Extreme Arctic 2010 – final days

Alison McLure, the IOP’s National Officer in Scotland is to join the British Schools Exploring Society (BSES) Extreme Arctic 2010 in Svalbard this April. During the expedition she will keep us up to date with regular features on her research project and life in the Arctic. Here she writes about the end of the expedition.

The whole expedition has reached Longyearbyen and the end of the expedition. The last week in science camp was taken up with repairing and packing equipment, finishing and writing up the science reports. The goose hide, automatic weather station and tidal gauge were all dismantled. Finally we had a four day walk out to the main town of Longyearbyen.

There was still a lot of wildlife to see, including new arrivals of migratory birds, such as great northern divers and little stints. The weather was kind enough to allow us to climb quite a few mountains. It is sad to reach the end of the expedition, but it’s good to be clean again and we are all looking forward to going home.

The Arctic is a stunning place to be with its complications and contradictions. I hope the young explorers are going home with a sense of the delicate state of nature here and make sure that they do their utmost to protect this utterly incredible planet on which we live.