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Frenchmen’s Trail Walk, Day Three
I slept on a high-jump mat in a former grade seven classroom last night, and surprisingly I didn’t dream about being 12 years old. We’re living in luxury here: there’s a kitchen and tables and chairs, and running cold water, although you can’t drink it. Most of us had showers, but I couldn’t face a […]
Leaving Isfjorden and man over board
Saturday 15/10/2016 -3°C, 10m/s; Sunrise 10:29 – Sunset 16:55 There’s quite a swell at the entrance of Isfjorden as we take our early morning leave and continue south. We help to raise the sails and it’s certainly quieter and smoother than last night. Dark until mid-morning and much colder, ice lies over the deck. The light changes fast. We travel in grey black sea, bruised pink clouds hang over snow-covered mountains, the usual mist drifting over peaks. We pass all those glaciers again, this time in reverse order. Sometimes it just doesn’t look real. Snow sweeps in covering the deck; we slip and slide across it and more sweeping ensues; an endless task. I retreat to a sheltered corner to draw in my small sketchbook - using snow to smudge the charcoal, chalk and graphite into the paper. Afternoon. Chaos erupts; siren sounding, we stumble out into swirling snow. ‘Man overboard’ has been called; confusion. Then we’re told that Oscar’s machine to test for plastics in seawater that has been trailing behind the boat has come loose, disappearing into the sea, along with a life belt. Oscar’s machine for collecting plastics - before it disappearedThe next few hours are spent with the Captain shouting angrily at us to look out to sea and find it, to treat this as a drill for a lost person (although given the sea conditions by then they would not have survived more than a few minutes). Tensions rise, it’s very cold, visibility is poor, there’s a general feeling that this is all pretty unnecessary, our captain has over-reacted, but captains rule their ships and demand obedience it seems. Our teams - starboard and port - take 20 minute turns to line the perimeters of the boat and peer into sea and mist and swirling snow, then retreat to the saloon to warm up. Miraculously, after two hours - it might be longer since by now I’ve lost sense of time - the life belt is finally recovered, but the machine has vanished to become part of the detritus in the Arctic sea and perhaps to wash up somewhere years later as with the discovery of Andrée’s discarded ballasts thrown into the air from his balloon long after he had disappeared into the void. By now it’s too dark to draw; I think we are all pretty fed up.Increasing wind brings a greater sea swell - not good for the seasick sufferers. But it’s exciting and I sit out on deck and eat dinner while watching the boat pitching, waves rising and falling, sometimes breaching the side as the boat leans. Around me stand the suffering, hanging on, looking pale and wan, an occasional figure dashing for the side. With a slight change of direction and sails back up the pitching lessens and the sea and people calm. Later with a full moon shining over the sea there is music dancing on deck. I take to my bunk, falling asleep to the thump of revelers above my head, the moon bright through my porthole. We sail through the night.
• Arctic Post – Thurs 13th Oct Fuglefjorden – how darkness and light are bound together
--> Thursday 13.10.2016 Fuglefjorden - how darkness and light are bound together-2°C, 3m/s. Sunrise 10:11 sunset 17.15. 9-10 m/sA pre-breakfast Zodiac trip has been planned; it’s still dark when I arrive on deck. Can’t see any stars yet, a luminous green sea and dark land mass is silhouetted against the sky. The group of early-morning risers clamber into the Zodiacs, and travel out into a sea of ice, leaning out to push large chunks of looming icebergs out of the way. The sea and ice heave slowly – almost as though breathing, ice turning and moving away. We get close to the glacier, a massive wall that looms above us. Still dark and snowing slightly, falling flakes glisten in the flash from my camera. No-one speaks, it feels magical, gently traveling around the bay in a sea of ice as dawn begins to break, apricot in a clear sky. I sometimes can’t quite believe where I am. The ship comes into view in front of us in a blue world surrounded by chunks of ice.We are traveling in a vacuum, a small band of international artists on a boat high above the Arctic Circle - an improbable place with its own contested history of struggles and exploitations, of politics and power, darkness and light, myths and realities - and it’s difficult to think of what might be going on at home in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Since we left Longyearbyen most of us have had no contact with the outside, no phone, internet or radio. We occasionally talk politics (more often we talk about food and next meal or the next place we will arrive at); the Americans artists are all fed up about the looming election and the possibility of a Trump triumph, some talking about leaving the country to go to live in Canada and I can’t say I would want to stay in a ‘trumped up’ America; another artist is struggling with visas to leave one country and go to another. There are a few domestic