Thursday 11 September 2008
Back from Svea ... and first Polar Bear sighting !!!
I went to Svea for the past couple of days on fieldwork - as part of the Arctic Technology course I am doing out here (around 50km down south).
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.
![](http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn212/yanninthearctic/plane.jpg)
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.
![](http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn212/yanninthearctic/burning.jpg)
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.
Yep, those two blobs at the end of the beach are polar bears
![](http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn212/yanninthearctic/bear.jpg)
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
![](http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn212/yanninthearctic/sveasnow.jpg)
Flying back home
![](http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn212/yanninthearctic/flying.jpg)
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