We drop anchor in glassy water among some of the oldest rocks in the world.  We’re up in the north-west region of Svalbard and there’s magic in the air. If we headed north now we'd go over the top and  hit nothing but ice  until we eventually reached Alaska. The light is low and the peaks glow rust-red beneath a light dusting of snow. On nearby rocks crustose lichen glow radioactive orange. There’s not a ripple or a breath of wind, not the slightest movement. The silence feels paper thin as if a whisper would crack the stillness. 

Every place we've been to so far is special, every anchorage has its own unique qualities and atmosphere though it's sometimes difficult to explain why. Looking up, there’s something familiar about this one; the softer landforms and colours of this part of Svalbard are different to anywhere else we've been. A wee bit deja-vu creeps in.

I find out why. 410 million years ago these rocks were attached to our Scottish landmass and gave rise to the Caledonian mountain chain which reached from Svalbard through Scandinavia to Scotland and onwards to the Appalachians in North America. Our very own Glen Coe, 56.68N which I walked through just the week before, is made of the same stuff I'm about to walk over in Rinsdyrflyer, 79.8N. The same red Devonian sandstone. That makes me smile.

The power of a wee ramshackle hut. 

It’s a smudge of dark among the whites (only just),  easily missed in a quick scan of this vast landscape. In spite of or perhaps because of its diminutive size, it has a huge presence. In the whole scheme of things it’s incidental, almost not there - only something draws you to it. It’s impossible to ignore.

They called him Stockholm Sven. Disfigured in a mining accident in the 1920‘s he chose to live the life of a hermit here on the shore of this remote fjord in the north-west of Svalbard. Not strong enough to face living amongst people but strong enough to live a solitary life in a hostile environment. He turned to trapping out of necessity, trading his furs for fuel and food. So there was an element of human contact whether he liked it or not; traders coming and going; boats sailing in, sailing out, presumably all in the summer months. How did he keep himself going in the winter? Maybe simply surviving was enough to keep him occupied. There’s a strange part of me that finds this appealing.

To my eyes this hut is beautiful. The bleached blonde wood is still sound thanks to the dry Arctic air. (Nothing degrades here.) It feels and looks very much part of the landscape; a few stones to keep the roof on, a few logs to prop up the walls and a few drops of human essence emanating from it. A carefully carved name plate welcomes you inside where it’s as basic and spartan as you’d expect. Ah, but it feels homely and cosy though. Wooden benches for seat and beds, a makeshift stone fireplace in the centre, nothing lonely about it. I can just imagine sitting by a roaring fire peering out through the one remaining window at the Arctic landscape. I want to spend the night here!

Before I leave I give the hut a present, a wee bit of Scotland. It’s a pebble of granite from outside the Ryvoan bothy in the Cairngorms. From one refuge to another, just to say hi.

So are we tourists?

Of course we are. (But we don't feel like it.) What is a tourist anyway? Are you a tourist in any place where you only visit for a short time? All of Scotland feels like home to me;  I travel to the our furthest shores and never feel like a tourist, yet I don't live in these places I visit. I have no house there. What's the difference between me visiting Caithness and visiting Svalbard?  What and where is the line you step over from being a local to being a tourist? It's not the language (otherwise I'd feel at home in N. America or Australia - and I don't). If it's simply a feeling of identifying with the place you're in at the time, or having a feeling of somehow belonging, then the whole world can be home. Can't it?

We're in Magdalene fjord in the north-west of Svalbard, a spectacularly beautiful wide bay with turquoise blue glaciers and ragged mountains made up of a million whites. It's a bomb-proof shelter for boats and deep enough to accommodate huge vessels - like cruise ships. But not so long ago this place used to be a busy whaling station. At one time these beaches would have been covered with whale blubber and blood, not so much a glamorous image as a sobering thought.

There's a large snow covered mound at the back of the beach which turns out to be a whalers' graveyard with driftwood crucifixes marking the graves. It's enclosed by a fence. A fence. We're in the middle of Arctic wilderness and there's a man-made fence around this graveyard to keep people (tourists like us) from traipsing all over it. I find it disturbing. We're told that for the last few summers, huge cruise ships have been visiting this fjord bringing literally hundreds of people ashore at once. Apparently tourists pay no heed to where they walk therefore have to be restricted by fences so as not to disturb the graves. I like to think that there's no one in our party who would walk over or damage these graves (or anything else) fences or no fences. But it's one rule for all.

