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11.12.09
Not enough Norwegians
Norway ain't part of the Commonwealth and more's the pity for Helen (UK) who's accustomed to skiing with the cross-country naturals. Here's what she's got to say about the cultural differences between the teams and the physical differences between the Poles...
Helen (UK)'s PodCast:
Link to Podcast
Helen's PodCast in writing:
"Hi, this is Helen calling in from the UK. Just a quick update from the Antarctic.
As you know, we have between 8 to 10 hours each day to think about a whole variety of different things as we're skiing along and one of the things that I talked to the voice mail about today was the difference in my Polar trips between going up from North, up to the North Pole and trips down here in Antarctica.
The big difference I suppose with this trip however, the most obvious difference from other Polar trips I've done is that it's with an all women group. Previously my trips have been with almost all male groups actually and I've been the token female or there has been one of two of us. That's not to say they, you know, were a bad crew at all, it's a fantastic team that I'm with here on the ice.
Other major differences, well life inside our tent in Antarctica is actually really pleasant. We've had some wonderful funny weather. We've been really blessed with good weather. Light winds picking up generally in the evenings but even so it's very dry and warm in the tent and at night you can leave your gloves and your face masks and goggles and everything out drying out on the washing line on top of the tent.
It's very different contrasting with up near the North Pole where it's a very damp atmosphere and you get a lot of sea water seeping into your face mask and can be quite unpleasant at times. The actual landscape here is incredibly different from one end of the world to the other. The Arctic landscape being much more dominated by amazing beautiful ice features which just really catch the light in unusual ways, where as Antarctica, the scene is completely dominated by this vast endless sky. The horizon seems to go on forever and it sometimes feels a little bit like it does because this is actually one of the longest trips I've ever done in terms of skiing even longer than the trip I once did skiing across Greenland.
Temperature wise, well generally the Arctic tends to be a little bit warmer. It's sea ice surrounded by land mass as opposed to Antarctic where you've got a land mass that is surrounded by sea and then Antarctica, the highest level that we'll be going up to, just before the Pole is just under 3000 metres. Well, of course, in the Arctic you're always at sea level.
But I think the other sort of major difference that I've noticed on this trip which stands out for me in particular is that most of my other previous Polar trips have been with Norwegians. That's been both the Arctic and the Antarctic. I must say if there's any Norwegians listening in, I'm really missing you on this trip. There are quite a few Norwegians who work for ALE based at Patriot Hills so I had a chance to catch up with my Norwegians and actually one of the other women on the trip is trying to learn Norwegian herself as well.
This is Helen from the UK just continuing the voice mail, got chopped off there. Yes and one of the major differences is not skiing on this trip with Norwegians. They do have quite a different mentality I find to the group that we're with here. This is very much of the International flavour with team being from all over the Commonwealth. We're learning an awful lot about each others culture, ways of living. Just everything really. Religion, the lot and that's a real eye opener.
Where as with the Norwegians I suppose, what I generally find is that I'm on a trip and I'm learning as much as I can about how to become a Norwegian. So I'll sign off at this point with a message that's written on my sleeping bag which I read each night. It comes from Norway and it says:
"Sovgot (sleep well)"
And as I said if there is any Norwegians listening in, hope to be speaking your language and skiing with you again very soon. Bye for now."
Photo by Robert Hollingworth