Dario Laganà went on a 1000 km walk in Norway, and produced the short film Like a Fern Between Rocks, documenting this solitary, nomadic experience. This work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the Marŝarto Awards 2025.  Dario earlier wrote about his experience in A loud solitude, and goes deeper into his experience, below. All of my

Brona Martin created MOSS – Mapping Otherworldly Soundscapes, an investigation and celebration of sound and an exploration of the relations between the natural and cultural worlds of Moss, Norway. This work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the Sound Walk September Awards 2025. Below, Brona discusses the piece. Often our first introduction to a new environment is experienced through

Liesje van den Berk draws not only what she sees but also what she hears or feels, drawing how the senses absorb the environment. And this is what she did for her piece Walk in Fleinvaer, documenting her experience on the island with the same name in Norway.

I mentioned in an earlier post that as part of my virtual residency …

Sunday 16/10/2016  -2°C, 5m/s. Sunrise 10:39 - Sunset 16:45.Late Saturday night we arrive and anchor close to Pyramiden 78°39.2´N, 16°22.9´E.Emerging onto an icy deck in crisp blue morning light, the moon still hangs over a now completely calm sea. In front of us the abandoned Russian settlement of Pyramiden sits silently at the foot of the snow-capped Pyramid Mountain. Once a model coal mining town until the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, it still bears the scars of its mining days. In 1936, the Soviets acquired the rights to use the coalfields at Pyramiden and built the town to demonstrate Soviet power.Lenin's viewThe Russian government threw money at this place, even importing earth from the Ukraine so there would be grassy areas on top of the permafrost. Once there were green houses full of vegetables, hens laying eggs. A place where only the best coal miners and their families could work.It was desirable to live here - life was relaxed away from Mother Russia, people  had more freedom. Any foreigner could come here without a visa, and it must of been impressive.In the 1980s more than 1,000 people lived in Pyramiden. Residents were assigned to different residential halls, which acquired their own nicknames -  London for single men, Paris for the unmarried women  (there was even pub on the ground floor of the women's building). Crazy House for families , so called because the children who would always play in the hallways. Gostinka (Russian for “hotel,”) was built to house short-term workers. There was a hospital, a large cafeteria - apparently so that the women didn't have to cook for their families and therefore could be useful workers (!) - a giant mosaic was made depicting the Svalbard landscape populated by heroes of Norse legends. Apparently the heated indoor pool was the best in Svalbard. All was constructed in typical Soviet block-style fashion of brick made on site with rounded edges to lessen the impact of the bitter winter wind.  Somewhere there is even a grave yard for both humans and cats.Now blocks of abandoned flats where mine workers and their families once lived, are now colonised by kittiwakes. It''s difficult to imagine this waste land full of industry; I try to imagine families wandering the boardwalks on a summer evening.  At top of town in front of the Culture House the northern-most bust of Lenin surveys empty streets and dilapidated buildings. We wander around the Culture house; inside is full of abandoned items - sets of old skis, a football lies in the sports court, the empty goals still in place - when was the last game? Russian books and pamphlets, old photographs of people who once lived and worked here. The world's northern-most grand piano - a "Red October" - sits on the stage in the dark and deserted auditorium. Jordi mounts the stars, sits and plays, the out-of-tune sound echoing eerily through the building. On the wall in a room upstairs is a panorama depicting the surrounding mountains. Who painted it? Rotting wooden walkways and bridges, huge mounds of scrap metal lie beside the dock juxtaposed with bright soviet monuments that reach for the sky proclaiming power. Its a pretty horrible mess but the setting surrounded by snow capped mountains, the Nordenskiöld glacier and fjord to the east, is magnificent. Waking to this everyday as you went to work - would you ever get used to it? But then the mine workers would spend their days in darkness, deep inside the mountain, to emerge into either the darkness of a polar night or blinking into the brilliant light of the summer season. Rusting swings sit in the playgroundWith the fall of the Soviet Union the money dried up, wages stopped being paid, there were shortages and standard of living fell, so families left. The town was abandonded. On March 31,1998, the last coal was extracted from the mine; seven months later, just before the ice arrived, on October 10th the last residents left. Pyramiden has now become, or they are attempting to make it, a tourist destination with a hotel staffed by a couple of Russians where visitors can enjoy staying in a Russian style room or opt for more European comforts.The Hotel - Russian style Before we leave to get back for dinner I make a quick drawing of the Pyramide mountain rubbing chalk and graphite across the page smudged with the icy water running from the mountain. Not really enough time to do much before we return to the boat. Just beyond me on the path Jordi is filming Spike dressed as a polar bear and sweeping snow. Drawing the mountain, photo courtesy of Jordi ForniesThe Pyramiden mountain, photo courtesy of Jordi ForniesLater we troop along the board walks and return in the dark to the hotel and sit in the bar drinking vodka infused with horseradish and then another with ginger (both are pretty good), watching videos of folk dancing Russians bands. I find the contrast between all this and the surrounding landscape bizarre and also depressing. Must be very weird for the few remaining caretakers who live there all year in the midst of such decay, particularly during the dark months of Polar Night. The Arctic has a complicated history of exploitation - exploitation of natural resources. Its animals have been fished and hunted to virtual extinction, it’s been mined, claimed, land stolen, people destroyed by disease, and of course now there are global warming issues – the threat of ecological destruction of the planet. When I was interviewed by the anthropologist on board we talked about the north and I found myself relating these places to the wall in the series Game of Thrones holding back the Wildling hoards of the icy north who are threatening to invade and, like Janssen’s Groke, bring winter to the rest of the world. I feel that Longyearbyen and Ny Ålesund are like walls but doing the opposite to that in the Games of Thrones - or maybe not quite the opposite - instead are trying to protect the north, to prevent the world from invading the Arctic, guarding, drawing attention to its fragility – holding us back from inflicting more human exploitation and destruction.

