"Can't live and can't die" city

(City of Longueuil)

There are 5,000 polar bears in the whole of Svalbard, but only 1,800 people, and they are concentrated in the city of Longyear, the capital of Svalbard. A large model of a polar bear is set up in the middle of the baggage conveyor belt at the airport, and when you pick up your luggage you feel a little intimacy and a little awe at the snowy white behemoth.

The so-called capital, which is just a few rows of simple wooden houses, already includes a hotel, post office, shops and other amenities. The day we arrived was rainy, but the houses painted in different bright colors brightened up the immediate street scene, supposedly to make it easier for people to identify their homes in the snow and wind. Due to the harsh natural conditions and the lack of basic medical facilities to deliver newborns or deal with major illnesses, this is a city where "you can't live and you can't die".

(signposts in the city of Longyear)

The masses of white Arctic cotton blooming along the roadside, fluttering in the wind with slender white whiskers, a structure to insulate the seeds in between, the white clusters of cotton, with rows of colorful triangular wooden houses as a backdrop, set a fairy-tale accent to the trip to begin with.

The sea spirit was waiting at the dock in Longyear, a small cruise ship with a capacity of one hundred people, a very luxurious and powerful, albeit small, ship. I prefer to travel on small ships on polar trips, which means more flexibility of movement, greater efficiency, and ease and speed in activities such as landings. And the smaller ships can travel well through narrow fjords and bays. The Sea Spirit travels between the North and South Poles like a migratory bird with the seasons, and now it's summer in the Arctic as she takes us on a trip around Svalbard.

(Sea Essence)

The captain and some of the crew were from Russia, so the trip took great care to emphasize the history of Russian Arctic exploration. As early as the 18th century, Russian Pomorians were hunting seals in Svalbard as Arctic pioneers, a hardy people who have historically endured the harsh Arctic conditions, and there is a record of a Pomorian man named Ivan who spent 32 winters here.

Dmitry, a member of the expedition from remote Kamchatka, put on a special 1930s expedition uniform from Moscow to explain the history of the expedition to us, which was a fun cosplay, and with his fine tweed uniform and leather boots he looked like a train driver rather than an expedition member. The rescue of the wrecked Italian airship expedition in 1928 by a Russian icebreaker was an important event in the history of Arctic exploration and was made into a movie called "The Red Tent", and it was fitting that we gathered after dinner to watch this old movie from 1969.

The vibrancy of the Arctic summer

(watching seabirds on the opposite cliff)

The Arctic is perceived as monotonous, in the open tundra, covered with bare rocks, muddy ground and desolate in the extreme. The first landing, however, shattered this fixed view of mine. The raft docked on the shore of Ossian Sars Flellet Island, and the broken ice floes at the water's edge surrounded our tiny boat, creating a world of icy illusion. Hiking along the hillside, we passed clusters of small flowers at our feet from time to time, the most seen were pink fairy woods of the rose family and stemless flycatchers of the pale yellow stonecrop family. They often grow in quantity, bunching up in clusters and hugging each other through the harsh Arctic climate. So it looks like a round clump every time.

Ma Zimao from Sichuan was our interpreter for the trip. He had just finished his research on the relationship between climate stability and forest dynamics half a month ago and had obtained his PhD at Aarhus University in Denmark. The Arctic poppy, the same species found in the Changbai Mountains of China, has a black flower core that absorbs heat while attracting pollinating insects to carry the pollen away, similar to the all-margined Artemisia annua of the Chinese highlands; the small yellow flowers are of the cruciferous family, and their four-petal structure makes them look like rape. making it look very much like a rape flower. All of these plants grow so low that a pang of pity comes over them each time they are possessed to observe them. Don't look at these plants as tiny, but they are very vigorous, and their seeds are carried like fine dust by the wind to the various islands of Svalbard.

The Arctic receives less precipitation than Beijing, less than 200 mm per year, except that the permafrost melts partly in summer, so the ground has many wet places like bogs, but the air is very dry. There are about 900 species of plants in the Arctic, but it's not the bright little flowers that sing the lead, it's the mosses and lichens. It was the lichens that first weathered the rocks to form the soil, and the mosses were the first to accumulate the rich organic matter that gave rise to the ecosystem in the moist places. While hiking, the thick moss was as soft as a carpet, and although it was comfortable to step on, we were always careful to stay out of the way, not wanting to damage the fragile ecology.

From time to time the ground is encountered with tufts of white whiskers, which when first seen are thought to be fur shed by polar bears, but are in fact a type of lichen. There are several forms of lichen, some white like this, and another type of green whisker-like lichen, which is food for reindeer. When hiking at high altitudes in Tibetan areas of China, I saw snow tea growing at altitudes above 4,000 meters, and it is the same kind.

There is an abandoned German weather station on the island of SIGNEHAMNA. Rusty round gasoline drum lids, parts of weather devices and other scrap metal were scattered all over the place, becoming permanent installation art left behind. Just on the way back we found another white mullet-shaped lichen, beautifully formed, like a creature from the bottom of the sea.

