By The Landlord
“The world cannot live without the Arctic; it affects every living thing on Earth and acts as a virtual thermostat, reflecting sunlight and cooling the planet.” – Philippe Cousteau, Jr.
“Alaska is a great, solemn poem, set to music by glaciers and volcanoes, with an accompaniment of forests and aurora borealis.” – John Burroughs
“Alaska is a land of lost summers, a land of frozen dreams, a land where life goes to sleep under blankets of white, and wakes to find a half-year’s day.” – Jack London
“The allure of the wild is strong, almost hypnotic. It compels people to shed their civilised selves and plunge into the raw, unfiltered experience of nature.” – Jon Krankauer, Into the Wild
“Even in Siberia there is happiness.” – Anton Chekhov
“Siberia is so big, it’s almost more an idea than a place.” – Ian Frazier
“We need to save the Arctic not because of the polar bears, and not because it is the most beautiful place in the world, but because our very survival depends upon it.” – Lewis Gordon Pugh
For days the igloo has been dark;
But now the rag wick sends a spark
That glitters in the icy air,
And wakes frost sapphires everywhere;
Bright, bitter flames, that adder-like
Dart here and there, yet fear to strike
The gruesome gloom wherein they lie,
My comrades, oh, so keen to die!
And I, the last -- well, here I wait
The clock to strike the hour of eight. . . . – Robert Service, Death In The Arctic
Land and sea of the polar night and midnight sun, weeks of continuous winter darkness but also non-stop, milky light in June – brutal, biting, bleak but astonishingly beautiful, where life is toughest, but also filled with survival miracles, and ever vulnerable now to seismic climate change, one of where ice, water and snow intertwine, of whales to walruses, polar bears, Inuit and Sámi peoples, and the aurora borealis, a place many of us will never visit, but one that burns icy bright in the imagination.
This week then, we're hitting the north, and by that we don't mean that cultural definition that most of us proud northerners use, but 'the real north', where sub-zero temperatures are dominant and ice and snow are the norm.
But where to start? Possibly with songs referencing the the north pole and all that surrounds it, then everything within the formal definition of the Arctic circle which sits at 66°33′50.1 north of the Equator, of the North Pole, Russia's huge Siberian stretch, northern Canada, Greenland and Alaska, the northernmost areas of Norway, Finland, and Sweden, but also extending areas below down to around 60° to include Iceland and most of Alaska down to Anchorage, and Canadian territories of Nunavut and Yukon, as long as they are referenced in their wintry, wilderness wonder on this pirouetting and in peril white skull of our planet Earth.
The Arctic region on the dotted blue line at 66 degrees of latitude, with the outer line at 60
The region conjures up places and narratives of vivid adventure and extremity, danger and romance, from Svalbard and the vividly named town Longyearbyen, Hopen island, the Barents and Beaufort Seas, of Russia's Siberian straits and seas, and its cities Murmansk, Norilsk, Vorkuta, and the smaller Salekhard, which is the only city directly on the Arctic Circle, Norway's Tromsø, Bodø and Harstad, Sweden's Kiruna, Finland's Rovaniemi, Greenland's Sisimiut Utqiagvik, Alaska to Canada's Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, ancient cultures and traditions.
And American environmental author Tatiana Schlossberg here conjures up a picture of the region’s past, one that now has a human population of about 400, in an are of 43 square miles: “About 6,000 years ago, St. Paul Island, a tiny spot of land in the middle of the Bering Sea, must have been a strange place. Hundreds of miles away from the mainland, it was uninhabited except for a few species of small mammals, like arctic foxes, and one big one: woolly mammoths.”
Here then are some other sights from the region on the edges of the Arctic circle and beyond:
Dutch sailing map of the Barents Sea in the 16th century
Arctic Circle monument in Salekhard, Russia
Parks Canada Arctic Circle sign in Auyuittuq National Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut, with Mount Thor in the background. Like many areas, the ice and snow is receding …
And here a drum dance, known as "qilaat" in the native Kalaallisut language, is an integral part of Inuit culture in Greenland, performed during community gatherings, celebrations, and as a means of entertainment during the long, dark Arctic winters:
Greenland’s Inuit perform the qilaat drum dance
Tales of exploration, bold but often disappearing pioneers, death, myth and mystery, will perhaps also colour this week's list, with the issue of survival always on the starkly beautiful horizon. Films and books and in these regions may spark a few songs ideas, but among the most compelling pieces of TV set in this region in recent years in my experience is The Terror, a drama of semi-fiction, but based on the expedition of English Captain Sir John Franklin, and his crew’s lost Royal Navy expedition to the Arctic in 1845 to discover the key-for-trade Northwest Passage, a brilliantly acted and directed tale of arrogance and ignorance met by violence and death.
The region can be bleak, but is almost always visually stunning, attracting photographers, including for example, National Geographic’s Sam Abell, who reckons that: “For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon.”
Brazil’s iconic photographer, Sebastiao Salgado, who has witnessed sights around the globe most of us can only dream about, is particular in awe of: “The light in Alaska, in particular, is so beautiful. So beautiful! Such incredible light.”
Sebastiao Salgado’s shot of eastern part of Brooks range, Alaska
But a piece about this region can’t hide from a big burning issue. While climate deniers and greedy oil-drillers who will stop at nothing to ruin everything for profit push for destruction, it is the scientific experts who must always have their say here at the Bar.
“Alaska is at present one of the most wonderful wildernesses left on the Earth—and if it is ever spoiled, it will be the greatest piece of vandalism ever committed,” declares American essayist, naturalist, and poet Jon Muir.
“Melting permafrost in Greenland and the Arctic tundra is releasing vast amounts of methane, a potent climate-altering gas,” adds Tatiana Schlossberg.
And here’s the veteran climate scientist Frances Beinecke who warns that: “Opening up Atlantic and Arctic waters to drilling would lock the next generation into burning oil and gas in a way that only makes climate change that much worse, fuelling ever rising seas, widening deserts, withering drought, blistering heat, raging storms, wildfires, floods and other hallmarks of climate chaos …
Shell has poured billions of dollars into offshore Arctic drilling, but no matter how much it spends, it cannot make the effort anything but a terrifying gamble. And if Shell, the most profitable company on Earth, can't buy its way to safety in Alaska, nobody can.”
So then, it’s time to dive into this big, bold undiscovered territory, and see what you can fish out.
This week’s pioneering guest, helping to steer us into wondrous waters, is the marvellous Marco den Ouden. Place your suggestions in comments below for deadline at 11pm UK time on Monday, for playlists published next week.
Jump in, it’s very refreshing …
Global swimmer and environmental activist Lewis Pugh ..
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