Børge Ousland

This is Børge again. So much has been happening that I simply haven’t had time to keep up with my reports. Everything went well in Murmansk; we passed through customs and got our passports stamped. Then our captain set sail for the North Cape. Due to strong winds, we were unable to reach shore there, instead continuing a little further south on that peninsula, to the town of Honningsvåg. With our safe arrival there, we felt we had cause for a real celebration, and we donned the tuxedos that were waiting for us to enjoy traditional smoked mutton and a lively evening. We had booked in advance, only the date was slightly uncertain; I had been looking forward to this for a long time.

From Honningsvåg, Thomas returned to Switzerland, while I boarded the SS “Athene” for the last seaborne leg of my expedition – onward to Bodø. There I will change my mode of transportation, continuing on two wheels and setting my sights on Oslo.

At this very moment we are entering the port of Tromsø. It’s quite a moment for me; for it is exactly the same date, and in fact the same time of date, that Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johanssen sailed in to Tromsø by boat 111 years ago, in 1896.

This has been one incredible expedition for Thomas and me – we’ve experienced amazing things together. Later I will try to convey more of this through a book and a film, so I am hoping that those who are following our expedition here will have something to look forward to.

I also want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude all those who have follow our journey across the Arctic Sea in the footsteps of Nansen, from the North Pole to the southernmost point of Frants Josef Land. We have greatly appreciated the messages and good wishes that we have received.

Thank you!

Time for celebration! But the barber only had time for Thomas before the Arctic explorers put on their tuxedos.

Hi, this is Børge again. It’s the 19th of August and we are just leaving the port of Murmansk. We came here last night, and the pilot who came on board brought our boat safely to the pier. In the course of the night we were visited by custom agency officials, representatives of the border patrol, and – well, ten or fifteen people must have come on board the “Athene” to check out various things. Fortunately, all our papers were in order, and our passports have been stamped in and out.

Now we’re leaving Murmansk with wind in our sails, charting a course back to Norway, and we are really looking forward to arriving at the North Cape! We expect to arrive there around 6pm Tuesday evening.

All is well; everything went according to plan in Murmansk. And our compliments to the friendly Russians who received us.

It’s the 17th of August, and we’re still out in the Barents Sea. The delay is due to the rather abominable weather we’ve been having up here. It now looks like we shall be calling at Murmansk on Sunday morning, 19th of August. Here we will get the necessary documents stamped by the Russian authorities, handle various and sundry formalities, and get ready to leave Russia in a proper way.

Our plan is to continue by sea, sailing westward to the North Cape. If all goes well, we’ll arrive there on the evening of the 21st or morning of the 22nd of August.

All us well with Thomas and me, and everyone else on board the SS “Athene”. The weather is much calmer than a few days ago. There’s a relatively gentle northerly wind and seas have settled down. We are enjoying our journey and looking forward to setting our feet on first Russian, then Norwegian soil.

We are speeding across the Barents Sea. At the moment we’re approximately 450 nautical miles from the mainland, a distance that has steadily been diminishing the last 24 hours. The wind is strong, much of the time hitting a stiff gale, and the swells out here are high. Both Thomas and I have been noticing that disturbing movement with our tummies, feeling strangely unwell. But we’re less seasick now than just a few hours ago. I guess our stomach is slowly getting used to it – and so we can enjoy the way the vessel rides the waves and speeds along, carried by the wind.

This is the same ocean, and in a sense the same waves that Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen sailed with “Windward”, the suitably named vessel of Frederick Jackson that carried them home. It pleases us greatly to have been picked up by a sailing vessel in Franz Joseph Land and return home now, in the same fashion. That feels great!

One of the photographs we sent you shows us paddling the kayaks out to SS “Athene”; the other captures us on board.

We’re eagerly waiting to see how the weather develops, unsure of how the wind may turn. Right now the wind is westerly, and we’re riding her at a sharp angle. So for the time being we are truly making an excellent pace toward evermore southern latitude.

This is Børge again. We’re sailing the open sea! The SS “Athene” picked us up today, and now we are riding a stiff northern gale through three–four metre swells. All our equipment is on board, we’re on board and we are in fine shape.

It was a great moment when we saw the sailboat, skipper Thorleif Thorleifsson and his crew – and finally got to leave Franz Joseph Land after spending three weeks camped at Cape Flora. It’s really nice to finally be on the move again! The skipper is charting a course for Murmansk.