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.

--> 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.

Wednesday 12.10.2016 Smeerenburg 79°43,7´N, 011°00.5´E, 2°C8m/s, wind picking up. Sunrise 10:02 – Sunset 17:23. I wake early and peer out of my porthole; still dark, there is now 22 minutes less daylight. I can just make out coastline and mountains. It’s raining; depressing, it shouldn’t be. What is happening to our climate? We move a short distance closer to the island of Smeerenburg, and there’s the usual scramble for equipment and to board the zodiac for the trip from ship to shore. The sky clear slightly as we leave the ship, light breaks through the clouds.Landing on the beach I gaze back to the far shore and dark mountains on the far side of the bay; it’s just wondrous, as though a stage has been set for me. In the gloom mist is gathering, hovering, moving slowly, and then it seems to be flowing upwards over the dark mountain peaks that poke through. Above an ethereal light is coming from somewhere out of the dark clouds so that the glaciers gleam, turning turquoise as they reach the sea. It looks so ridiculously magical, so unbelievably beautiful I feel I’m in a fairy tale world.    Turning up the beach we find the walruses, lots of them, lying lazily in large companionable heaps, lolling, shifting, shuffling, rolling, an occasional flipper waving in the air, long white tusks appearing as a head raises to survey us, an occasional snort grunt and fart - they smell. A bit like huge slugs as wrinkled brown and pink skin rippling they haul their colossal bodies along the pale yellow sand.   A young walrus swims with its parents, playfully sinking, surfacing, splashing, pausing to peer at this strange group who cluster on the beach and move as one edging closer to the Walrus mound, our cameras capturing their every move.  (A point of information: the Walrus’s scientific name is Odobenus rosmarus which in Latin means tooth-walking seahorse).My feet are wet and I’m cold, and there are only so many photographs to be taken of a walrus; seeing them in the flesh is what counts, and they are pretty amazing to watch, but even this has its limits. Eventually we are able to tour around the remains of Smeerenburg - ´Blubbertown’ - an old 17th Century Dutch whaling station. First occupied by the Dutch in 1614, in its heyday (1630s) Smeerenburg was made up of 16–17 buildings.  A board commemorates the site with a map showing the location of buildings and ovens. Having be warned to tread carefully and keep off the tundra (again!) we are allowed to wander carefully around the old ovens. Blackened lumps mark the remains of blubber ovens - rock fused with sand, gravel, and whale oil boiled together to make “blubber cement”, and where cooking vessels to render oil from the fat once stood. Remains of blubber ovensFlensing. Facsimile of a woodcut in the Cosmograhie Universelle ofThevet Folio, Paris 1574Blubber cement - It has a texture resembling asphalt. During this time there were as many as 200 men working ashore, 'flensing' whales (stripping the blubber), the blubber was then cut into small pieces, put into casks and boiled until it became oil. Scattered on the beach a mass of wood lies abandoned, amongst them the bleached white bones left from whales killed and dismembered on the beach; I ponder how old they must be. Surfaces scoured by wind and snow, lichen is beginning to take over, the bones look almost sculptural - shades of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. A barren windswept island, swept by wild sea and storm, it must have been a pretty awful place to be amid the stench of death and boiling oil. On the ground lie patches of bright green and orange mosses, presumably fertilized by the ashes of slaughtered whales. By the second half of the century Smeerenberg was mostly abandoned since they had exhausted the supply of whales. The whale population never recovered. There are almost none left in the waters around Svalbard. Somewhere out here are the graves of over 100 men who lost their lives during the 17th and 18th century… but then I think of all the whales they killed. In the book The Solitude of Thomas Cave by Georgina Harding I find this quote:Extract from The Solitude of Thomas Cave, by Georgina HardingI look around me and imagine the horror of it all, but the surrounding mountains are a complete contrast to the slaughter and chaos that this beach must have endured. In the same book I find a quote echoing what I'm now seeing Across on the shore I can see the usual photographers at work. Despite its dark history it's a place to capture. I make a few quick drawings looking up at the misty blue blur of dark mountains and snow; the sky has that end-of-day pink.Standing awaiting the zodiacs a small Arctic fox appears trotting down to the beach. I watch from the Zodiac as it suddenly jumps into the mass of Walrus and disappears. In the afternoon I stay on board while others go on a trek up to the top of a glacier; I’m so