Aboard The Isbjørnen II

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I confess that I had more than a few anxieties about the logistics of the arctic trip.  We would be based on a 75-foot boat, the Isbjørnen II (in Norwegian, “Isbjørnen” means “polar bears”) and that didn’t sound like an awful lot of room for nearly 15 people.  I’m a person who treasures his privacy and I normally demand a fair amount of space in order to be comfortable.  I worried a bit about sleeping accommodations, bathroom and shower facilities, and food.

My worries were laid to rest after a few hours aboard the boat.  To be sure, it was small, about the size of a public bus.

The boat looked particularly tiny when viewed in its setting.  The vast empty spaces of the Arctic would dwarf an ocean liner, let alone an ex-lighthouse tender like the Isbjørnen II.  But, it quickly became obvious that this was one sturdy boat.  Its hull is wooden, but made out of planks that are several inches thick.  The hull is sheathed in steel beginning a foot or so above the water line and extending to the boat’s bottom.

The boat has an all-French crew with Bernard, the captain, responsible for controlling the boat and for all major decisions.  He is assisted by Mattieu, a young jack of all trades, and Murielle, who managed all of the day-to-day activities aboard the vessel.  She is a whirlwind.  She ran an extremely tight ship, cooked our meals, and accompanied us off the boat, carrying a shotgun and a flare pistol for bear defense.  One morning she shoveled snow as we were hit by a storm.

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She is truly an amazing cook.  I ate as well on that boat as I’ve ever eaten.  On a couple of occasions after we returned from several hours of chasing wildlife, Murielle put down her weapons, closeted herself in the galley, and produced a meal of gourmet quality.

She also knew how to break up the extremely rare monotonous periods on the trip.  More than once she served coffee and tea on deck.

As for sleeping accommodations — well, they were cramped but they worked just fine.  Below decks was divided into several small cabins, each holding two bunks.  It wasn’t really possible to get two people into one of the cabins unless at least one of us was lying down, but we quickly learned that cooperation is a necessity on a boat like that.  I roomed with my friend, Claude Wegscheider, who also helped me enormously with the mysteries of the colloquial French that everyone else on board was speaking.

I grew to enjoy life on board the boat more with each passing day.  At the end, it didn’t seem cramped or uncomfortable at all, just a great place in which to stay while traveling through the Arctic.