Captain Thorleif Thorleifsson is in full control!

Yeah, this is a message from Thorleif Thorleifsson on the SS “Athene”. We’re heading towards Franz Joseph Land to pick up Børge Ousland and Thomas Ulrich. They’re waiting for us on the beach at Cape Flora.

The Barents Sea is showing her most inhospitable side at the moment. We’re approaching 80 degrees latitude but are “being hit hard in the face”, as they say, by stiff gales. As the waves are tossing us about, we’re tacking back and forth to make as much progress as we can against this headwind. No opportunity for sleep on this watch – we feel like ping-pong balls in a washing machine. We did have a nice dinner yesterday, though, pork chops stewed with cabbage and potatoes. Not bad!

We just spoke to the two boys on the beach. They’re down to their last two metres of toilet paper – and obviously longing for a bit more comfort. And we can offer that on board. Even though the weather is a bit rough, we’re in fine shape. Due to the wind, I expect we’ll be tacking until the morning; if you relax under these kinds of conditions, you quickly lose whatever headway you’ve made. But I expect we’ll be able to pick up those Arctic adventurers in the course of the day.

Well, this is “Athene” signing off. I’ll call again when we approach Børge and Thomas.

The calendar shows the 11th of August and we are still here at Cape Flora. We’re getting a bit eager to move on, frankly. I’m sure we’ve taken every walk there is here, most of them more than once, since arriving here on 24th of July. The boat was scheduled to pick us up yesterday, but the Barents Sea is experiencing a bout of bad weather, so they’re struggling against rough seas and a nasty wind.

We just talked to the skipper, Thorleif Thorleifsson, and he’s clinging to the wheel, steering the rudder as best he can. They certainly won’t be here before tomorrow evening. I’ve asked him to offer his reports from the “Athene” – that’s the boat that is picking us up. Thomas and I are all packed and ready.

Not much is happening here. Yes, well, except for two polar bears that came to visit us again, a mother and her cub. They’re finally keeping a respectful distance now, up the hillside three or four hundred metres away. I suppose we’ve reached a sort of truce, an understanding of sorts. We’ll stay down here if they stay up there. At least that’s where they’ve been all day, lying there and relaxing, no doubt hoping that a young razorbill will wander within their reach. The bears are very hungry – but so far their presence has not posed a problem for us.

We’re glad the boat is finally coming tomorrow, because we’re down to just a few squares of toilet paper. Thomas and I brought four rolls for this expedition. Every item of equipment has to be planned to keep the weight down, and even such things carefully rationed. Today it’s 100 days since we departed from the North Pole. We’re crossing our fingers that Thorleif Thorleifsson will sail into the bay here tomorrow. Then we’ll paddle the kayaks out, board the boat safely, and be on our way home.

We shall see what happens. With a bit of luck my next report will be from the cabin of the SS “Athene”.

Today is the 9th of August, and I just talked to the skipper of the sailboat that is on its way to carry us home. The boat left Norway a few days ago, but is struggling with an unkind wind. The forecast is northerly gales, so Thorleif Thorleifsson expects they’ll be at least a day delayed.

We will just have to be patient – we can muster enough of that and have plenty of excellent provisions left from the icebreaker that called at Cape Flora with their tourists. We’re not suffering for lack of anything, although we are eager to be homeward bound.

This last day has been plenty exciting. Last night two bears came to visit us, a mother and her cub, which must have been about a year and a half old. This island is probably not the best place for them to be, there are no ice floes here – it’s all melted. In years past there used to be miles and miles of pack ice around the cape here, and in Nansen’s time these were excellent hunting grounds for the polar bears. Now it’s just open water and they would have to swim for days to reach the ice floes.

In other words, the bears are very hungry, trying their best to catch a few birds, including the young seagulls that were sitting on that rock over there.

They were very excited to discover our campsite – the smell of food at last! Which I’m sure included two of us. They triggered first one tripwire, then another, firing two of our signal flares. Now we only have one left. That’s no crisis, really, because we’ll always manage to rig up some kind of alarm to wake us up if the get too close to the tent.

The bears were hungry enough to brave a return, and that called for more drastic measures. We brought forth the pepper spray, fired our gun into the air, and ran after shouting. When we finally frightened them off, they took the hint and stayed away. Haven’t seen them since.