tempted to join them but my clothes and boots are still wet from the morning, instead I spend some time trying to make colours that I see in the landscape. Grinding the water-colour pigments together that I’ve brought with me, mixing in sea water collected by lowering a bucket over the side of the boat and hoisting it up. This is a project I planned before I left the UK, and I still haven’t actually done anything about until now, so I need to get on with it while I have the opportunity and the deck is pretty much deserted. I spend half the time staring at the sea and glacier, trying to decide what exactly are those colours out there. Once I've mixed a batch I ask for them to be put in the freezer to be used at a later date… -->The Antigua moves off in cloud. We travel slowly through a pale green/grey icy sea, snow covering, ice scattering, sea slowly swelling as if breathing. Ellis O’Connor joins me on deck and we’re both drawing again as land and ice slips by.  Marvelling at it allCan’t stop now - white that isn’t white, white that is many whites, soft black, dissolving merging melting dripping. I gather snow and push it into charcoal and pastel across the paper. Cold fingers.  Visibility disappearing in freezing ice and snow that whips across the deck. These are some of the most perfect moments.Evening, we anchor in Fuglefjorden, 79°45,3´N, 011°31.5´E. Out on deck in the dark I listen to ice scrapping along the side of the boat, to ice cracking releasing its age-old air.Addendum: In January 2017 I travel to Amsterdam and wandering around the Rijksmuseum come across a painting of Smeerenberg The Whale-Oil Refinery near the Village of Smeerenburg (1639) by Cornelis de Man. The Whale-Oil Refinery near the Village of Smeerenburg (1639) by Cornelis de Man, Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamClearly from the look of it De Man didn’t actually ever visit the whaling station, painting it from the comfort of his studio at home, and apparently basing it on a Danish painting of a Svalbard whaling station and other images. I also discover in a nearby case beautiful knitted hats that were removed from excavated graves on Smeerenberg. I suppose due to the freezing conditions so far north, much of the clothing was very well-preserved. As the Rijksmuseum caption notes the men were bundled up so tightly against the cold that they would have only “recognized by the colours and patterns of their caps". As in Shetland fishermen wore distinctive jumper patterns knitted for each family members, I suppose here too, men working in Smeerenburg when pulled from the sea would also be identifiable by the pattern and colour of each hat. The original dyed rich colours of the thick caps have long since faded which have taken up the uniform brown colour of the soil they were buried in, but their original patterns with strips and varying shapes are still visible. They are wonderful pieces to pause by and wonder about who wore them and who knitted them.

--> Monday 10.10.2016  Blomstrandbreen  79°00,2´N, 012°13.1´E Cloudy and overcast, a dark but beautiful morning. 2°C, 2m/s. Sunrise 09:45 – Sunset 17:41A wet foggy start to the day, still dark while we eat breakfast; even as we assemble on deck and climb into the Zodiacs it’s only just about getting light. We travel towards shore in the gloom of early morning, a pale green sea, mist clinging low to the mountains. No-one speaks, the bay is full of luminous glacial ice, pale turquoise blue, white, laced brown, large, small, flat, jagged, float silently passed us, jostling for space. Travelling by Zodiacs to shore is more hazardous today as we slowly push our way through the ice. I look back to where the  Antigua sits surrounded by a gently swelling turquoise blue ice sea; some of those pieces are pretty big.We set off trekking up the mountain at a brisk pace; our aim is to reach the head of Blomstrandbreen. A tricky climb, the tundra crumbling and rocky, a bit like climbing up scree. Stones strewn across the ground - pure white, jet black, marble-like patterns, some like ancient bits of wood. Lying amongst them is a small piece of reindeer antler, soft grey with darker markings. Then something white moves up ahead. We all freeze. Sara looks worried, her hand travels to the rifle; this is not a good sign. We’re too far up to retreat, nowhere to shelter. We stand exchanging looks, whispering, then relief, it’s a pale reindeer, its arctic coat beginning to show. I wonder what we would have done if it had been a polar bear - maybe better not to think.  