Start. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Kayaks and campsite in Longyearbyen. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Paddling. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Polly leaving. Foto: Miriam Odlin

On the beach - Reindyrsflya. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Grumantbyen. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Miriam in a happy jump in Isfjorden. Foto: Ra Cleave

Miriam i Magdalenfjord - passing a glacier. Foto: Ra Cleave

Camp. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Ra repacking at Bjørnhamna. Foto: Miriam Odlin

Relaxing view from a rock in Bjørnhamna. Foto: Miriam Odlin

The team was made up of myself, my partner Ra Cleave, and our friend Polly Miller. Ra and I are Kiwis living in Norway and Polly had flown over from New Zealand specifically for the trip. We are all keen white water paddlers who had started sea kayaking for this trip. 

The largest island on the Svalbard archipelago, Spitsbergen lies about 800km north of Norway, between the 76th and 80th parallels. Svalbard is not well known internationally, but holds a special place in the Norwegian psyche and is associated with polar adventures, past and current. This, plus the accessibility from Norway, the climate and the distance, made circumnavigation of Spitsbergen a perfect goal for three keen beans who couldn't tell one end of a sea kayak from the other: a long, challenging trip.

The last dregs of the Gulf Stream flow up the west coast of Spitsbergen, making it uncharacteristically ice-free most of the year. The east coast has a more typical arctic climate and is usually navigable for a brief period in the late summer.  The first circumnavigation by kayak was in 1990 and since then there have been many attempts, but few successful trips.  A lot of people are turned around by ice.  One kayaker had his hull pierced by a walrus tooth.  One group had their kayaks dismembered by a polar bear which smelt food.

On leaving Longyearbyen (the logistic and commercial centre of Svalbard) our boats weighed over 120 kg each with our tents, cookers, eight weeks of food, repair kits, weapons, and spare socks.  Polly had volunteered to organise food for the trip and came from New Zealand with home dehydrated vegetables and other treats. She spent some days in Longyearbyen dividing food up into individual meals: 56 dinners, 56 breakfasts, 160 lunches. To our amazement, the VKV kayaks accommodated all but two drybags which we strapped to our back decks.  It did however take six people to carry each boat down to the water! Many thanks to the helpful fellow visitors at the Longyearbyen campsite. 

We paddled out of Isfjord with tailwinds and sunshine, happy to be finally underway. During the first week our bodies became accustomed to the paddling, we got to know some of the wildlife, and we gelled as a team. The coast was alive with puffins, gulls, geese, eider ducks, skua, guillemot, reindeer, seals, walruses and arctic foxes. 

On day four, Polly was attempting to land in the shelter of a large rock when Ra asked quietly, "Is that a rock or a walrus?" And I very usefully started to squeal, "Polly! Polly! Polly! Polly!" Polly obviously got the point and started to back-paddle at pace. The walrus followed, repeatedly lifting his head to get a better look at Polly and show her his impressive tusks. We had been warned that walruses are often inquisitive and occasionally aggressive (or playful; the result being the same when you weigh 1500 kg) when met with unidentified floating objects. This one appeared to be inquisitive and left us alone after a bit more hurried reversing. 

During the first few days Polly discovered that although she had tackled hundreds of grade IV-V rivers around the globe there was something about long and exposed crossings of cold water that did not become any less frightening with time. She spent quite a few days trying to sort all this out but eventually decided that the scenery and the trip was not worth the perpetual anxiety. If she was going to pull out it was best to do it before we left the more trafficked north-west and started into areas where helicopter evacuation was the most likely option.  Just north of Magdalene fjord, after a fair amount of personal and group consultation, Polly got on the satellite telephone to find out what her options were. Within virtually no time and with little warning a RIB pulled up and whisked her and her kayak away to a tourist boat for a not so small fee. In a mighty leap from roughing it to being the star attraction on a cruise ship, Polly was soon clean and showered and inspecting walruses from the safety of a large steel ship. 

Miriam Odlin : 27. februar 2008, 21:00 : © qajaq.no