During their different journeys of the MEMORIA Norway project, SpringerParker will update the Logbook on a regular basis.
It documents their route and events in forms of on location photos and descriptions sent directly via the mobile phone to this website.
Clicking at the geographical data to the left of the entries lets you follow their route on the map.
EXPLORATION AUTUMN (Nov. – Dec. 2009)
Nov-26-09 - 15:52
The moon and the melodies
Because it is already getting dark around 1 pm, we are hiking around, looking for sounds of the landscape that surrounds us. The moon provides at least some light and makes it easier for us to find our way through the dark time of the day. It's easy to imagine, why there are so many myths and stories told in and about this region for every object becomes a creature of the night.
Nov-24-09 - 10:53
Fox on the run
This shy little fellow lives around our base camp at the Stabbursdalen Resort. He was kind of curious what we are doing and we were curious what he was up to, what turned out to be playing around in the snow while catching mice. He was around for about half an hour, after that we only saw his tracks in the snow.
Nov-23-09 - 12:18
Breaking the ice
The water is quite powerful, it breaks the frozen surface at numerous spots and layers the ice. On these spots we are taking field recordings with our contact microphones to catch these crackling noises.
Nov-23-09 - 11:21
Stabburselva
Stabburselva, the Stabburs River is only partially frozen. The water keeps flowing underneath the ice and sputters quite noisy and powerful where the river is ice-free. About two weeks ago, people still saw the salmon jumping here.
Nov-22-09 - 13:30
Twilight
Because of refraction, there might still be plenty of light outside, even during polar nights. This twilight between sunrise and sunset can last for a few hours and may turn the landscape into a colorful scenery. Twilight is "tussmørke" in Norwegian and can literally be translated as "the darkness of the gnomes". In the old norse religion, it was considered a dangerous time of the day, where the trolls and goblins were active. On January 21, the sun will begin to appear on the horizon again.
Nov-22-09 - 12:26
Dreams about a white winter
Wherever we go and talk to people, they are telling the same story: this winter is much to warm and there is too less snowfall. The amount of rain and snow in this region was constantly decreasing over the last years. This has a big impact on flora and fauna. Temperatures constantly changing between over and under zero degrees C produce very hard icy surfaces out of the molten rain and snow which makes it very dificult for animals like reindeers to access food on the ground.
Nov-21-09 - 13:01
Fall of Polar Night
From now on the days are getting gradually shorter the closer the year is to the winter solstice, which here will be on December 21. The season of the Polar Night has begun. A Polar Night is 24 hours of darkness inside the polar circles. The amount of real darkness depends on your location, so even if the sun is not showing up over the horizon, it is not totally dark all the time.