We continue upwards and pass a pair of harmless white Rock Tarmigan wandering amongst rocks and low foliage; they don’t seem bothered by us. Rock Tarmigan (archive photos)Climbing through mist it feels as though we are suspended, cocooned somewhere between sky and sea. As we reach the top it clears and there’s a spectacular view back to the shore. A thin line of a bright burnt orange winds through the deep gorge below us; up here I can’t hear the stream. I peer over the drop; before me a stone strewn path dragged by the ice and then the glacier sweeps vertically down to the sea edge where blue ice pushes up together, growing high into fat rounded peaks, bunching on shoreline waiting their turn to calf and fall, break into pieces and float out to sea. Pockets of mist hover and drift about us. Much of the ground is bare rocks, small pockets of snow lying on slopes, but not as much as there should be.On the edgeGet off the Tundra Zlatan!Looking back down the way we’ve climbed I can see far across the bay to yet another gleaming glacier. Cloud and mist drifts, sun on ice. Below us lies the Antigua, a tiny speck in a vast space. We pause, standing together where once has been glacier, a silent group listening to the land and sea and sky. I close my eyes. Now I hear the rush of water below us, then sounds of the glacier calving, of air moving, air that feels so clear, then silence. I feel so remote from the world and yet right in the midst of it. Overwhelmingly beautiful, I think we have a collective sublime moment. Then we are herded back down at breakneck speed, slipping and sliding on the scree, as we're late for lunch (never mind being sublime when the captain is pacing the deck).Cloud descends again as we arrive back on the Antigua, hanging low of the mountain we just climbed, intensifying the blues in the ice, dark dramatic peaks rising behind the glacier.    Leaving Bloomstrandbreen - a flash of blue skyAfternoon, we head northwards, and I hang about on the deck and draw fast. sketch book - drawing on the move - leaving Bloomstrandbreensketch book - drawing on the move- passing glaciersketch book - drawing on the move- mountains and glaciersWe reach Ny Ålesund late afternoon. Once a coal-mining settlement, now an international centre for arctic scientific research and environmental monitoring, with a shifting population of scientists/researchers from 10 countries. http://kingsbay.no/ Our arrival increases the population by 78%. Ny ÅlesundSitting against a backdrop of mountains, it feels somewhere between entering a sci-fi movie set and an episode of The Prisoner. Strangely-shaped antenna point into the sky monitoring the northern lights, white domes sit eerily in the landscape listening to the stratosphere, neat wooden buildings painted in pale colours, board walks, notices forbidding you to walk on the tundra - geoscientists are studying permafrost soils and changes in glacier systems and we mustn’t touch the ground. There are devises to measure how higher levels of UV radiation are affecting sea life in the fjords, to record how organisms are responding to increasing ocean acidification. Occasionally a few people appear busily walking from one building to another, clipboards in hand, a cyclist passes by. Receiving strict instructions to observe all the signs and not walk off the path, we walk in file, careful where we put our feet, and arrive at the Amundsen/Nobile mast. A rather bleak place, I stare up at the metal structure. It’s all that now remains of the launch station for airship Norge, along with a plaque that hails the event as a 'glorious achievement'.In reality the expedition seems less heroic and more of a feat of survival judging by the accounts of the trip. Launched May 11th 1925 the aim was to observe uncharted sea between the Pole and Alaska. Amundsen, the famous Norwegian expedition leader and navigator, and Umberto Nobile, Italian airship designer and pilot, apparently didn’t hit it off, relations becoming strained, understandable perhaps in such freezing, cramped and noisy conditions (there were sixteen of them inside the ship). It all became even worse when, a day later, they passed the North Pole and in true patriotic style dropped their flags and Amundsen saw the Italian flag was larger than the Norwegian and American flags. Size clearly matters. Amundsen later contemptuously described the trip as "a circus wagon in the sky".Airship Norge hovers over Ny-Ålesund before heading for the North Pole. (Image: Norwegian Polar Institute Photo Library)Photo taken in the Ny Ålesund museumNy Ålesund’s museum tells the history of mining up until early 1960’s when, on 5 November 1962, there was an explosion in the Ester mine. The entire work shift, consisting of 21 miners, lost their lives. 10 of the bodies were brought up to the shocked town, 11 were never found. The mine became their grave and was closed. The shop seems to sell mainly tourist stuff – fridge magnets, socks, sweets (maybe scientists have sweet teeth), the usual array of postcards, although there’s a couple of nice images of old Ny Ålesund amongst them. I buy a couple and write one to send home.It’s already dark when we return to the boat; 20 minutes less daylight each day now. In a couple of weeks there will be no daylight for several months as Polar night sets in. Late evening the sky is clear and Northern lights flicker. I'm finally sleeping on the top bunk and have a porthole through which to see the world. I breath a little easier. 

