Arctic Extremes

signaturecruise can truly say I’d never been so physically of Murmansk on our icebreaker, m/v removed from the rest of life on earth as Ortelius. FJL is a fog-laden world, so I was at that moment, strolling along the far adrift from anything that could be Ipebble-strewn shoreline of Cape Triest considered civilised that it avoided on Champ Island in the Russian High detection by the world’s explorers until Arctic lost in my thoughts, all the while 1873, in fact, almost the entire Age of Sail. moving slowly away from the expedition group I’d been told not to stray from. But Vital stepping stone I’ve always been a wanderer. That’s what Even after its discovery FJL was brought me here. slow to surrender its secrets. Map-makers It was our guide with the shotgun and were confounded by the arrangement cache of soft lead, bear-killing slugs that and multitude of islands, deceived by the snapped me out of it. “Not so close to the occasional sameness of their topography shore, Barry!” he said. “Remember the bear and relative proximities to each other, then 01 lecture!” Oh yeah, the bear lecture. Oops. compounded it all by including additional Polar bears, I’d learned at our islands that otherwise reputable navigators onboard lecture the night before and then had sworn blind they’d seen but couldn’t 01 promptly forgot, are mighty swimmers, possibly have, like mythic Petermann Land with the longest ever recorded that of an and other figments of sailor’s imaginings, adult female, 12 ½ days across 680 km pencilled in when fog banks were of the Beaufort Sea. That very morning mistaken for land-hugging glaciers. a bear was sighted on neighbouring Once found, however, it lost no time Salisbury Island, forced onto dry land in becoming a vital stepping stone for a because the sea ice – its preferred generation of Nordic, Russian and British habitat and the conveyor belt they ride explorers all striving to be the first to in their unending search for food – was reach the geographic North Pole, just 860 thin this year. It would be nothing for a kilometres to my north. In June 1893 the Arctic extremes bear to swim across the narrow channel great Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen separating Salisbury and Champ islands, sailed here in his ship the Fram, designed wade ashore on the beach where I was so it could be lifted up in FJL’s annual day-dreaming and kill me. That was mass of drifting sea ice then carried enough to stop me dead in my to the pole in the cold embrace of the Barry Stone fights off a pod of walruses on his icebreaker expedition in the ice-cold tracks. arctic’s Beaufort Gyre current. Nansen Russian High Arctic. But he remains sensibly wary of the resident polar Champ Island lies at the heart of and his party didn’t make it, but they 01 M/V Ortelius is an ice-breaker built the 191-island archipelago of Franz didn’t die either. They returned as heroes bears in their natural habitat 900 kilometres from the North Pole. for extreme polar cruising Josef Land (FJL), two days sail north to Oslo and their epic struggle still ranks 96 97 signaturecruise as one of the more impressive accounts pod of walruses surrounded our rubber of human perseverance ever handed Zodiacs near Jackson Island, we had to down and one of the enduring folk tales beat our hulls with paddles to keep them that Norwegian parents still tell their from boarding! After a midnight landing children when they put them to bed. on the Eurasian Continent’s northernmost speck of land – Cape Fligely on Rudolph Arctic tale Island – an experience worthy of a story Champ Island lies at 80.66 degrees all of its own, a Zodiac that was trailing us 03 latitude. It was the furthest north I’d ever back to Ortelius became lost in fog for 20 been (well, as of Day 6 that is, Days 7, minutes, unable to locate the ship. Some 8, 9 & 10 were still to come!) Latitudes people have all the luck. are revered numbers here because they Now it goes without saying this isn’t an pinpoint one’s proximity to the geographic easy place to visit – its sheer remoteness North Pole which is a vital ingredient in any and layers of Russian bureaucracy see arctic tale, tall or true. I’d been up there for to that. More people have stood on the several days and, like the arctic gulls that summit of Everest than have trod these follow icebreakers like Ortelius, feeding on bear and walrus-encrusted shorelines. algae on the overturned ice sheets we were But don’t let all that deter you, rather, ploughing through, I’d been habituated. let it be the reason you come here. Geographically FJL appears to belong No one appreciates the uniqueness to Norway and most likely would have if, and magic of FJL better than Norwegians. in the early 1900’s, icebreakers existed Tell one you’re going to or have been there, to take them there. Russia, by contrast, and you’re guaranteed their undivided 02 04 had icebreakers to spare, and so claimed attention. They’ve grown up on its stories. the archipelago for itself. Yet the question Take a young doctor I met, Helene. She of ownership remains moot. There is was so impressed she took me cloudberry nothing here, save for a couple of weather picking in a spongy Norwegian bog, stations and a career-ending military cooked me a yummy meal of King Crabs, outpost we never saw, to suggest it is and made certain I connected with the owned by anyone. It is ambivalent to us. right bus on to Santa’s Workshop in Kick over a rock here and it’s the first time Finnish Lapland (a deflating story that one its position has been altered by something – his elves are obsessed with iPhones! Is it independent of Mother Nature, since, well, possible he isn’t who he says he is?) forever. And that is a grand thought. I mention all of this simply because of Weather dictates everything here, from an analogy Helene used which captures where you’re able to sail, to what you’re the essence of FJL better than any words permitted to do when you get there. this writer could ever conjure. In gratitude Warmer than expected currents saw us for her kindnesses I plumbed the depths in ice-free channels where sea ice was of my backpack for the only things of expected. This allowed us to head along value I had with me – some rocks I’d 06 rarely navigable waterways in search of fossicked on Jackson Island, and gave sea ice and the polar bears that inhabit them to her with an almost apologetic air. it. Polar bears are guaranteed here – and “Ohhh, these are wonderful”, she said, as find them we did. The official count, she turned them over and over again in including cubs, was 21. her hand. “It’s ... ohhh, I don’t know ... it’s like being given rocks from the Pod of walruses surface of the moon”. 02 Polar bears in their natural habitat in the Arctic Ortelius was expedition cruising at its 03 Birdlife is prolific in Franz Josef Land improvisational best. For two days we 04 M/V Ortelius is perfect for expedition cruising sailed without ice charts courtesy of a Getting there: Scoot Airlines to Singapore, www.flyscoot.com then FINNAIR to Helsinki and on to Oslo, 05 Don’t get too close to the walruses 05 crippled internet connection. When a www.finnair.com/au; 50 Degrees North, www.fiftydegreesnorth.com.au 06 Thousands of guillemots nest on the rock faces 98 99.

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