Strangely, you become very accustomed to, and comfortable in, the dark.
When I first arrived in Longyearbyen the days were perpetually light. Even though the midnight sun had finished a few days before I landed, the light lingered. It took more than a little getting used to the fact that 10pm and 4am looked the same. So did 2am and 8am for that matter. For the first weeks I didn’t sleep that much – it was all so exciting, so much to explore. And it was light outside. Always.
Then slowly, there began a rhythm of day and night that felt more normal for someone who doesn’t spend their whole time in the high arctic.
As more night crept in, the days became perceptively progressively shorter, you can feel it one day to the next. Sleep patterns followed the light – or more accurately, the night. [Except when there was the chance of northern lights…]
Before coming to Svalbard I wondered how I would feel when the days were dark, or when I would be out exploring and waiting for auroras at night. A very handy piece of advice was given to me by Elizabeth who runs the artist residency. Her wise words – there is nothing in the dark that wouldn’t be there in the light.
I try to adopt that pragmatism, while still mostly standing between two snow mobiles in the darkness when I’m taking aurora photos – usually at the edge of the safe boundary, at the end of the road, just beyond the street lighting.
Here though, there is the small comfort of some faint blue light that the soft glow of the illuminated polar bear sign is throwing to my feet.
Sounds still make me jump in the dark a little, but sound travels so far here I can’t possibly tell how close anything is.
I will know that I have truly embraced the darkness of Svalbard if I ski up on the mountains by headlamp light, just like the locals.
