yann in the arctic

Overall I really enjoyed it - and although we stayed at one same location for 6 days, the experiments were really interesting ... at least more interesting than looking at plants all day!

To get to Svea we took a small plane that the mining copany over here operate (there is quite a productive mine at Svea). We unfortunately had rubbish weather on the way there but ok weather on the way back.

The teacher guy was hilarious and had his tiny dog with him - it's even been trained to smell oil burried on beaches.

The experiments mainly consisted of looking at what happens when oil spills occur, and predict the effects that a specific oil will have on the environment and how to treat it. Unlike the last fieldtrip where we had to identify boring plants, I actually stayed awake throughout the entire course. I think when I return to Edinburgh I would want to do something more environmental related and wouldn't mind never looking at plants ever again.

So anyways, let's skip to the good bit. I saw my first polar bear while out there ! Actually I saw two: the mother and her cub. They were about 150m away on the same beach as us, but quickly ran away into the morraine. I still managed to get my camera out and take some rubbish photos - I only wish I had stayed still - but we had to evacuate the beach.

Last time I came to Svalbard for 3 entire months and didn't get to see a single bear, even though we were in the middle of nowhere at times. Out of the entire expedition I was one of the only ones not to see one. Therefore I was so please that this time it finally happened, and from a safe distance