Polar season is coming

With winter approaching, the polar spirit has returned to the house.

I do wonder how much longer we will be able to organize our lives around four distinct seasons. One day, likely, summer will overpower the others and grow so intense that we will need to give it another name. For now, let’s enjoy while there is still something reassuring about letting the seasons set the rhythm of the year.

Three polar milestones are marked in our calendar. First comes a two-week navigation around the Svalbard archipelago in October. Then, in early February, I will complete the third and last level of my polar-training certification in the Jura Mountains, the final stage of a theoretical and practical preparation for autonomous polar travel. Finally, February 14 has been set for the team second attempt to set out on Greenland’s Arctic Circle Trail, and hopefully be able to complete our 165 kilometres raid.

The expedition vibe is on again.

Svalbard: at the edge of the polar night

I have realized that few people actually know where Svalbard lies. It belongs to Norway, but sits so far north that it is often pushed to the very edge of the map, hard to notice.

The archipelago stretches from 74° to 81° north, making this the closest Miki and I have ever travelled to either pole. Even our journeys in Antarctica, beyond the Antarctic Circle close to 70° south, did not take us this far. As one degree of latitude represents roughly 111 kilometres, the northern edge of Svalbard lies barely 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole.

Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s main settlement, stands at 78.2° north. Further into the archipelago, our most remote port of call will be Ny-Ålesund, at 78.9° north. Once a coal-mining settlement, it is now one of the world’s northernmost centres for Arctic research. Surrounded by glaciers, jagged peaks and the steel-blue waters of Kongsfjorden, Ny-Ålesund sits at the gateway to the polar wilderness. Because I only publish photographs on this site I have taken myself, a map will have to do for now. I will return to this story and to this blog with my own images after the journey.

A Svalbard more dramatic story: Amundsen’s last flight in a French aircraft

In 1928, Nobile an italian aeronautical engineer took off from Ny-Ålesund aboard the airship Italia. After reaching the North Pole, the airship crashed on the sea ice northeast of Svalbard. Nobile and several companions survived for weeks in a tent dyed red to make it visible from the air, the famous Tenda Rossa, or “Red Tent.”

The international rescue operation became one of the greatest polar dramas of the twentieth century. Nobile was eventually evacuated by a Swedish pilot, while other survivors remained on the ice until rescued by the Soviet icebreaker Krassin. Roald Amundsen disappeared while flying to assist in the search aboard the French seaplane Latham 47. Amundsen’s final radio communication was received through Ny-Ålesund’s telegraph station

We hope to encounter polar bears, icebergs and vast icebound landscapes, although nothing is ever guaranteed in the Arctic. The bears found around Svalbard belong to the wider Barents Sea population, and estimated at roughly 3,000 animals. Only about 250 remain around the archipelago throughout the year; many others travel vast distances with the shifting sea ice. Their presence is real but unpredictable, which is perhaps what makes scanning the shoreline for a distant silhouette so compelling.

We have also chosen to go to Svalbard at this special time of the year as Mid-October marks the threshold of the polar night. The sun still rises, but only for a few hours, tracing a low arc above the horizon before disappearing again. It is a unique phenomenom when dawn and dusk begin to merge, stretching sunset colours across much of the day: pinks and mauves along the horizon. Let’s see what kind of experience it brings us.

Then around October 25 in Ny-Ålesund, the sun will slip below the horizon for the last time and will not rise again until the middle of February. For several weeks, a long blue twilight lingers around midday before gradually giving way to the deeper polar night. As the nights lengthen, auroras may also begin to sweep across the sky. We have never seen them and pressure is high on that trip objective !

Arctic Circle Trail: the second attempt

One benefit of having to postpone the expedition has been the additional time available for physical preparation.

I am now fourteen kilos lighter than during my first training course in February 2025, result of a structured fitness programme with a performance coach in Tokyo ; rebuilt my nutritional habits and trained with far greater consistency. I feel stronger and somewhat more confident, but confidence, in this environment, must always be tested. That test will start in the Jura Mountains with five full days outdoors for the third and final level of my polar training. Happy to meet Olivier again, his training sessions are always so insightful, and hopefully we get to eat that filling morbiflette before the many dehydrated food bags.

The training will end barely ten days before leaving for Kangerlussuaq, it will be the last opportunity to test the entire system: skis, pulk, tent, stove, clothing, sleeping equipment and, most importantly, the routines that hold everything together when cold and fatigue begin to interfere. Thru many readings I came to understand that Greenland does not reward those who merely make an effort. It grants passage only to those who have reached the level required to complete the crossing.

This time, however, we have prepared a Plan B should Greenland once again present conditions beyond what we can safely accept: Lake Inari, in Finnish Lapland. Located well above the Arctic Circle, Inari is Finland’s third-largest lake, covering more than 1,000 square kilometres and scattered with over 3,000 islands. In winter, the water disappears beneath snow and ice, transforming the lake into a vast white archipelago. Low, pine-covered islands break the horizon, while long frozen corridors open between them.

A crossing of Lake Inari would be flatter and more accessible than the Arctic Circle Trail, but it would offer a different kind of polar journey. Greenland’s valleys, climbs and descents would be replaced by open horizons, steady pulk travel and navigation across a landscape in which snow, ice and sky often seem to merge. It would not be a consolation prize, simply another expression of winter travel in the North.

One week before departure, we will study the snow, ice and weather forecasts and make the final decision: Kangerlussuaq or Ivalo.

Either way, from next month the compass will point north.