Arctic Studies

The last full day of the expedition was Thursday 21 July. Though many times reminded not to pick and take with me anything I find on land, a tiny stone with a cool image „painted“ by a lichen growing on it made it into my pocket; it was my middle son’s seventh birthday and I wanted to give it to him as a token he was with me in Bellsund.

The landscape stores memories, and some of them can be revived. When we landed on Kapp Lee on 17 July, many encounters unfolded. We could not miss the traces of Pomor walrus hunting; unnumbered bones and skulls with cut off noses were scattered around a large area.

Good-bye, coal harbour! Participative science, here we come! On Wednesday 13 July 2022, after two years when the expedition was postponed due to the pandemic and almost ruined last minute by the strike of Scandinavian Airlines, the blue-and-white expedition vessel Ortelius sailed out of Longyearbyen harbour.

It was the lecture of Virve Ravolainen that caught my attention during the Science Day; an ecologist’s perspective sounded human. „An image-based signal is just an image-based signal until we know what is happening in the field,“ Virve commented on possibilities of remote sensing.

The congress was held in Sámpi, the region traditionally inhabited by the Sami people. Indigenous perspectives were very present in some parts of the program, and rather invisible in others.

Every in-person attendance of a scientific networking event needs evaluation: What is the benefit of me flying to Tromsø when most parts of the program can be attended online? The expression „most parts“ is key to the answer.

The Arctic Centre has a line of research and action on Knowledge Co-Creation, in which I am doing my placement. The work aims to promote co-creation in Arctic Research at a European and International level while encouraging a dialogue on topics like the researcher relationships, roles in transdisciplinarity, youth engagement, self-determinism, and ethical matters regarding research in this specific region.

Around six months before my visit, I did not know that Longyearbyen was a place, and that the place called Svalbard was a destination beyond those interested in the Seed Vault. “I am still trying to figure out how on Earth I got here,”.

During my Master's studies in International Relations, I started to learn about knowledge practices, and at the Arctic Centre I got involved in knowledge co-creation, the relationships between different types of knowledge, and the ways to be more inclusive.

Sewing with sealskin “Why is there fur on this chair?” The question came at lunchtime, when someone sat down in the Arctic Centre dining room and noticed some fishy-looking hairs stuck to their chair. I averted my eyes and cleared my throat. The hairs were there because I had borrowed the chairs and set them up outside in the bicycle shed for a sewing workshop that morning.