June 19, 2015

    

        Overnight we sailed around the southern tip of Spitsbergen, heading east towards Edgeøya.  I drink my morning coffee on the bow, mountains in the distance on both sides.

 

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            We go to land and hike for a long while over the tundra.  We see a wide variety of birds: Brent Goose, Snow Bunting, Parasitic Skua.

            I become fascinated with the large amount of bones that litter the ground everywhere: seal, walrus, reindeer, whale.  I take pictures of the bones, my brain putting together a presentation for my students -- a walk through a world with no rodents, no insects, with permafrost below you, a world where the bones stay on the surface and do not decompose.  It's beautiful, if a little macabre.



Walrus Skull and Vertebrae

Whale Vertebrae

   







  

       We see our first reindeer, a male with tiny antlers.  His fur is an amazing white and his eyes a deep, charcoal black.  We also see our first Walrus -- humongous blubbery things.  They swim in a small bay while we sit and watch.  One of them has broken off part of his tusk.

 

 

 

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            We visited another Kittiwake colony at a place called Diskobukta.  The birds live on the walls of a canyon.  On the ground as we hiked in: two whale jaw bones, 30 feet long or more.  Reindeer greeted us, perhaps five of them, curious as to our presence.  As we approach the canyon, the skies are filled with thousands of birds.  The noise!  The smell!  The taste!  A random wing on the ground, the rest of the bird missing.  The decaying body of an arctic fox among the remains of multiple kittiwakes, his/her teeth showing in a snarl as the gums and lips pull back in decay.  Birds engaging in ariel combat-- locking together, falling straight down, recovering before they hit the ground.  Two fighters hit the crumbling slopes of the canyon and slide down them, finally disengaging and flying in opposite directions.

 

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            We saw our first bear perhaps a half hour ago (it is 11:39 pm right now).  S/he was far off in the distance -- through the binocs s/he was tiny, but it was amazing all the same.  S/he walked along the horizon, yellow and lumbering.  Pictures were futile, so I simply sat and watched.

 

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            The sea ice is the bluest it has been all day, at 12:39 AM.