2. Spitsbergen: the Kingdom of the White Bear

SSpitsbergen, the biggest island of the Svalbard archipelago, is exceptional for many reasons, but perhaps the strangest thing is that in that area, just for a change a dying specie exceeds in figures its major danger – human beings.
The Svalbards are located in the Arctic Ocean, between 74º and 81º of north latitude – about 1.000 km from the Geographical North Pole. That situation, inside the Arctic Circle, plunge the islands into a perpetual night from 26^th of October to 15^th of January, as long as the midnight sun lights over its shores from the 20^th of April to the 23^rd of august.
60% of the 60.000 km² of Svalbard is covered by ice, although the current of the North Atlantic warms the weather and keeps its shores navigable most part of the year. Talking about Spitsbergen, living up to its reputation (means “serrated peaks”), the island represents a mountainous relief.
There are just two inhabited villages permanently in Spitsbergen: Longyearbyen, under Norwegian jurisdiction, and Barentsburg, a working mine administrated by Russia. In the interior, the only human presence is limited to a polish scientific base in Hornsundet.

Hunting territory

The first human beings that stepped on the shores of Svalbard probably were Vikings or Russian hunters. Nevertheless, the official discoverer is the Dutchman Willem Barents, in 1596, who explored the coast when looking for the Northeast Pass (between North Europe and the American continent).

The islands worked as an international whaling base during 17th and 18th centuries and they served as starting point of many arctic expeditions. In 1929 the Treaty of Svalbard was signed, which granted the sovereignty of the islands to the Norwegian Crown, although let the rest of the signing countries to exploit mining and fishing resources of the area. Nowadays, only Russia continues exercising this right.

With a thousand eyes on the fog

The biggest difficulties when crossing Spitsbergen are in the fjord’s areas, where the expedition members will progress over a small layer of solid ice over sea water, that frequently it’s too fragile, and it moves and breaks continuously by effect of currents. They will go through cracked glaciers as well.
Navigation can be very difficult under foggy or blizzard conditions. But overall they will have to pay good attention to the presence of polar bears. These animals, that can be almost 3 meter long and exceed 500 kg, are mostly carnivorous and can be very aggressive on their encounters with humans. Permanently looking for food, the lack of visibility it’s not a problem for these animals, having an acute smell.

To protect themselves, José and Hilo will set up an anti-bears fence every night around their camp: it’s a system of wires that if touched activate an audible signal and a few flares. Likewise, during the skiing journeys both will carry flare pistols which they think that will be enough to deter approaching bears. Other expedition members in the area state that screaming and even, in closer distances, irritating sprays can be useful too. As a last resort, in case that everything else fails, they carry a hunting rifle. In any case, the expedition members are prepared to wait as long as possible and never shoot a bear unless their lives are under an immediate and serious risk. After all, they are the intruders in the territory of these mammals.