Arctic Garbage

Bogdan photographing Arctic beach junkThe pleasure of picking up garbage (if I can call it a pleasure) is that you can do it anywhere, even in the Arctic. On our second day on the Barkentine ship Antigua we woke in a ice-skate smooth bay named Safe Harbor. We loaded into the zodiacs and were transported across to land. There, the guides had marked out a safe zone, Sarah standing tall at the top of the hill, rifle at hand, binoculars scanning into the distance for polar bear.

The beach where we landed was small gray pebbles, leading into a long bank of soft, grainy snow. The 26 artists with whom I was travelling (with The Arctic Circle) then all went about experiencing the Arctic: taking photographs, recording sounds, digging in the snow, lying in the snow, drawing, and writing.  There was Bogdan Luca, gathering the few pieces of plastic that littered the shore.  He placed them together, took photographs. I pocketed the two pieces I found—a green plastic cap and a hefty piece of white plastic. Both fit neatly in my pocket. I thought of the bags and bags of garbage I haul out of the Tivoli Bay on the Hudson River, and this seemed nothing. But it also felt too much: should this landscape not be pristine?

Red PhalaropeA few days later we came onto land in a beautiful harbor off of the Van Kevlenfjorden. There, a few of us launched into a hike along the water. Red Phalarope spun in circles in the water near us and reindeer trotted on the green land, which had just been  liberated from snow. And wedded to the pebbles of the beach were plastic twine and bottle caps, chunks of plastic and nets. These nets tangle the reindeer, the birds.  “Can we slow down and pick up all this crap?” I asked the guide. And so we did, gathering a good bag full of ocean junk.

And I thought of the ways that picking up garbage is like birding. The more you look for birds, the more you see. It’s like playing Russian dolls with the natural world. And, once you start spotting garbage, you see it everywhere. At the next landing, all I could see was the plastic left behind or dumped overboard, and washed ashore.

ReindeerAs I traveled through the Arctic, I was thinking about the early explorers, and what they experienced: what they saw and where they found their comfort in this cold, big landscape. My heroes are Amundsen and Nansen, both traveling at the end of the 19^th and into the early 20^th century. Neither saw a plastic bottle on shore (plastic was invented in 1907). But they must have seen debris from ships: logs, nets, ropes. But nothing on the scale I hauled off the beach.

The plastics I gathered will be taken back to Longyearbyen and there, I am told, an artist will create something with these bags of stuff brought back from travelers around the island of Spitsbergen. I look forward to what is created from what is not wanted. 

Safety

Therese, Arctic GuideWe all find safety where we can. During this trip to the Arctic, when we went on shore, three guides and one husky dog preceded us.  Together, they marked out a triangle-shaped piece of land where we were allowed to walk. Two stood with WWII era wooden rifles and binoculars scanning to the horizon. In this way, as we doddled about the beach or hiked a hill in the snow, we would be safe from an unexpected arrival from a polar bear.

Of course, we all want to see that polar bear, but not one walking toward us. So we were all grateful for the protection even if it seemed a bit restrictive. Even if all I wanted to do was walk into the horizon, bear or not.

Male Common EiderMy journey into the Arctic began in Longyearbyen, the biggest town in Spitsbergen, an island that is part of Svalbard . It’s a town of 2,000 filled with people who like to drink whiskey, a fantastic museum that tells the story of airships trying to fly to the North Pole, and many shops filled with great outdoor gear. Like most northern towns, it looks like a mining town (which it is) with all of its plumbing above ground. It’s not the prettiest place. But it is surrounded by very pretty: mountains covered in snow, and a harbor filled with ships of all sizes. And of course there are great birds everywhere—a special Svalbard ptarmagin, Arctic terns who have just finished their journey from the Antarctic, and Common Eiders galore.

Eiders on nestsOn the edge of town rests a pond filled with the plump black and white Eiders, and their brown mates.  The lady Eider were sitting on their flat, ground level nests. The males busied themselves as males are wont to do (ie: getting into skirmishes with each other). It was a most glorious sight, and all within feet of the road. These Arctic breeding ducks felt safe to sit there because within feet of the pond rest the cages of several dozen husky dogs. From time to time they took up a howl. But most of the time they were quiet. Quiet or not, the huskies provided protection for the ducks: no fox wants to come near them with so many dogs at hand.

Glaucous Gull eating an Eider Egg

It was wonderful to see the birds so relaxed, sunning in the Arctic sun, waddling about, crossing the near-traffic-less road.  Then I noted a fluttering at the edge of the encampment. There, a Glaucous Gull—one of our largest gulls—had taken an egg from a nest. The female tried to protect it, with no luck. And there was the gull, egg cracked open, feasting on the yolk of the Eider egg.