I feel at home in this wilderness (but I've no idea why). It doesn't feel alien or frightening (though it probably should). I feel comfortable walking in the snow and ice along its shores and feeling part of the whole place for a while.

At the far end of the beach, we find a small 'tourist hut' (tourist hut) and nearby a huge boulder, probably left there by the ice about ten thousands years ago. On the seaward side of the rock is graffiti, the names of a few whaling ships scrawled in large sloppy letters for all to see. Vandals or artists? Tourists or locals?

Our home for now is fit for the job; spacious, warm and tough (with a captain to match) and 160 feet of steel that could see off anything likely to be thrown at it. Very reassuring. But for all its old traditional sailing vessel looks, it was actually built in 1957 as a fishing boat and not given sails until 1998. Having a traditional Barkentine rig, the wind has to be strong enough and in the right direction for it to sail well, which given Sod's Law it rarely is. So a modern engine comes in handy. This is our self contained world, our castle, our protector, our cocoon. We'd be useless here without it.

Sitting on a hill above the anchorage I stretch out my arm and cover up the whole boat with my hand. World gone. I see nothing but the mountains, the glacier, floating chunks of ice -  just me, nothing else alive in sight. You're very aware of your body in a situation like that, aware of how fragile and vulnerable it can be and aware of your own psyche too when presented with, well, not a lot. You come face to face with yourself, like it or not.

It's easy to play at being an explorer here,  our high tech clothing keeps us well insulated and there's help on hand should we need it. The land must've looked much the same when these brave pioneering souls who first stepped foot here many years ago. I think of the technology they didn't have that we now take for granted. It was them and the environment and that was it, no satellites for communication, no helicopters, no Goretex.  The Canadian and Greenlandic Eskimos were even more incredible, surviving, no - thriving for generations with very little but their skills and ingenuity to cope with such extremities. I wonder at the skills and instincts now lost as we head back to our cosy boat for a cooked lunch.

This is the first post of a blog stemming from a sailing expedition to Svalbard in October 2012.

The artist gratefully acknowledges financial assistance for the expedition from Creative Scotland.

The first thing that hits you is the light; flat white light, at once translucent but opaque, as if the northern sun has been diffused by many filters in the atmosphere before it finally reaches the land. Soft light, no edges, yet as clear as light can be.

It's the end of September, I'm north of the Arctic Circle sailing on a Tall Ship and the sun is going down. Our group of twenty or so artists motor down and out of the fjord from Longyearbyen into the never-ending sunset. Picture book stuff. Not a breath of wind - a kindly introduction to the Arctic Ocean. I wonder what weather will hit us later on. I also wonder how Mr. Longyear felt as he sailed up the fjord from America at the start of the 20th century. Did he appreciate the majesty and beauty of the snow clad mountains,  the clarity of the light, the taste of the cold clear air? (I hope so). Or was he thinking only of the challenges of coal mining and the money to be made?

John Munroe Longyear certainly helped form the surreal landscape that we see there today.  Huge black war-of-the-worlds structures dissecting the vast white landscape. Apart from the mountains and glaciers, they're the most prominent features in Svalbard, unsettling stark monuments to the years of Arctic industrial pioneering. And yet there's a beauty of sorts there too; the contrast between steel and snow, black and white, man-made and natural creating a poetic and powerful dialogue.

I wrote myself a short essay before the start of the trip, imagining the land and seascapes from the water, the colours, the rock forms on leaving the fjord. It wasn't like this. In my mind the fjord was narrower and the mountains taller and closer together, the light sharper, shadows stronger. I certainly hadn't anticipated the dominance of the man-made coal mines. I wonder what other surprises I'll find.

Svalbard is heading towards Dark Time, mørketiden, the period on the calendar when the sun dips below the horizon and doesn't rise again until late January. Standing on deck in the twilight, I look forward to watching the days grow shorter.

This project was supported by Creative Scotland.