Lichens are a symbiosis of fungi and algae that will grow for a long time because they are not nourished by water, and the rocks we passed often had small patches of lichen growing on them, and just this little orange streak of interesting patterns could have been growing in the Arctic for hundreds of years.

King of the Arctic

(Arctic ice)

The polar bears were the most anticipated of the trip for everyone. They mostly live on ice floes, which are becoming scarcer with global warming, and this year was the only year in recorded history that Svalbard had no ice floes, so we sailed north to look for signs of polar bears. It wasn't until 81 degrees north that large ice floes began to appear on shore, however fog was falling and visibility was poor. The lookout at the top of the boat spotted the polar bear on the ice first, and we then went to the fifth deck of the ship's station to observe it. An adult male polar bear, twisting and turning on the ice, soon disappeared very shyly into the fog. Polar bears are very solitary creatures, especially the males, who leave them alone after mating with females, so if you see a polar bear leading cubs alone it is usually a female. That stubbornly proud back in the fog is even more lonely in the desolate Arctic ice fields.

Karl XII Island was the second place we spotted polar bears, one sleeping on its back on the hillside for a long time, probably storing up energy. Not far away was a mother and daughter, the cub looking up at us curiously, the mother still calmly motionless. Polar bears have only two things in life, mating and hunting, and above them is a rocky outcrop where thick-billed sea crows gather in large numbers and polar bears feed on seabird eggs when they are extremely hungry.

Any island where polar bears were present, we were not scheduled to land for safety reasons, and even when hiking on land where no bears were found, the expedition leader and crew had to walk with guns at the front and back of the group. The planned landing on Barentsoya Island, Kapp Waldburg, was cancelled when the expedition team went on an early expedition and spotted polar bears on shore, and was replaced by a raft ride to shore to observe them. As the boat approached the shore, a polar bear with light yellow fur could be clearly seen moving up the hillside, the colour almost blending in with the surrounding mud. A large number of three-toed gulls gathered on the shore, perhaps because of the many microorganisms that have gathered and become food for the birds, and from time to time the flock flew up and swept past the polar bear. A gull and a three-toed gull are chasing and fighting, perhaps the gull is trying to grab the food the gull has just picked up in its mouth. The polar bear, at the top of the Arctic food chain, is unconcerned by the fight going on around him, moving slowly with his head down and no food to eat on the nearby slopes, moving very slowly to avoid using up more energy.

The main food of polar bears is seals, which can eat more than twenty seals a year, but there is nothing to eat at this time of year.

In the afternoon of the same day, we counted eight polar bears on the same sunny slope of the Freeman Channel, all of them looking very thin. Jonathan, the expedition leader, joked that we had seen all the polar bears Svalbard should have seen. radiation intensity measurements. He expressed concern about seeing so many polar bears at the same time: is it because of a lack of food that animals so fond of solitude are now appearing in groups? Is it one of the phenomena caused by a warming climate?

The most nerdy and lazy walrus

(walrus)

On a cruise to the Seven Islands, off the west coast of Spitsbergen, we spotted a herd of walruses on the shore. They have long tusks, which are used for attacking each other and for climbing from the water onto the ice, and it was hilarious to think of walruses sticking their tusks out of the water to hang on to the ice and move their fat, bulky bodies up. The cruiser turned off the engine from a few hundred meters away and allowed them to gradually acclimatize to us before slowly approaching a few dozen meters away. The ones in sight were the not-so-big male walruses, the larger males had gone to the east coast to mate, leaving the young and those not competing for a mate. They always like to stick together in a sticky huddle, presumably they consider touching each other with their skin a very important act.

Approaching a herd of walruses gradually from land is a different experience. On the island of Kapp Waldburg-Ardneset, there was a herd of walruses sunbathing at the water's edge, and we approached them step by step from 500 to a few dozen meters away from the shore, staying for 5 to 10 minutes each time we approached, no one daring to speak loudly. Only once did a little commotion arise in the herd, and they seemed a little alert, but soon lay back down and continued to sunbathe lazily. At this point a Norwegian Maritime Authority ship passed by in the water. The Norwegian government has jurisdiction over this part of Svalbard and ships are often on patrol to monitor for animal hazards or other violations. These seals remain indifferent even when "someone is coming from above", and instead wag their wide tails proudly.

Walruses this cute and cuddly had been hunted in crazy numbers. On Kapp Lee-Edegeoya, the southernmost island in Svalbard, we were in the middle of a field full of white bones that was shocking to the eye. The Russians have hunted here since the 18th century, followed by the Norwegians, and there are still hexagonal wooden huts on the island, built as trapping huts in 1907. Some of the white bones on the ground are whale bones, some of which are half covered with moss, untouched by age. A circular mound surrounded by walrus heads is the famous "Walrus Cemetery", a memorial to the hunted walruses and a silent illustration of this cruel profession.

