cure, because unless you get someone out within about 20 minutes, there chance of surviving drops rapidly. We used beacons that can be set to transmit (for when walking) and search (for if looking for someone) to locate a beacon buried in the snow, and used search poles to probe the snow for resistence, and then shovels to dig! On tuesday night a group of us from my barrack went to the sports centre to play snow rugby, which is exactly as it sounds, 'touch' rugby at minus 30 in the snow. Its the first time i've ever managed to play a sport wearing two fleeces and thermals!

Wednesday morning, I'm aching all over! I had to have a long hot shower last night because my midrift was really cold! this morning we did navigation and communications, where we learnt to use global positioning systems and upload routes to follow onto them, learnt to use satellite phones and the radio protocol on the island. we then did this for a short trip between UNIS, the radisson hotel and back, using the gps, and making calls on the radio and satellite phone.

In the afternoon we had the polar bear safety course, in other words; rifle training. We shot in the prone position and kneeling, learnt about rifle maintainence, shot flare guns (used to attempt to scare off polar bears, shooting them being a last resort) and discussed behaviour of the group when conducting field work, if a polar bear is present. Apparently, if a polar bear charges at us we must shoot at about 100m, but the only polar bear ever shot by a UNIS student was shot at 1.5m! It gave us all an appreciation of why we must always carry a rifle when we leave Longyearbyen.

That night I went to bed early, because I've had to be up at 6 every morning. I finished reading the copy of Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons' that I found lying around in the barrack, which should please those who have said I should read some fiction! Up again at 6 this morning, I've had First Aid with the aforementioned helicopter rescue guy, which included performing CPR on one of those dummies. This afternoon was probably the least exciting of the course, the Health Safety and Logistics tour, which was a lecture showing us the various forms we need to fill in to do anything, followed by a tour of the labs with the lab coordinator, and a tour of the building with the study coordinator. The building is really nice, all copper and wood and windows, and the labs are really modern and put Aberystwyth's to shame! however, it sounds like us Geophysicists (what i'm having to call myself up here instead of an Astrophysicist) will spend most of our time in lectures. We do have some field work at the EISCAT radar site/Adventdalen Auroral station, but most other course seems to include a cruise! Ah well...

Thanks for reading

Ash

2009-01-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

Well, what a difference in two new years eves! I spent the last day of 2007 slightly worse for wear (as many may remember) in the Cornmill and Wynnstay (from the few pictures I have seen of this years celebrations in Llangollen, it would seem that little has changed!). I spent the last day of 2008 at Oslo airport (which, by the way is nowhere near Oslo) waiting to fly to Svalbard.

Briefly, In case you don't know, I'm up in the Norwegian high Arctic for 6 months (ish) studying at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). My courses are 'The Upper Polar Atmosphere' and 'Radar Diagnostics of Space Plasma' (admittedly, I'm not sure what its about either!) which together make up half my masters year under the title 'Arctic Geophysics'.

So, to bring you up to date, Our possible plans for spending new year in Oslo was scuppered by the fact it was 50 minutes by road from the airport (and 20 minutes by a seemingly non-existent train) , which, at new year, I should imagine, meant a prohibitively expensive taxi ride. Instead we tried to get food at the airport, but most things were closed, so resorted to eating in the hotel (the radisson, by the way, a final extravagance before the arctic!). So I welcomed in the new year, not stooped over drunkenly in some local pub, but listening to 80's music on Norwegian TV!

The flight from Oslo took us to Longyearbyen (Svalbard) via Tromso, at the top of Norway. It was apparently minus 17 degrees celcius when we arrived. We were bussed from the airport to our barracks at Nybyen (just further up the valley from Longyearbyen) which are to be my home for the next 6 months. Since then I've been to the shopping street a couple of times, primarily for food, and we've visited UNIS and some of the other Barracks.

On friday night most students head for the UNIS canteen where we have a little party (with cheap booze) which was a great opportunity to meet people from other Barracks. I've meet people from Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland, Germany, Denmark (I think), America and a few more Brits. other than that, we had a little gathering in our barracks last night, which was a great opportunity to find out whether i could remember the names of anyone I'd met! A few more people arrived today, but I think everyone is here now because the safety course starts tomorrow, which everyone must attend. At least a week of rifle shooting, Crevase rescuing and first aid should give me something to talk about in subsequent posts, which will be more interesting than a chronological description of my flights!

Almost forgot to mention that its polar night here, the sun doesn't rise until mid february, so its dark all day, you can see the stars all the time, I've seen a few shooting stars, one of which was really impressive, but no Aurora worth mentioning, just milky green lighter patches in the sky, expect pictures when I see some good ones!

I'll finish by running you through the attire needed even to pop to the shops here at Longyearbyen in the winter: An extra pair of woolly socks, walking boots, thermal long johns, waterproof trousers, a t shirt or thermal dependent on how cold it is, a thin fleece and then a bigger fleecy coat with waterproof outer layer, a scarf, hat and at least one pair of gloves.
I find walking to town in this is fine, but walking back up hill with a load of shopping, this can become a tad hot, so I'm working on a compromise!

Hope everyone is well at home.

Ash