To live here in the Arctic, to overwinter and experience time standing still, is to
lose your thinking mind to regain your senses.
It is to live as one with the cold, dark, simple existence.
Welcome to Bamsebu.
This is an old trapper's hut, built back in 1930 for beluga hunting, and this has been
our home now.
We are both experienced, seasoned polar explorersand guides, and we both have decades of experience
in and working in cold climates.
We're out here on a lunch break,
and it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be the way-
Both of us already knew a few key researchers studying the polar region, so we just reached
out to see if we could be of help.
This is base camp Bamsebu, and this is our citizen science lab.
We're collecting data for eight international research projects up here.
The goal is to engage the public and use the data collected to increase overall knowledge
on a given subject.
This is an ice core drill, and we bring this out with our Linq snowmobile out on the ice,
and we drill two of these holes in the ice.
The centimeters that's closest to the ocean, that's most important for the scientists because
in there, small organisms and larvaes are having their first stages of life.
Most of what we are collecting you can barely see, like microscopic algaes under the sea ice,
yet it is connected to a web of life that is part of such a delicate balance, like spokes
in a wheel.
And now, they, the scientists, are understanding that there are a few spokes out of alignment
and things are out of balance.
Right now there's absolutely no ice at the end of November,
and last year there was almost a full fjord of ice,
and here comes the drone, in for its little landing.
We have been able to walk along the open ocean, along the beaches and pick up debris.
This is a bird, a dead bird, and we often find these nets with reindeer antlers because
they itch in their antlers,
and they get stuck into it, and they pull this around until they can't pull anymore
or maybe it's frozen
or it's stuck somewhere, and they starve to death.
Life here is challenging: the darkness, the isolation, coming back from a scooter ride
to find a massive polar bear on your door step,
a meter away from your dog,
the ice conditions, being in a boat and the engine not functioning.
What do you do?
Waking up after a storm and discovering that the front door has several meters of snow
drift in front of it,
and you absolutely cannot get out.
Yoohoo.
Yay.
We celebrate the small joys here every single day,
and we make sure to acknowledge each other'sefforts.
Kind words and a smile go a long way in this world of isolation.
I just fell like an old horse.
There is absolutely no sign of a global pandemic where we are.
It's surreal to think that the world is spinning off its axis
just thousands of kilometers away,
and we feel so extremely privileged to be exactly where we are.
We care deeply about our planet, our natural spaces, our people, our animals,
so we're working to protect what we love.
Our goal has always been to take people out of climate despair and into climate optimism,
which is about hope and action.
Life is good here at Bamsebu.
Life is as good as we make it.
Absolutely.
Right?
Climate change does not take a break,
so neither are we.