To get the feel of the polar night, I went back to Spitsbergen in winter. I went snowshoeing in the dark and experimented with headlamps and climbed a glacier in driving snow.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Going to the Arctic was immense for me.
I've always walked and climbed; spent a lot of time in the arctic and places.
I enjoy hiking and skiing, like most Norwegians. In winter, there will be snow for months on end. In the summer, there are the long evenings to enjoy.
Some years ago I gave a concert in the mountains with snow all around, and that was much colder.
The 'New Yorker' asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn't the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it's dying.
I grew up thinking of snow as a luxury you visit.
I've been to the Titanic in a yellow submarine and the North Pole in a Russian nuclear ice breaker.
In winter I go skiing on Saturdays and Sundays when the slopes are quieter due to changeover day for tourists, and in summer I hike up into the mountains at sunset, just as the village is settling down to dinner.
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
I had an interest in Scandinavian countries because I'd never seen snow.