The afternoon of the 25th, we flew (unfortunately) back to Tromsø, finding it hard to believe that we had to jet south to a city that was still so far north. While at the airport we met a wild character by the name of Joseph who paraded his 6' 4" body around with a small entourage, his flowing white/blond hair topped by an enormous, fur-fringed Cossack hat. He stood out like an immense dandelion and I was sure he must be some offbeat Russian oligarch.

During our second day, I planned to hike to the seed bank, but was told I need to take a rifle. This was protection from Polar Bears that often roam the area. I said that would be a bad idea. I’d probably end up shooting myself in my foot. My brother-in-law, Chris is a hunter and he said,”You don’t want to mess with polar bears. You don’t hunt polar bears. Polar bears hunt YOU. So we took a bus to the seed bank, something I had been curious about since I learned of it. There’s not much to see. We were lucky to find it open with a fresh supply of seeds from India and Africa coming in.

The more you explore Svalbard the more interesting it gets. Being at the top of the world was wreaking havoc with our circadian rhythms. At the end of October, the sun rises at 10:38 AM here and it sets at 2:34 PM. And the window of daylight closes more about 20 minutes every day. Soon Longyearbyen would be enveloped in shadow, hidden from the sun. It made you want to sleep late and go to bed early. The cold made you seek warmth which tended to make you doze. Something like hibernation was always on my mind. Was this some ancient gene that resided deep in my mammalian, DNA?

It takes an hour and a half to fly from Tromsø to Longyearbyen Airport, about 700 miles. Thick clumps of clouds hung low and smoky on white peaks as the small jet taxied for take off, but once in the air, scattered clouds gave me grand glimpses of the Arctic Ocean. When we landed, we would be standing above 78° latitude north. When you’re at 90º, you’ve reached the pole.

On March 3rd, 8 months and 12,000 miles earlier, we had been at almost the same latitude south, Zodiacing amongst massive Antarctic icebergs, humpback whales, surrounded by the great South Ocean and its unworldly, ice-bound continent. We had gone from the bottom to the top of the planet.

Tromsø is calm, restful town, which was just what we were looking for, but there was also plenty to explore. Excellent food, charming shops and several fascinating museums, including Norges arktiske universitets museum⁩ (covering the history of the Sami (Lapland) people and Norwegian-Finnish History), the Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art and Tromsø Public Library and Archives, whose interior stairs looked remarkably like one of those mind bending Escher drawings.

These mountains are the vertical variety, impossible to climb, and there is no evidence anyone here has tried. No trailhead or hotels or villages for tourists. Just wildness, forbidding and unforgiving. All I could do was blink in awe, and look on like a little boy stunned by the sudden appearance of Santa Claus.

We are well into the Arctic now and the balmy days that we had passed in Copenhagen and Stockholm are behind us. The bus stop was on one of Bodø's streets, only a couple of blocks from our hotel. No bus terminal for this ride. Past experience had taught us to make certain where to catch buses that weren't located in terminals, like this one. We had nearly missed several in Spain and Chile and Argentina and it wasn't fun.