Maybe even the safest spots are not really so safe. 

Hooded Crow in Oslo

Black-headed GullThe black-headed gull I passed on the way to my hotel in Oslo looked spooked by its own shadow. So too was I as it was 9:30 at night—not a time when shadows lurk. But here in the north, the sun doesn’t look like it’s going to set anytime soon.

I arrived in Oslo this morning from the States. The first bird I saw (besides a pigeon—they don’t count) was a Hooded Crow. A few years ago a Hooded Crow—a decidedly European bird—appeared near a dumpster on Staten Island. There was enough excitement that I picked up and drove down to pay it a visit. Like many twitching events this one was a bit of a disappointment. The bird was mobbed by big lenses and crowds. The setting was potentially beautiful—the beach was right there—but overlooked in favor of focusing on the dumpster that the crow hoped might provide a meal. After I saw that one lone bird I wondered a lot about it. How had it arrived on our shores? Seems doubtful it flew. So perhaps it was trapped in a container ship and spent a week at sea. No wonder it had attached itself to the dumpster.

Hooded CrowTo see the Hooded Crow where it belongs is another experience. First, they are everywhere. There is no celebrity status to this bird. Second, little kids like to chase them around the parks of Oslo. This means that they are near tame, or at least not particularly afraid of little kids or American women with cameras eager to take a photo. They hop away in their insouciant crow-like manner.

One of the many great pleasures of travel—besides the light at the tops of gleaming modern buildings, the water thrashed by the almost Arctic wind, the blond children jumping with glee into the cold water, the tall sailing ships in harbor—are the new birds. Every bird is new, a rarity, a treasure.

I walked the city today, through the park by the Imperial Palace (complete with guards), where Chaffinch greeted me. At the waterfront, there are many gulls—Herring, Black-backed, Black-headed. There are the numerous Pied wagtails that hop between tables as I share a dinner of moules frites with David Freese, a photographer who will be a part of the expedition I am about to embark on with the Arctic Circle, an organization that brings together a range of artists, photographers, writers and scientists to journey on a ship north from Spitsbergen. To call this an expedition might be the wrong word, but as I travel I am trying to imagine myself back about 120 years to when Fridtjof Nansen made his journey north, toward the pole, toward a northwest passage. . Like with the Hooded Crow, I spend a lot of time thinking about how Nansen got where he did. Nansen had intriguing ideas on how he was going to get north—by freezing his ship into the ice, and allowing the ocean currents to pull the ship north. (did this work? No)

But really, what I am asking is, how do any of us end up where we do?  How is it that I am here in Oslo hoping the sun dips just a little further so that I can sleep? How did I get so lucky as to be heading toward a ship and ice and who knows what adventures? 

A Birdy Day

Snow Geese in flightThrough the winter on the east coast, I’m happy when I see and hear a few birds in the day. There are house finches at my feeder, the goldfinch, and a black-capped chickadee or two.  And, of course, the reliable woodpeckers, the sapsucker letting out its little mew sound, the pileated cackling in the woods. These birds are like finding little diamonds in a vast landscape.

So when, on Sunday, my friend Bruce Robertson and I went out to see what ducks were coming through the valley, I was stunned by the masses of birds. Hundreds of Canada Geese congregated on the fields at Greig Farm and a flock of over 100 Snow Geese with their black tipped wings skittishly took off, circled and landed. In every direction I looked there were birds coming in or taking off. A puddle of ducks—the puddle just freshly melted ice from this interminable winter—brought me a Pintail with its elegant neck, and an American Wigeon.

An abundance of birdsAnseriformes, I thought. That is the order that ducks belong in. Bruce is teaching an ornithology class at Bard College, and I’m sitting in, learning my birds in a new way, memorizing the orders and families. It’s created some order in my learning, which has been bird by bird. Now I see that the Wigeon and the Green-Winged Teal are related, the one with a black butt, the other with a cream butt. Butt, though, is not the right word, that would be the undertail coverts.

Seeing so many birds in one day, I was intoxicated. And I am trying to decide if the abundance felt so abundant because I’m coming out of winter or if simply lots of birds are a rare thing. I have been spending my long winter evenings sitting by the fire reading the journals of Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology. The sheer number of birds within his travels there in early 19^th century is a joy to read of: hundreds of Clapper Rails in one day! Red-headed woodpeckers galore! If I see one of these birds I dance a jig for days.

The oft-overlooked MallardIn that jig-dancing, I often forget to admire and enjoy the more common birds—the Mallard or the Canada Geese. I don’t want to take either of these birds for granted. Hundreds of geese are rounded up near airports every year and slaughtered—to keep planes safe.  There’s a sense that there are plenty of geese out there—a few less won’t make any difference. It does. It will.