Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By Nitin Gairola
So, I thought I should now write about the famed mid-night sun, a phenomenon found in the polar Arctic and Antarctic. This is when the sun just doesn’t go away for 6 months (in reality a bit less & depends on how far you are from the pole) and then it just disappears for another 6 months, leaving us with the long dark polar night.
Those regularly reading my Sunday feature on Garhwal Post know that we had flown in from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and then to the Iceberg capital of the world, Ilulissat in a tiny 8-seater plane. Here we were having the time of our lives watching the raw beauty and fury of nature. We often use the words ‘pristine’ and ‘untouched’ but this is where it was truly appropriate, at least for now before the world powers open it to industry. That is the trend I suppose – opening the north polar region and then the south to industry just as the Amazon and Boreal forests had been opened for farming and logging earlier in the previous century. Of course, this opening up of the polar ice can be avoided if Jeff Bezos (of the other ‘Amazon’) is able to realize his vision of moving heavy industries of Earth to the Moon, making this a ‘Blue Planet’ again (I love the purity of his vision).
Back to the topic – Here we were in the land of endless polar days when the sun doesn’t set. And you won’t believe the incredible colours which come out when you see the sun apparently setting in the horizon, only to notice it go back up again from the same position in the sky to welcome a brand-new day. It’s quite crazy and a bit disorienting really since we expect the sun to disappear and then rise from the opposite side of the world.
We were told the best way to witness this phenomenon is to take a boat ride into the ice packed waters and see the midnight sun reflecting on the ice. Nothing but the ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. And so during our mid-night boat ride we saw a Japanese vlogger with a lot of filming gear – tripods, microphones and the works. That Japanese lady was the only one in our age group since all others were a lot older and clearly very wealthy individuals who could afford 800 odd USD per person for 1-hour helicopter rides, or 1000 USD+ guided treks to the ice cap for just one day. We felt a bit like imposters there – neither rich nor expert film makers. Just two mad tourists wanting to see the entire world in all its extreme glory and in one lifetime.
But this particular 3-hour boat ride was so worth it. It was some of the best natural world photography I have done which didn’t include wildlife as subjects. In this case the only wildlife we saw during the boat ride were a few humpback whales and a few Arctic birds, but the place had a hard to describe stark beauty. Only the passengers aboard the RMS Titanic would not have been too pleased to see all this ice that had drifted south into the Atlantic that fateful April night a long time ago (pardon my dark humour).
Also, to capture the phenomenon for ourselves, we decided to take an image of daylight at midnight and showed the time on the phone in the same snap. We are well aware that someone (without scruples) can easily do this by changing the time on the phone to midnight and take an everyday evening shot, but it may help if you have icebergs in the backdrop. Rest you have to believe since that’s the limitation of photography compared to videos, but it’s still my favourite mode of capturing a moment. Maybe I am a bit old school and that is what may explain why I still love reading physical newspapers (Garhwal Post is my favourite naturally) and physical paper books. Just as physical books are therapeutic but e-readers and mobiles aren’t, so is the case with photography vs videography – at least for me.
And with that the day was ending and the next day would take us on a boat much further away to a northern glacier. From there we were to start our upward trek, from the tundra coastline to the thick Arctic ice cap. It is quite a steep 30 degree climb up from the coast to the ice cap and after that the ice is flat. That night I did my shoe check. The Salomon Gore-Tex were brought for this purpose only and extra grip was needed. On the Ice however, it would be crampons fixed to the Salomon shoes.
We looked back on an incredible day that refused to end as the sun just wouldn’t go away. The only option was to go back to our room and draw the curtains and try to sleep. Light itself wasn’t the enemy of sleep, sheer excitement was. But we got about 4-5 hours of shut eye and were all set the next morning. A new day had arrived so to speak but it was the same old sun that we had never said goodbye to last night. But isn’t it always the same old sun, so what’s all the fuss about this mid-night sun? Jest apart, it was a special experience, but more so when we put it in context as to where in the world we were – the land which is anything but green.
Nitin Gairola is from Dehradun and is an extreme world traveller who has seen the natural world extensively and is often referred to as the ‘Most Travelled Indian’. He is on a quest to become the first person to travel to every major desert, forest, grassland & tundra on Earth, besides every country. Nitin has set world travel records certified by India Book of Records, has written for Lonely Planet, holds National Geographic conservation certifications and loves Bio-Geography. He is also a senior corporate executive in an MNC and in his early days, used to be a published poet as well.
