We’re in Murmansk at nuclear base Atomflot and we’ve boarded 50 let Pobedy, the most powerful ship in the world. It’s 11:30pm and we’re enjoying the endless golden hour.
Tomorrow we’ll welcome our first set of guests and begin our first of four voyages to the North Pole!
Lauren took this photo of me tonight on deck. The ship is vast and industrial and very Russian i.e. everything I hoped. It’s also fantastic to be back in the Arctic where golden hour lasts for hours and hours.
Murmansk
I’m really excited to see this industrial Russian city above the Arctic circle. Only a century old, it was destroyed in the Second World War.
I’ve visited the Russian (well, Soviet originally) outpost towns of Barentsburg and Pyramiden in Svalbard, and I’m struck by the fact that although Murmansk is bigger, wealthier, more vibrant and cleaner than either there are so many similarities. The smells of strong cigarettes, coal smoke, cologne, sweat and earth. The buildings in the exact same slightly dilapidated state. The architecture, the vehicles, the detritus. The public art and the typography, even the layout of the streets.
Russia seems to me an exotic place, which can be surprising to some of us in Europe or North America because many Russians, at least in the west of the country, look just like us. But it seems a very different place culturally. I’m very happy to be here.
Tomorrow we travel to Atomflot to board a nuclear icebreaker bound for the North Pole.
Polar explorer Roald Amundsen’s house outside of Oslo, Norway.
I’m in Norway with Lauren. Today we visited the Fram museum and Roald Amundsen’s house. Heading north for the North Pole
From Lake Geneva to central London, back in the UK and packing for the North Pole.
Yesterday I was given The Explorers Club flag we’ll be carrying during our sea ice data collection program this summer. To be awarded a flag for your expedition means your efforts have been recognized by The Explorers Club as furthering the cause of exploration and field science.
Flag #69 took its first expedition during the total solar eclipse of 1937 in the Andes. Since then, it has been to the Himalayas to explore the Raikot Glacier, to Antarctica for a whale song study, to South Georgia and even to the shipwreck of the Titanic. And now, Alex and I will take it to the Geographic North Pole.
It’s an incredible honor and yes, I will be treating our flag like a baby! A very, very old and fragile baby.
Lauren picked up our Explorers Club flag yesterday at the New York clubhouse. Our trip starts very soon!
I’m at The Explorers Club this afternoon to pick up the flag that Alex and I will carry to the North Pole this summer. Feeling very sentimental!
Can’t ever come here without picking up wine first, it’s a tradition.