--> Sunday 9/10/2016 0°C, 5m/s. Blomstrandhalvøya 78°59,6 ́N 012°04.6 ́E.  Sunrise 09:37 – Sunset 17:49 satellite image of our locationThe light across the far mountains is beautiful when I go up on deck before breakfast, pale pink early morning sun glinting off the blue glacier that stretches to the horizon, a dusting of snow on the black mountains. Fresh cold clear air to breathe. The quietness is palpable. I love it first thing when there are few people about and I can have the deck pretty much to myself.Breakfast over we take to the zodiacs and land on an island close to Glacier Blomstrandbreen. 10 years ago, this glacier was still connected to Blomstrandhalvøya, and 7 years ago the small island on which we now stand was still covered by glacier. Maps still show it as being part of the peninsula and glacier. I know that no continents are static –seismic/tectonic activity see to that, but such movements mostly take eons. Yet the far north seems to shift around all the time, visibly, every time the ice grows and melts – you can see it moving.We are at the beginning of the Polar Night season; officially it’s winter, so there should be snow. Yet while there’s been a few snowfalls – the most so far being on the day we left Longyearbyen – but since then its mostly been rain, washing snow from all but the tops of the mountains, creating fog and mist that flows over the glaciers and across the mountains. For me this is what I can draw – it’s atmospheric and dramatic – but it really shouldn’t be like this in the high Arctic at this time of year. Walking up the rock-strewn ground I sit close to the glacier and unpack my drawing materials, time to work. Sun breaks through cloud, gleaming pale on distant peaks. Blueness of glacial ice is pretty difficult to capture; I look at dark brown/black rocks flecked with snow, pale green sea, red/brown stones, white and blue ice lying heaped on the shore, pale marble-like lines tracing through smoothed flat black rocks. Then back up at the mountains surrounding me, their hard jagged peaks soften by the mist. There’s too much to take in, how can I put all of that on one small white piece of paper? I start drawing, screwing my eyes up and trying to fix the images as my hand moves across the page, I am drawing the mountains surrounding the glacier with black ink, bits of charcoal, and water-colour mixed with the sea, lines rubbed and smudged and drawn again; then I see something else, draw again, am always dissatisfied.Then I notice there’s wind; not much but maybe a chance to launch my kite. Unpacking it I carefully spread out and straighten the four lines across the rock and ice, which takes some time, then I attach the camera and turn it on. I manage to get the kite up into the air for a few seconds and then it’s down again. Again I sort out the lines and lay them ready. Arms out-stretched I stand waiting; Sarah offers to help; a nod from me and she throws the kite up and I pull hard and walk backwards. The kite rises, teeters and moves through the air for what seems like a moment - maybe two or three -  lines taut then slack then it falls. I try again but it’s not to be, there's just not enough wind to lift both kite and camera. Probably the kite alone might fly but then I need film of the event - of the ground viewed from high above me, of lines drawn across he landscape.Disheartened, defeated, I give up and return to the constancy of my drawing.  A white Arctic fox is running on the beach.  After lunch, anchor up, and we are passing slowly through more uncharted waters, the zodiac is out measuring depth in front of Antigua as it moves cautiously into the bay to finally moor in front of Blomstrandbreen, 79°00,2´N, 012°13.1´E. The sight of these glaciers still takes my breath away; that turquoise colour, the ruggedness of the surface, the sheer vastness of it all. Finally we can go on shore. Always a struggle to remember to grab everything I need, remember to sign out and then load everything into the boat. We cruise in the Zodiacs around icebergs floating serenely in the sea, fantastical shapes, shiny translucence, pale turquoise, rippling surfaces.  Hugh chunks of ice balance on the edge of the glacier wait ready to join the others in the sea. the sea looks green-blue, a thin film of ice forming on its surface.On shore I wander across to the edge of the glacier; it folds onto the ground like vast rolls of material.  Pale smooth marble-like surface streaked with sediments.Then I’m back to trying to draw that same piece of mountain, jagged edges rising into sky softened now by mist hovering and drifting, its dark face speckled with snow. Below a flat black rock face runs down on the beach towards me.  I still just can’t get the surface of my drawing to work. It’s tricky squatting on frozen ground; I stand and bang freezing dirty hands together. Tama Baldwin appears in front of me and starts to photograph me as I'm drawing (looking at the images now I notice that I seem to have forgotten to remove my life jacket - but then you can never be too careful).(To see more of Tama's Arctic photos: https://www.tamabaldwin.com/)Photo courtesy of Tama BaldwinPhoto courtesy of Tama BaldwinPhoto courtesy of Tama BaldwinShe goes on her way and I continue. I'm quite pleased with one of the drawings - manage not to overwork it. The sky is changing, dark streaks merge with apricot and pale blues. A wind – distraction – maybe… is it enough? I stop trying to draw, grab my kite in its bag and make my way up to a higher and flatter area. Check the direction of the wind and once again slowly and carefully unroll the kite, weighting the bottom edge with small stones prised from frozen ground, then walking backwards lay out the strings checking for twists. This all takes some time. Returning to the kite I turn on the camera, then back to grasp the line handles, stand and wait, turning my face to try to feel the wind. I tug sharply, the kite rises then falls. The wind is inconstant; still not strong enough to hold kite and camera up in the air. I give up, wind up the strings, and return to the shore feeling totally frustrated. Staring back up at that mountain again I attempt two more paintings. Across the bay, across the sea, the light becomes translucent - blues, greys, apricot, pinks – snow, mountains, mist flowing. Ice seems to be forming on the water as I watch. I simply can’t put all this down on paper. 

