Pole Drama

The Polar Bear Is To Norway What The Tiger Is To India. Jaya Peter Goes Scouting For This Majestic Beast In Frosty Svalbard, And Ends Up As Witness To Much More.

- Jaya Peter

When I tried to explain to my mother where I was going, I pointed to the pivot on the globe. You know, the one on top, that holds the metal to the sphere. My destination was 79° North, the Svalbard archipelago of Norway: home to the ‘northernmost’ of, well, everything: churches, hotels, supermarkets, and even a bust of Lenin.

Like the moon, the North Pole was a place many vied to reach first. Several nations, hundreds of explorers, and many a foolhardy expedition later, no one can really tell who got there first. Was it Robert Peary, or Frederick Albert Cook, or Matthew Alexander Henson? The specifics didn’t matter, because it was my first time to the North Pole. That is not a sentence you get to say very often.

It was my first experience on a boat for 13 days, in sub-zero temperatures and under the 24-hour sun. These are ‘firsts’ that can mess up the brain, despite prior preparation. The days leading up to my journey were spent studying every aspect of this frigid island group. In order, these are some facts I came across: it is prohibited to die in Svalbard, since the permafrost preserves everything, including your germs. The local graveyard stopped burials over 70 years ago. Another ban is on cats, who threaten the population of Arctic birds there. Svalbard also has more polar bears than people (3,000 against 2,500). This seems quite terrifying if you (dare to) visit in winter, and decide to take a stroll in the darkness, when the sun never rises.