Whales, on the other hand, are spotted by the jets of water they spout out of the water. Three fin whales spout in unison, and at intervals of a few dozen seconds or a minute or two, they will once again show their sexy ridges at the surface and bring up a spray of water. But exactly which direction they emerge again is hard to catch, and I always wait in the wrong place. I've always had similar encounters in life, where I've always missed the chance to catch anything that needed to be caught, reacting half-heartedly, looking in the wrong direction, and most of the time having to work hard to make up for it. These spirits of the sea no longer give you a chance, leaving an empty sea to gawk at.

Lifford Fjord

(kayaking across the glacier)

The Monaco glacier in the Liefdeforden is named after Prince Alibert I of Monaco, a man who had a special interest in the polar regions and arranged an expedition to the Spitsbergen Islands in 1906. The blue glacier in front of us had been formed over millions of years, and from time to time we heard the booming sound of the glacier melting and collapsing, and when we looked at it, the broken ice fell to the water with a huge spray of water, and at the same time startled a flock of millions of three-fingered gulls and Arctic gulls, which spread out in front of the glacier in a dense and spectacular manner. At this point we were kayaking a short distance out of the water and our instructor Fredrik would not allow us to get any closer to the glacier than he did in case the collapsing glacier posed a danger. Fredrik is a biologist from Sweden who has a master's degree in parasitism from studying related organisms in Svalbard and Greenland, and is a cautious kayaking instructor.

I was able to enjoy the peace and quiet of the glacier by paddling my kayak through the calm Lifford Fjord, without the sound of a normal motor boat, just the sound of the paddle lifting the water, and the sound of the bow plucking away the ice floe. Not far away a seal, snoozing on the ice floe, came to life at the sight of us, slid off the ice into the water, swam towards us with its round head, and inspected several kayaks one by one, without fear or panic, only curiosity and friendliness. Being in nature in a non-motorized human way makes it easier to feel part of it, as if you too can take a roll in the water at any time, like the thick-billed sea duck next to you. As we paddled closer to a few sea crows, they flew off like fighter jets against the water.

As we sailed through the Hinlopen Strait, seabirds began to gather on the water outside the portholes, swirling along with the waves as if glued to them and soaring in the sky, and we arrived at Alekefjellet, the largest seabird habitat in Spitsbergen. The cliff, which can be seen from the deck a short distance away, is a 100-metre-high basaltic cliff rising from the sea, with thick-billed jays gathering in dense clusters on the cascading sections, with a total of more than 60,000 pairs of seabirds said to be present. The cliff walls are covered with moss and grass, and from time to time a huge stream rushes down from the top into the sea, making living here seem like the legendary victory of Mount Huaguo.

(sea crows densely packed on the cliffs)

The expedition decided to organize a punch boat cruise, which was so windy and rough that only a handful of people participated. The tiny boats were pushed to the tips of the waves and sank hard to the bottom, and the boats in front of them were often seen from the back, with only the people but not the boats, seemingly submerged in the waves. A fat sea jay darted overhead like a bullet, sometimes unfortunately struck by guano. Close up to the rock wall, you can see that every crevice is stuffed with black-winged jays, and in some places partially matched with the smooth stone surface looks almost like a musical score, full of melody. the gathering of 60,000 pairs of seabirds is not only a spectacular sight, but also an unusually noisy sound, with various chirping highs and lows, and a huge wave of sound mixed with a strong smell, giving a strong feeling.

At 22:00 on the evening of 26 July, as our ship was passing the Brasvellbreen glacier, the sun, which had just left the horizon, struck the glacier ahead at a very low angle and at a very low and mild colour temperature, making the wall of ice look like a buttercream of a cross-section. In this neat section, huge round holes also appear from time to time, from which glacial meltwater spills out in waterfalls into the sea. The Borasvi Glacier, located in the southern part of Northeast Land, is part of the largest ice cap in the Spitsbergen archipelago and extends 20 kilometres out to sea, 30 kilometres wide in front, and our boat cruised along the front for a good half hour. At this time the sky was the same blue color as the water, and in the midnight sun the white glacier formed a dazzling line of white on the sea level ahead, connecting heaven and earth.

The sea ice area across Svalbard is very clearly dwindling, and the ice floes on which polar bears depend are melting and gradually being driven onto land. What can scientists do in the face of global warming? When the Arctic sea ice disappears, navigation will become easier and there will be no need to go around the Arctic Ocean, making it easier to extract oil and gas from the Arctic. When oil-starved countries extract more oil, more carbon dioxide will be emitted and the warming process will be accelerated even more. If there is anything scientists can do, it should be to look at how to use more new energy sources instead of oil. Denmark is doing a great job with wind energy, and if Europe were managed in a unified way, it would be perfectly capable of using wind, solar, and nuclear energy to meet all of its energy needs. It is a question of how mankind weighs the long term benefits against the immediate benefits.