ARTICA WRITINGS 2023

Charlotte Hetherington Charlotte Hetherington

Recipes for disaster / Oppskrifter på katastrofe

by Nikhil Vettukattil

All my assumptions about Svalbard fell apart before I had even got off the plane. There are on average two flights a day from Oslo to Longyearbyen, which always make a stop in Tromsø, northern Norway. I knew Longyearbyen had a population of just under 2400, and I naively assumed the flights were operating out of some national necessity, seeing as the island of Svalbard is 400 miles north of the nearest Norwegian shore.

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Charlotte Hetherington Charlotte Hetherington

Why Are We Eating Space Food on Earth? / Hvorfor spiser vi astronautmat på jorda?

by Maggie Coblentz

Between field excursions to install new equipment on a nearby glacier, I return to my home in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, which I periodically convert into a research station filled with scientists, engineers, and artists. With my boots half-off, I tiptoe through a maze of pickle jars and field equipment to feed my sourdough starter. It has been passed down for eleven years and has more experience living in the Arctic than I.

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Charlotte Hetherington Charlotte Hetherington

The Secret to Getting Fat / Hemmeligheten bak det å bli feit

by Samantha P. H. Dwinnell

For nearly 30 years, we have been following collared Svalbard reindeer, collecting more than their poop. We have been seeing where they go (with GPS-collars), how well they survive, and the number of calves they raise. We’ve monitored what parasites they carry, how heavy they are each spring, and how that changes with shifting conditions of Svalbard.

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Charlotte Hetherington Charlotte Hetherington

Mushrooms in the ice desert / Sopper i isødet

by Reidun Braathen and Even W. Hanssen

Little did Baltazar Mathias Keilhau know that in September 1827, he would make history when he collected his first mushrooms on Stans Foreland – what has since become known as Edgeøya (English: Edge Island). This was the beginning of human knowledge of and familiarity with fungi in the Svalbard archipelago.

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