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Article: Farewell to Svalbard: Mark Evans writes his final entry from the Arctic Year Project in Svalbard, as he and the last group of young people who chose to spend their gap year camped at 78[degrees] north, prepare to come home. (gap year focus).(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Geographical
- Article date:
- September 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Circle Publishing Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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With the summer solstice behind us, and reindeer calves now wobbling their way around the tundra, our journey around the sun is almost at an end. On arrival last summer the first group of ten young explorers were greeted with mud, water, 24-hour daylight and hundreds of geese grazing on the tundra. As the sun arced lower in the sky each day, we saw the first stars, and in September on calm evenings the sea froze over. Each snowfall lingered progressively lower down the mountainsides, and as the daylight hours dwindled, streams froze solid, while tundra and fungi turned golden brown. The sun vanished in mid-October, and November greeted us with the arrival of the polar ...