30 July 2022

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. At Ingeborgfjellet, many of us were amazed by the frenetic activity in the little auk colony. We knew we were about to leave Svalbard soon and enjoyed listening to the slope bustling with life, just about 60 kilometers of air distance from Longyearbyen but seemingly so far away from the reality we were slowly returning to.

Yet some of the scientists also used the last day for fieldwork in Bellsund. I felt I needed to hold back a bit, be alone in the crowd, and allow myself to chew on the experience of the past days. When the guides during the second landing announced we were now asked to sit quiet for 10 minutes and let the landscape sink in, I was grateful. It actually took 25 minutes before I was done with reading the lines of the geological eras written in the mountain slopes, and meditating on what it means that from my spot it is hard to avoid the view of two cruise ships in the fjord.

It was obvious that people start looking back at what we have been through. Even the captain during the last recap expressed hope we would „become ambassadors of this pristine environment.“ When talking to several people later during the last and cheerful evening, it became clear we have varied opinions and feelings about the impacts of our activities. For some of the scientists, it was painful to admit that doing fieldwork properly means to renounce on having enough time to experience the landscape, be part of and reflect over it. Science has to rush sometimes in the field, and it is rough and physical, more than it seems from the outside.

But SEES was not over when Ortelius docked again in the coal harbour. The whole afternoon was spent at the University Centre (UNIS) and in Svalbard Museum, at a symposium where helpers, funders, supporters and participants shared ideas and hopes nourished by the expedition. Ramsey Nasr, a creative mind not hesitating to pose provocative questions, delivered a speech that impressed: „I have the right to be here because I am the exception.“ „The true danger lies in the normality of a polar journey.“ „Awareness should be the condition, not the result.“ In Nasr’s doubts, dilemmas and paradoxes captured sometimes in poetic, sometimes in unscrupulously straightforward words, we could all meet our own. It was food for thought, and the digestion is not over yet. There is a lot of data to be analysed, but also a lot of memories to be remembered through the stories we tell others about what we have experienced. Both the data and the stories will be rich, and they will be pointing to different directions, but they will be anchored in the collective endeavour of SEES 2022. What-a-journey.