Dormant

dormant

stills from moving image

løssuppenhet

All over Svalbard are abandoned man-made structures - remnants from mining, whaling and trapping. Yet these structures are in a sense still alive, mothballed by the Arctic environment ready to be resurrected at a moments notice. There's a patience and optimism about them, an equal sense of past and present, dead and alive sitting side by side.

 coal dust, graphite on paper

coal dust on photocopy

Leaving Pyramiden

I wondered how the residents of the Russian mining town (Pyramiden) felt, sailing away from their home, given only a few days notice in which to board a ship and leave for good.

To view moving image: www.vimeo.com/64659476           

Not the Arctic Convoy. 

      On a cosy boat with no risk of torpedoes coming at you, it's difficult to imagine the hardships men experienced during the Arctic Convoys of the Second World War. But standing on an icy, snow covered deck in sub zero temperatures made it a wee bit easier to visualise. The Scottish poet J.K. Annand who survived the convoys, brought the experience alive when he wrote this poem - and all the grittier for being written in the Scots language.

                                 

Arctic Convoy

Intil the pitmirk nicht we northwart sail

Facing the bleffarts and the gurly seas

That ser' out muckle skaith to mortal men.

Whummlin about like a waukrife feverit bairn

The gude ship snowks the waters o a wave.

Swithers, syne pokes her neb intil the air

Hings for a wee thing, dinnlin, on the crest,

And clatters in the trouch wi sic a dunt

As gey near rives the platin frae her ribs

And flypes the tripes o insuspectin man.

Northwart, aye northwart, in the pitmirk nicht.

A nirlin wind comes blawin frae the ice,

Plays dirdum through the rails and shrouds and riggin,

Ruggin at bodies clawin at the life-lines.

There's a sic a rowth o air that neb and lungs

Juist cannae cope wi sic a dirlin onding.

Caulder the air becomes,  and snell the wind.

The waters, splairgin as she dunts her boo,

Blads in a blatter o hailstanes on the brig

And geals on guns and turrets, masts and spars,

Cleedin the iron and steel wi coat of ice.

Northwart, aye northwart, in the pitmirk nict.

The nirlin wind has gane, a lowness comes;

The lang slaw swall still minds us o the gale.

Restin aff-watch, a-sweein in our hammmocks,

We watch our sleepin messmates' fozy braith

Transmogrify to ice upon the skin

That growes aye thicker on the ship-side plates.

Nae mair we hear the lipper o the water,

Only the dunsh o ice-floes scruntin by;

Floes that in the noon-day gloaming licht

Are lily leafs upon my lochan dubh.

But nae bricht lily-flouer delytes the ee,

Nae diving bird diverts amang the leafs,

Nae sea-bird to convoy us on our gait.

In ilka deid-lown airt smools Davy Jones,

Ice-tangle marline spikes o fingers gleg

To claught the bodies o unwary sailors

And hike them doun to stap intil his kist.

Whiles 'Arctic reek' taks on the orra shapes

O ghaistly ships-o-war athort our gait,

Garrin us rinram-stam to action stations

Then see them melt awa intil the air.

Ower lang this trauchle lasts throu the seas o daith,

Wi ne'er a sign o welcome at the port,

Nae 'Libertymen fall in!' to cheer our herts,

But sullen sentries at the jetty-heid,

And leesome-landsome waiting at our birth.

At length we turn about, and sail for hame,

Back through rouch seas, throu ice and snaw and sleet,

Hirdin the draiglet remnent o our flock

Bieldin them weel frae skaith o enemie.

But southwart noo we airt intil the licht

Leaving the perils o the Arctic nicht.



J.K. Annand

(The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-century Scottish Poetry)

Presence

All is not as it seems here. This is a land of illusion; the light plays tricks on the eyes, and the air is alive with the absence of sound. I’m seeing Svalbard from different viewpoints as we sail back into the fjord and our home port of Longyearbyen. They're conflicting. No one comes from Svalbard.

There was no ancient civilisation here. There is no indigenous population either, even the Inuits and Vikings steered clear. Individuals in Svalbard were and are transitory. Pyramiden is a ghost town, trappers have gone, whalers and miners still come and go but to a lesser degree. Today's settlements exist mostly for geological exploration and research or to maintain a political presence. Tourists will come and go. No one is born on Svalbard, women travel to Tromsø on the Norwegian mainland to have their babies. No one will have Svalbard written on their birth certificate. No one comes from Svalbard.

But everyone relates to their environment in some shape or form and if a human landscape is a map latticed with habits and rituals created over time, how then is empty wilderness mapped out? Architecture and man-made structures can serve as time-lines we can relate to, but geology with its greater timescale and slower  evolution doesn’t give away too many secrets. Traces of past human settlements in Svalbard are time-locked; whalers and trappers huts preserved by the dry Arctic air look much the same now as when they were constructed long ago. In the absence of physical markers there is no time-line, and memories survive only as echoes and shadows. 

Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on Svalbard is now populated mostly by university workers, replacing the coal mining community of the past. It's a purposeful and functional town, physically it’s like an engineering project in progress.The permafrost dictates how buildings can be sited and constructed; pipes are lagged above ground creating a big linear network, the bare bones of a settlement exposed. The coal fired power station with its permanent smoking chimney is there for the town alone, the sole source of energy. Communication masts, weather stations and scientific instruments lie alongside the disused mining structures. Visually, none of this looks unusual in the landscape; they fit in with the stark, uncompromising nature of it all. But it was thought a good idea to introduce non-Arctic colour to the university housing, so a Norwegian artist was brought in to choose the warm ochres for the houses. A huddle of earth amidst the ice and snow. A time-line in progress?

