Everything was white. The glaciers: white. The mountains: white. The valleys: white.
I’d come to the frozen archipelago of Svalbard, somewhere between Norway and the North Pole, because I wanted to see the northern lights. In hindsight, it was ironic that I’d come for lights, because there was almost no light to be found.
I’d flown into this remote Norwegian territory in February, during the prolonged period of near total darkness. At best, a half-hearted twilight appeared during the day and then gave way to pitch black. I spent a night in Svalbard’s largest settlement, Longyearbyen, before meeting up with a small group for a 5-day snowmobile trip. In an icy field, our guide Marta helped me and a few others strap 60-liter dry bags to our snow-mobiles. Then, donning goggles and subzero gloves, we headed off into the roadless frozen countryside.
On that first day, my eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the subtle gradations of white. We rode about 20 miles toward Tempelfjorden across what seemed a monotonous landscape. Time slowed. When a small snow squall blew through, the glittering particles almost reminded me of winter back home in New Jersey. But I was a long way from New Jersey.
At night we camped in heated tents, surrounded by sled dogs that would sound the alarm should any polar bears wander by. The next morning, the only evidence of a sunrise was a mere wisp of ambient light. It was almost comical: I’d come here to experience more of the world, but somehow, I seemed to have found less.
However, the annual “dark season” that runs from October to February was about to end. Despite the polar bear paw prints we’d seen pressed into the snow near the Von Post Glacier the day before, the hot gossip in the dining tent that morning was about our planet’s most beloved star, which after months in hiding was due to reappear. The sunlight, I learned, would show first in the mountains. Then it could take another week for light to saturate the valleys.
“Have you seen the sun anywhere yet?” someone asked me at breakfast on the third day of the journey. “No,” I answered, anticipating a punch line. But there was none. Still, I noticed the horizon was glowing a little brighter, imparting a kind of whimsical giddiness onto everyone I met.
After a few days on the snow, I finally began to see subtle pastels across the formerly all-white landscape. The glacier ice had taken on shades of blue and lavender. At one point, the horizon glowed tulip-pink before turning purple and inky blue. To my surprise, I could make out the curious black noses and pointy ears of arctic foxes. Had all these details suddenly appeared? Or had they been there all along and I was only noticing them now?
By the time we arrived at the Isfjord Radio Adventure Hotel, I was grateful for simple sights and experiences that seemed miraculous: Grateful for the goggles that stopped my contact lenses from freezing to my eyeballs. Grateful for a thermos of hot water that rehydrated a dried package of soup at lunch. Grateful when it snowed (because it was pretty) and more grateful when it stopped (because the squalls made it impossible to see). I was especially grateful when the northern lights finally flickered across the sky in brilliant neon-green streaks.
But funnily enough, the northern lights weren’t the trip’s most dramatic sight. Each day during the journey, Marta and I would ride to a different high point to assess the horizon and report back. On the last day, our summit reconnaissance revealed something altogether new: a glowing orb just above the horizon. It was, astonishingly, the sun. After all that time without it, seeing it again was downright thrilling.
In that moment, I recalled something I’d once read: If you want to make someone happy, take everything they have away, and then give it all back.
Marta and I sat there on our snowmobiles and applauded the sun as best we could in our insulated gloves. Then we sped off to tell everyone the good news.
