SVALBARD. The cold coast – the mythical home of the Snow Queen’s palace in Hans Christian Andersen’s story of “The Snow Queen”. For long this was a land beyond the realm of maps, an imagined fantastical place of such purity that it was thought by some to be an icy Eden; perhaps a place God might banish a favourite angel, who could languish and fume in glaciers where cracks and crevices pulse with an impossibly deep blue light. A tiny looking land on the World Atlas I hastily borrowed, six weeks ago, when I was invited on this extraordinary sea expedition to the high Arctic; an invitation which nothing could make me refuse, not even my fear (or rather loathing) of sea-sickness. Now, five days in, this country is firmly on my map and just now my only world, but a world that is pushing deeper and deeper into my imagination every day.
All of us on this journey are struggling to describe what is presented to us moment by moment from the decks and windows of our new home – the 100 year old light ship – The Nooderlicht. We left Longyearbyen last Friday, since which we have been overwhelmed by the haunting beauty, clarity and sharpness of this land. Like the shard of ice in Kay’s eye in “The Snow Queen,” it will make us see things differently and, hopefully, more clearly. The artists aboard this ninth Cape Farewell expedition are here to learn about climate change; to immerse themselves in conversation about it; to meet and discuss with the scientists aboard; and to witness the story in action. Cape Farewell’s hope and mission is to educate and prompt artists to find ways to communicate the climate change story. The scientists aboard know what their experiments are going to be during the expedition, and some of the artists already know the projects they want to explore. As a theatre and opera director I am aware that my project may grow more slowly. What I hope for is – like the scientists – to bring back material I can work on later.
What I understand already is that this is a unique, deeply inspiring but fragile and threatened place. One week ago I would not have known how a reindeer can, in this treeless land, suddenly bring the complex world of the tundra into a complete sense of focus; what it is to sail at the base of a glacier and hear the explosion and deep plummet of sound as a piece of ice tears off; or the terror and awe of walking up the vertiginous arc of a glacier. Yesterday we saw two blue whales, a mother and calf; and today on the beach, the shocking scale of the footprints of a polar bear, who must have walked on the beach opposite our boat as we slept.
For all the dark story of climate change, this is a “brave new world” which we all feel immensely privileged to be visiting for this brief moment.