Saturday 8/10/2016. Kongsijorden Bay 79°00'0.00" N 11°39'59.99" 3°C, 10m/sec; Sunrise 09:29 – Sunset 17:58    The sun is rising slowly above a blue/grey sea; daylight is noticeably later now than when we set off. Pink light reflects off the mountains, sedimentary layers lie horizontal, then swoop diagonally and fold together, forced upwards by some huge seismic activity which took place probably more than 410-440 million years ago      The wind drops to gusts of 5 knots, ‘a moderate sea’; a big swell as we head out to sea. Sails raised the ship stabilizes, much to the relief of seasick passengers, and finally we leave Ymerbukta. Sailing out of Isfjorden we head north, bright morning sun shining on the Alkhornet Mountain. The colours are dazzling; such a contrast to yesterday.  In celebration lunch is taken on deck, and the Captain gives an impromptu lecture on navigation with setsquare, compass and GPS. (Pic) We learn that being so far north plotting positions needs to take into account compass variations due to boat drift and the North Pole’s magnetic pull.  Apparently if you are near either the north or the south pole, a compass becomes useless. It points towards the magnetic pole, which is not the true geographic pole. Those two poles could be quite far apart and in different directions. Magnetic North Pole is not the same as "true north;" it is several hundreds miles further south of geographic North Pole. Earth's iron core and movement within its outer part generates a Magnetic field, and the magnetic North and South Poles are where the field is vertical.  A true-color image taken on May 5, 2000, by an instrument aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft, over the North Pole, with sea ice shown in white and open water in black. Credit: Image by Allen Lunsford, NASA GSFC Direct Readout Laboratory; Data courtesy Tromso receiving station, Svalbard, NorwayThe difference between magnetic and geographic pole is called declination. Since its discovery in 1831, the magnetic North Pole has been around Canada’s Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the geographic North Pole. But the magnetic field drifts, causing the angle of declination to change over time. Currently, magnetic North Pole moves about 25 miles each year in a northwest direction - at a faster rate than it has moved since tracking began in the 1830s. Eventually, magnetic North and South Poles will move to the point that they “flip” and compasses will then point south.The last “flip” occurred 730,000 years ago.  (info from http://www.livescience.com/41955-north-pole.html)How to tell how fast we're going.. The Knotmaster! I walk the deck staring out at the passing mountains and sea and draw rapidly. graphite (in mini sketchbook)graphite, charcoal and pastel (mini-sketchbook)watercolour and pastel with seawaterNorthern fulmars are following us; a flock of what I think are guillemots fly past skimming low over the waves. The ship’s siren sounds - a call to assemble on deck for drill. A scrabble to don life jackets and warm clothing; we line up on port and starboard sides according to cabin numbers. The crew struggle into bright orange flotation suits that don’t look at all comfortable, but then I guess that would be the least of their worries if it came to it.  (pics) The captain strides amongst us checking, adjusting jackets DrillToday is spent travelling, the sea growing increasingly calm. We pass mountain ranges covered in snow on one side of the boat, bare red/brown sandstone rock face on the other. I take my paper and paint and charcoal to the back deck where it's less windy (and populated) and sit and draw for a while. Ink and charcoal mixed with seawaterink, watercolour and seawaterThen lying on a bench I fall asleep lulled by the ships movements, to be woken by the shout that two Pilot whales have been spotted. Our surroundings grow increasingly dramatic. Sun setting, orange tinged horizon in a darkening sky with feather clouds, we arrive in a bay hemmed in by snow-covered mountains. Anchor dropped, we are at Blomstrandhamna, 78°59,6´N, 012°04.6´E, a bay in Haakon VII Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard, the northern side of Kongsfjorden, and north of Blomstrandhalvøyamoored Before us is the shadowy glacier Blomstrandbreen under a now clear star-filled sky. Finally, silence, interrupted by occasional sounds of glacial carving. No wind, but some promised for tomorrow – maybe a kite flying day? Small invitations have been slipped under our cabin doors. Tonight is fancy-dress party night. We are all invited to attend. I dress as the glacier queen and float into the saloon. Fancy dress party night - Pic by Tama BaldwinDancing manically, music floats (or perhaps blasts) out into the darkness of the polar night. It seems quite insane, frivolous even, given the overwhelming beauty of our surroundings, but even in the Arctic one has to party! The Captain appears, dressed in a woman’s bra and grass skirt. Hmm… I sidle off to bed.