concerns for some, but as one of the guides remarks to me, being in a cold distant place helps to get away from heightened emotions … it becomes a form of protection - ‘The sky seems closer to the land. I feel such a small dot in the landscape that I feel so insignificant that it makes problems disappear. Nothing ever happens that is important when I am away in the north’. Someone else when I ask her about her sense of north says that she feels that there is no space or time for the superficial here - it cannot survive - no time for drama. ‘North is to me the place that makes you go on a pretty straight path to the essence of it all/everything. It can be hard (conditions) and has extremes, taking you quickly to the essentials of living and surviving, and in that of life - actions, relations, words, intentions, thoughts, meanings’. There is the old ambiguity about going up there to find or lose oneself, but it is perhaps more that the far north, and particularly the High Arctic, intensifies experiences rather than providing answers or transformations. Canadian artist Glen Gould made a radio documentary programme of sounds and words and silences called the Idea of the North. For Gould the idea of north was as a metaphor for the sheer physical profundity of the northern land, ‘an escape from the limitations of civilization’ .. as something ‘other’, separate, away from society; a state of mind within which lay creative possibilities. He concludes that this vast irreducible territory is a strength, a constant reminder of the need for unity, a source of saving humanity rather than seeing it simply as a source of wealth for natural resources. Author Peter Davidson in his book The Idea of North (2004) refers to its ‘absolute difficult beauty’. Trying to grapple with all this and make work is interesting – and challenging. Sometimes the landscape seems to just draw itself – it looks like drawings rather than reality - out of this world – and I wonder what I can add to it. Davidson writes: ‘apersistent myth of the north in our own time is that the exploration of the Arctic is morally pure, connected with concepts such as rigorous self-discipline and self-knowledge, allowing artists to cling to the popular belief that northern regions are untouched, pristine. It is both reality and imagination, both rich and dangerous, a northern haven, but also a harsh dark place’. It becomes a clear bright morning. Breakfast over there is a landing on Svidjotholmen (or ‘Spikeholmen’ after Spike one of the artists traveling with us), I’m really torn between going to the island and staying on the deck to work; in some ways I should make every opportunity to go on land. In the end I stay and work on deck. I watch silhouetted figures moving around on the island, dwarfed in front of the massive shape of Svidjotbreen, and hear the noise of a large glacial calving, which I’m later told causes a big wave to hit the island. I’m sure I’m going to regret not going… but will I gain anymore from drawing on land rather than looking at the land from the sea?Midday we sail south, the wind has dictated our direction. So this is as far north as we are going to get, I feel disappointed. Cloud hovering and descending, mountains disappear reappear disappear reaching up into the sky and I’m not sure where mountains stops and sky begins anymore. A thunder grey and pale blue world, pale turquoise blue-green sea, dark ripples traveling fast across its surface. We pass chunks of ice, one looks like a swan with wings outstretched, then a large intensely turquoise piece – it doesn’t look real. Snowings again, four seagulls flying just above the sea, a dark line against white. A dusting of new snow on the mountains, dark jagged teeth above smooth snow covering. We pass glacier after glacier; I wonder what early travelers made of all this, a place of horror or wonder? In the book ‘Arctic Dreams’ author Barry Lopez remarks:'...It is as though the land slowly works its way into the man... The land becomes large, alive like an animal; it humbles him in a way he cannot pronounce. It is not that the land is simply beautiful but that it is powerful. Its power derives from the tension between its obvious beauty and its capacity to take life. Its power flows into the mind from a realization of how darkness and light are bound together within it..”. Mid afternoon, snowing so heavily that I can’t see anything; we sail on in our own white world and take turns to sweep the deck. Late afternoon the snow stops, the sky clears, the sun setting pink-orange reflected in light green pink-tinged sea, dark clouds. I stay on deck desperately trying to paint as the wind picks up - 9-10 m/s; it’s icy and my paint begins to look a bit like those slush puppy drinks kids buy. There’s still a very cold wind blowing. Most of the mountains remain shrouded in grey mist, sea turns dark blue black, a Guillimot flies by.Evening, we anchor at Fjortende Julibukta and drink mulled wine on deck in the dark.
• The Genhe Tour: a journey to the coldest place in China
Out of the blue I received an invitation to participate in the Burnt By Snow festival, which was taking place over the soon approaching Christmas weekend. It was not entirely clear to me where this was happening but, since I didn't have any o...