You see, Cape Flora is not a dull place. There’s a lively fauna here. Walrus are swimming right off shore, and we have also seen these poor young razorbills that race toward the sea – they’re more popular than they care for, and not all of them can fly yet. So the Arctic foxes do catch a few delectable tidbits. This must be one of their best seasons of the year.

We are still here, too, waiting for our transport home.

It’s the 7th of August today, and we feel compelled to share our report after a very special and exciting day. Icebreaker Yamal returned after its second cruise up to the North Pole, and cast anchor off Cape Flora. Thick fog prevented the helicopters from flying tourists for an onshore excursion. Instead, we were brought out to MS “Yamal”.

They came in a zodiac to pick us up, but the breakers prevented the RIB from getting too close to the shore. So Thomas and I donned our drysuits and swam to meet them. On board the vessel a wonder of wonders awaited us: a shower! You have no idea how great it feels to enjoy your first hot shower in more than three months. Especially when you can clean your pores with a good sweat in the sauna afterwards. The icebreaker even had a swimming pool on board, filled with nicely tempered seawater. We must have spent a half hour at least just in the shower, letting the hot water wash away months of grime, lathering repeatedly with soap and shampoo. An indescribable experience!

Nice and clean, we were escorted into their cinema, and showed our appreciation by holding a little lecture about our expedition, providing the background history of Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen’s strenuous Arctic expedition 110 years ago, and telling the passengers of our own adventures – from our start at the North Pole to Cape Flora, the southernmost reach of Franz Joseph Land.

The tourists on board had come from all over the world for their adventure, and they expressed great interest and voiced gratitude. Perhaps it’s not every day that meet savages like us, who just appear from out of the middle of nowhere, and who even insist on returning to their own tents to sleep as the evening approaches. After a few hours we were speeding away in the zodiac, donned our drysuits once again, and savoured the cool swim back to Cape Flora.

They did not allow us to return empty-handed, but gave us two bags filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies: biscuits and chocolate, spaghetti and bacon, and much more. We attached ourselves to the bags by rope, and pulled them along as we swam through the breakers and to the shore.

MS “Yamal” is gone now. We’re once again alone in our tent – but I notice we smell better. At the moment we are preparing a feast of spaghetti with bacon. Thomas and I can’t quite agree on what we’re having for dessert; there are just too many choices. They filled up our provisions.

Later this evening I’ll be sending you some photographs from an unexpectedly enjoyable day.

Viktor Boyarski and our Arctic explorers.

It’s the 6th of August and here is another report. The time for our departure is approaching. We’re both doing fine, following our daily routine where we each get to take a long walk every other day. As I mentioned earlier, one of us has to stay and guard the campsite, otherwise the bears would wreak havoc. We’re still finding lots of fascinating things: fossils, petrified wood, antlers from reindeer that are long since gone from Franz Joseph Land.

Today it was my turn to go hiking. Our greatest discovery so far is that Northbrook is actually not an island. It’s two islands, and these are separated by a sound that is up to a kilometre wide, narrowing to a gap of 250 metres. When we arrived here, we could ski across – but now the ice is gone, there’s just open water, and walrus are swimming through that sound. This is a dramatic consequence of global warming. A hundred years ago it was a lot colder than today. The glacier stretched all the way across the sound; for even on the newest modern maps, Northbrook is drawn as a single island. Recently, however, the glacier has retreated enough to unveil the sound.

Well, at least we’re true explorers now.

It’s obvious there is a lot less ice today than in years past. If you read the old expedition logues and accounts of the explorers who came before us, such as Frederick Jackson and Fridtjof Nansen, they make it clear that it was often impossible to reach this area by boat. Now there’s just open sea beyond Cape Flora, a few icebergs, but there are no ice floes to be seen anywhere. The enormous change is due to global warming, and rising temperatures makes themselves felt more up here than other places, even the Antarctic.

This is going to have very significant consequences for animal life in the Arctic. Many animals, not just mammals, are dependent on the drifting ice floes for their food – and when the ice retreats, it has dire consequences for their ability to survive. In the next few decades I suspect we’ll see immense repercussions. After all, a huge portion of the food chains production in these seas occurs under the ice.

Tomorrow we may be paid a new visit by an icebreaker, and Viktor Boyarski will be on board.

This sound separates the two islands of Nortbrook.