Longyearbyen now is full of contradictions. For all the hype about protecting the environment and the polar bears, coal is burned for energy, and raw sewage is pumped straight through the middle of the town into the fjord. If you want to sail north from Europe and take some whales back with you, well that seems to be ok too. One law for the land, one for the sea, none for the atmosphere. Or might protection of the waters potentially inhibit exploration for oil, if and when the ice cap melts? Already oil companies are set up around the Arctic waiting for that time. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that politics is the driving force here. 

This is a fascinating and unique place in all respects. It's also incredibly beautiful in an extreme and barren sort of way. But there is a need for people to somehow connect with and value this unique environment for what it is and not to solely exploit it for what it's got. Although it's far away from most of us and difficult to relate to, ordinary people just like us live, love and work there - it's not so different in many respects. It's also very much part of us ecologically. What happens here environmentally will effect us all - we can't escape that. It's not only the polar bears who are at stake.

It's time to leave. I wish I could stay and experience the full cycle of Dark Time and the eventual return of the sun in the Spring. Feeling very privileged, I smile, take one last look at the magical lingering light then tuck it inside me to bring out and savour later.

This is the real version, a working Russian mining settlement with real working people, no ghosts here. But you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise; being on ships time we've arrived early, no one else is up yet and there's no sign of life. There's no sun either and the early dim light coupled with the overcast weather doesn't fill a heart with cheer. Barentsburg runs at a loss, but like other nations, it's here to maintain a presence in Svalbard. There's a drab heavy silence as we trudge up the steep icy steps from the harbour. I wonder what the residents will think of our presence, I'm not entirely comfortable with it myself.

Our group splits up and I find myself alone at the far end of town. I'm on a stationary conveyor belt that's used to transport coal; it's rickety and I'm cautiously clambering over it. The wind is whipping up a mixture of coal dust and snow and I'm trying to shelter my camera from the worst of it. I'm feeling self conscious of my camera. What I'm taking now is simply a snapshot and probably not be a true picture, certainly not the whole picture. I don't want to do the residents or the place a disservice. I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable clicking away; what I'm looking at may be visually compelling and inspiring, but recording it by camera doesn't feel like the right medium somehow.

Over my shoulder I see a solitary dark figure standing nearby, watching me. I tuck the camera into my bag and climb down to say hello. He throws me a toothless smile and shuffles his feet. Not speaking each other's language we both make clumsy attempts at conversation and laugh. Regardless of the lack of understanding, the spoken language is only one form of communication, real smiles can be stronger than digital images. He gives me a cheery wave as I go on my way.

Before I head back to the boat, I leave a gift. This time it's a piece of marble from the quarry on Iona, a pale cream and green pebble lighting up the dark shadows beneath the conveyor belt where I've tied it to. I hope my new friend finds and keeps it, as a thank you for his smile which I'll take home with me.

дома

How do you describe such a place? By how it looks? By how it feels? By its unnatural silence? To read its history in a book renders it soulless and academic; standing here it's neither of these things. Pyramiden is an abandoned Russian settlement and coal mining community. True, but... 

I want to say that it should be a busy working town as it once was, but the men who worked in this mine didn't live a life you would wish for. Every day whatever the weather, they trundled up the (very) long, steep hill to the mine for hard physical labour in an Arctic climate.  Whole families lived here with a school, arts centre, swimming pool, play-park, bars, sports centre, community centre, homes - just like in our own towns. Founded in 1927 it was once a mining town of 1,000 residents but abandoned in 1998 at a few days notice,  Russia no longer able to keep it functioning. Many of the young people probably knew nowhere but Pyramiden and suddenly they had to leave it. I don't remember any newspaper in the UK covering that story.

Growing up in a western country, the images we saw of life in the Soviet Union were of dark forbidding architecture, colourless lives, depressing scenes. That's not what I see here here. I see care in the architecture, considered spaces and attention to detail;  the school with decorative balustrades and generous windows, play areas for children with colourful swings and merry-go-rounds.  There had been heated and lit walkways and well built apartment blocks that wouldn't look out of place in the west today. Siberian grass was imported for the central square to make the residents feel at home. It's still growing. This isn't the classic image of a depressed Soviet town.

We enter the Cultur Huset, a big silent building at the far end of town. It has an expectant feel, like it's just about to open for a weekend of entertainment. Portraits of performers and glamourous celebrities smile down at us, children's drawings and ornate mirrors looking as fresh and shiny as the day they were hung. Notice boards announce who and what's on next. Then the grand staircase, looking for all the world like it was designed for the parading of swishy ball gowns and the clatter of heels,  its ceramic tiled stair treads slightly coggled by the many feet that regularly ascended them for evenings of song and dance. The house of dreams. Where are they now?

We creep quietly into the hush of the dark auditorium, feeling our way along the backs of the seats. There's a thick musty atmosphere in here. No one speaks. When our eyes adjust to the dimness, we spot the piano. There's a grand piano sitting in the middle of the stage. "Red October" with its delightfully out of tune keys just has to be played! I shuffle my way into the middle of the seating to imagine what it would've sounded and looked like when the theatre was alive and vibrant. My feet clank on something hard and I discover an old slide projector in a black metal box, clearly unopened for many a day. I surprise myself - I don't want to delve in. It feels like a grave or a shrine and I can't bring myself to take it out and examine it. I carefully slide it back under the seat, secretly hoping that any tourist who comes after us won't find it. 

On the way back to the ship in the twilight, I cast my eyes for the last time over the windows of this sad, forgotten town and wonder if it will always remain a ghost of itself. Then between white lace curtains and dead pot plants,  I catch a glimpse of a stuffed polar bear gazing back at me and I remember where we are.

                                                                          

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