--> Friday 7/10/2016 2°C, Ymerbukta. 20m/s; Sunrise 09:21 – Sunset 18:06. Sea state – moderate; wind speed 7-8, gusting wind, speeds of up to 20 knots predicted. Grey-green sea, small waves break the surface.A hint of spindrift. Mist hovering, mountain shapes disappearing re-appearing. We are moving yet going nowhere. Last night the boat was moved closer to the entrance of the fjord, but despite two anchors we've been pulled half way back to where we originally moored on the northern side of the fjord. In the morning we reach a speed of 0.5 knots despite two anchors and 270m of chain out.The wind howls and gusts; a lull before it starts again. This isn’t a full blown-storm, force 7 is not so much - a moderate gale - but for this sailboat it is and we can't venture out into open sea, can’t leave the safety of the fjord, we are ´værfast´ so we stay put. We anchor. Some of the hardier amongst us jump into the sea from the boat with ropes tied around their waists. Not for me, therein lies madness!A small break in an otherwise grey overcast featureless sky. I make out dark shapes of mountains, no detail. It clears a little; snow on peaks, a few tiny buildings - trapper huts - on the shoreline. Waves racing towards land, white foam breaking, swirling, twisting. Colours change. Close to land there’s a strip of brown sea, on the far side of the boat the sea is a pale blue. The glacier reappears in front of us. Later, an apricot glow in the sky over the glacier, the sea looks much greener. On deck I make four paintings, well they make themselves as paint is blown across the paper by wind, washed by rain. ink, charcoal and pastel washed with rainpastel and charcoal and rain waterink, pastel and raincharcoal and pastel with rain waterEarly evening the sea becomes brown; a heavy sky, cloud and mist moving rapidly over the mountains. Every so often a loud gust of wind sweeps across the sea sending large waves racing shore-wards. The air is full of sound – anything that’s loose is moving, banging, rattling. Click on link below to see short film I've posted on Vimeo:https://vimeo.com/201751970?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220In fading light I am drawing composites records of our movements. Very small drawings in a cut-down sketchbook.  I start to worry I might run out of paper.Early evening we travel back to the southern shore, and anchor. A few hours later it’s clear that a single anchor is not holding us, a 2nd anchor goes down; we are still stuck in the fjord Maybe we will escape tomorrow. The northern lights put in a brief appearance.

--> Wednesday 5/10/2016 Tunabreen 4°C, 2m/s Sunrise 09:05 – Sunset 18:23The Antigua remains anchored in front of the glacier. The day is overcast and raining which makes for dramatic cloud, drifting mist hanging in the mountains, the sea brown against a mass of luminous chunks of blue and white ice floating on its surface. The Belugas reappear, five white backs breaking the surface in unison. Last night I was sure we were moving since the boat was swaying so much. All that thudding and scrapping and shifting can now be attributed to glacial calving creating swell that rocked the boat. Most people go on the shore, a few remain inside writing or working on their computers. I remain on deck and try to paint – not very successfully, but later I lean over the side of the boat and hoist up seawater in a bucket and add it to pastels and charcoal, and the drawings start to work. Tunabreen - glacier from the Antigua charcoal and graphite on paperusing charcoal and sea waterusing ink, pastels and sea waterApart from the crew working or loitering on deck for a quick smoke I’m pretty much on my own. It’s peaceful; every so often there is a glacial calving, and we all stop and look towards the sound. I can never get to photograph one of these happening - you just never know when and where...  but the sound is always startling and disturbing.    According to Wikipedia glacier carving is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption and caused by the glacier expanding, which causes the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier. The ice that breaks away can be classified as an iceberg, but may also be a growler, bergy bit, or a crevasse wall breakaway. I guess this depends on where it happens.  Everyone piles back onto the boat – lunchtime. Later Ellis joins me on deck and we work side by side on the only table on deck, and we both marvel at the landscape and feel overwhelmed and wonder what on earth to do with it all. Ellis O'Connor and Janette Kerr - drawing on deck (pic by Spike)charcoal and chalk and a bit of seawaterwatercolour, chalks and seawaterwatercolour, chalks and seawaterWind increasing, the boat swings and shifting, the view changing so my drawings become combinations of different vistas. I draw fast - even more so now we are moving to another location. Early afternoon - anchor up, there are strong southerly winds. Three hours later we arrive at Gipsvika, 78°26,2´N, 016°25,9´E. The snow has gone, the mountains dark, softened by hanging mist.On shore at Gipshukodden, our rifle-toting lookouts form their usual triangle around us marking the area we are allowed to inhabit. As we arrived in front of the glacier three reindeer grazing on the hill make a quick exit. On the beach I walk to the highest place I’m allowed to go, sit and make drawings. Cold fingers.Around me others are occupied in their own tasks; a few draw, the poet and writers slowly pacing and pausing; sound artists donning headphones listen, photographers peer through cameras, tripods spread on ice and even in the sea, others just sit and look. We gather on the shore in the gloom, awaiting the arrival of the zodiacs to transport us back to the Antigua. Photos It definitely feels colder – but probably because I’ve been sitting for so long on the ground drawing. A few hardy folk stay to skinny-dip; I’m tempted but I’m not that mad! They don’t stay in very long. It’s been a busy day, anchor up, we sail out of Isfjorden (which apparently is the largest fjord system in Svalbard), and travel north through the night. Night view - just before we raise anchorOut on deck I can see the far shore and lights of Longyearbyen again. Strange to see them; I feel such a long way from civilization, yet it’s only been two days. I love being out there in the dark. A sky full of stars; the northern lights are out again (not as strong as the previous time).

