Living at 78" N: Another week at Svalbard

It's been a little more then a week since I came home from the AG-211 expedition. However fieldwork at UNIS does not end before one have had pizza and beer at Kroa. Countless beers and tequila shots later I was, according to everyone else, almost crawling back home. On Facebook i posted the following:

Alexander Hovland
So drunk... still... who's fuckin' idea was it to send two drunkere idiots (Gauti and Kristian) to watch me?
Liker · · 16. september kl. 02:17 i nærheten av Nybyen

And yeah. Some pictures:

I have no idea. (Photo stolen from Gauti)

Tickle-fight in the hallway (Photo stolen from Gauti)

This was not the only fun we had that weekend. Saturday evening we made a hottub outside our barrack using pallets and a canvas. And since we (us students) don't pay for electricity we tapped hot water directly from the tap for 5 hours. However, after a couple of hours the construction failed. We all feared that this would be the end of the hottub and there were a german film crew tapping us as we tried to push it back together. Despite our fears the hottub held and we had a great evening (and night for some?) outside and the temperature was really nice.

Good times in the hottub (Photo from my camera)

One of the big headlines this week has been the outbreak of rabies around Longyearbyen. During our cruise a woman was bit by a polar fox (Vulpes lagopus) down by the sea. This fox was shortly after killed by a dog and was then tested positive for rabies. Shortly after Sysselmannen disposed of two reindeers who also tested positive for rabies. For now people who have been in contact with reindeers are being vaccinated, but I do believe that if more dead animals turn up, then we'll all be vaccinated sooner or later. More information can be found at Sysselmannen.no and at the norwegian institute of public health.

For now the only consequence for me is that I will probably loose my friend from underneath the barrack as Sysselmannen will kill most of the foxes living within a designated zone around Longyearbyen and Nybyen.

In other news. During the week I've bought my first snowscooter. A powerfull Yamaha RS Venture VT that will be mine for this winter. Can't wait to try it out. But first. paperwork has to be fixed...

My first snowscooter! (Photo: Alexander Hovland)

So. Besides a couple of trips to Sarkofagen I've only been on one longer trip this week. Francesca is working on a moraine in front of Dryadebreen and asked me to assist her on a trip. At around 7 in the morning, me, Francesca and Chloé walked from Nybyen. From the map we decided to go up to Longyearbreen and follow up along the side of the glacier to the valleyopening into Fardalen between Lars Hiertafjellet and Teltberget. The terrain however consist mainly of lose boulders and is ardous to walk in, especially if you're not used to it. Because of this we never got to Fardalen. As we looked down at Fardalen the girls gave up. After a short lunchbreak in the snow we returned walking across Sarkofagen and down along Larsbreen.