--> Finally I am in the air and taking leave of Longyearbyen. A lot of us are leaving on the same flight so there's been a lot of hugging and kissing and some tears. I don't really do the big goodbye stuff. So onto the plane... Passing through mist and cloud and up, I see the sun for the first time. It has been so low on the horizon for the past couple of weeks that only a glow from below the horizon reminds us of its presence. Now here it is, shining gold in a blue sky above a thick bank of pink-blue-white clouds that stretch to the horizon. Small whisps sail by. I can see cloud roads and canyons and rivers snaking through their mass. The Longyearbyen I leave behind is a grey rain-filled landscape. It feels even more like a frontier town. Sad patches of dirty snow lie abandoned; the roads wet, no longer shining with slippery ice that had me skittering to the sides, arms flailing. Snow is fast disappearing from the mountains. I look up at the one I climbed yesterday; now stark, dark rock, not the snow-covered peak I encountered. Is this normal? I am filming out of the window of the plane, a Boeing 737-800. It’s my last -ditch attempt at getting aerial footage, and I have no idea what will emerge.  If I get anything you’ll be the first to know. My kite has been carried up mountains and down, ridden in Zodiacs, sat on shores in front of glaciers. Occasionally it’s been unpacked and laid out across stone strewn ground ready for flights that haven’t happened, but mostly it been left rolled up in its bag. I have spent time walking around holding my arms out as though embracing the landscape, feeling for winds that weren’t there to be felt. When there was wind there were Walrus, or rain, or not enough wind, or too much wind, or wind that came in gusts and then disappeared, leaving me standing poised with strings held out, waiting and waiting, until they stuck to the frozen permafrost ground and snagged on rocks. Yes it’s been frustrating. Back to the plane…… Below me are brown mountains, peaks poking out of the clouds stretching out beneath me. I can see down to the ground where shining lakes sit. The in-flight magazine in the pocket of the seat in front of me tells me that this month’s questions are can spoon carving be good for your health, and should babies sleep in cardboard boxes? The answer is that apparently you can whittle your way to inner peace, and that yes, the Finnish baby box come with everything you need for the first years of life, and has been used successfully in Finland since 1938. I also learn that the plane I’m in is 39.8m long, 12.5m high, has a wingspan of 35.8m, two engines CFM 56-7B26 which give a thrust of 26,400lbs per engine with a cruise speed of 858kph. It tells me that the plane I’m in is one of the most environmentally friendly and greenest planes in the world; I feel smug. On following pages I am introduced to ‘smart tools’ for the ‘smart man’ in the way of personal grooming…. I wonder if I should takes some notes and pass them on. But then I find Gidsken Jakobsen – Norway’s aviation pioneer, who, from the look of her, would have no truck with sharp-looking men with or without tidy moustaches and big beard kits (do these actually give you big beards I wonder?). Racing a Chevrolet, and then taking up flying, Gidsken Jakobsen became the first person to fly her Finnish Säa ski II sea plane, Måsen, from Narvik in northern Norway to Oslo – a treacherous 35 day journey in the winter of 1929. Taking off on another epic journey from Balestrand in June 1934, her engine fell out of her plane midflight, 900m above Sognefjord. Somehow she managed to land in the bay and survive.  What a woman!  Our pilot comes over the radio – apparently it’s 4 degrees in Oslo and we will be landing in 20 minutes. Outside we are back to masses of white cloud lying below us. The plane banks and starts its descent; white-out, and then the landscape flashes towards us and with a jolt we are back on terra-firma. It’s dark when I finally leave Oslo four hours later; time spent hanging about in an airport is not my idea of fun. The plane is crowded and I’m sure I’m not in the right seat; I don’t do isle seats, but don’t want to argue with the person occupying the seat – my seat - beside me…  I crane my neck to look out the window as the plane taxis. I glimpse a sign saying ‘technical services’ and red green blue lights flashing past. The plane pauses, lurches forward with a roar and up into the air. Lights recede and we’re in dark sky. I have left the Arctic far behind… but not in my head…  it will be resurrected in work I’ll be making in the studio over the coming year.

In February 2014, the Walking Library visited the Isle of Eigg. A highlight of our trip was dropping in to Eigg Primary School, accompanied by a Walking Library sack of books. Every book carried was suggested by a member of the Walking Artists Network. The question the Walking Library asked them was: “What book about walking would […]