🌠 long study tour: northern lights, reindeer, and hot chocolate

📍Tromsø, Norway

As my bare feet part with the wooden platform, feelings of panic, anticipation, and oh god, am I really about to do this??? ripple through my shivering, half-naked body.

Jumping into near-freezing Arctic waters had not been in mind when signing up for my core course, Polar Biology’s, long study tour in the very Northern city of Tromsø. I had imagined trudging through snow, maybe even seeing a polar bear or two, but surely, most definitely not this.

Moments after I hit the water, the cold pierces through my toes, legs and torso, making its way to my brain, materializing as OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. My feet might just freeze into icicles and break off.

In the sauna, I sweat out the previous few minutes. The stabbing cold and pounding heat neutralize into a slow, steady calm, and I am at peace.

the water at night,
lit so you can see the fish and jellyfishes

the sauna

This was just one of the many memorable experiences of my trip (probably because of the pain, also because of how amazing I felt afterwards – I would highly recommend a hot sauna + cold plunge experience!), and by the time you finish reading this, I hope to convince you why the Polar Biology long study tour trip to Tromsø is (in my unbiased opinion) the best one 🙂

Walking through the city of Tromsø those first few days felt surreal – I’d look up every so often to see myself surrounded by towering white mountains. What amazed me was how much of a city Tromsø was – I had expected a remote, quiet town with how up-north it is, but it was quite well-populated with people, restaurants, shops and more.

Pro-tip: Be on high alert when walking around outside with food. The Tromsø seagulls are MONSTERS… here’s exhibit A (exhibit B + C not caught on camera):

On a more positive note…

… the views we witnessed on our hikes were incredible. Along the way, we learned about the local flora (crowberry, juniper, arctic willows and more!) and fauna (we saw moose poop, a lemming (dead), and the occasional reindeer!). It was great to finally experience the fieldwork and habitats that we had learned about in class.

rudolph n friends!

💡 Fun fact: Reindeer are actually the same animal as caribou! They just differ in location / whether they are domesticated or not.

Each day, we also attended a presentation or two on different topics in Polar Biology, engaging in discussions with local researchers, ecologists, and environmentalists. Additionally, at The Arctic University Museum of Norway, we learned about the indigenous Sámi people who inhabit the region of Sápmi, which includes Tromsø / Northern Norway,

On a luckily calm and sunny day, our class boarded the Hermes II and ventured out to sea. We spotted a few harbor seals, adopted a few crabs and starfish, and drank some unbelievably delicious hot chocolate. I also got to try my hand at steering the boat, and learned how to re-route the Hermes II to avoid collisions with other boats (= certified boat captain).

Of course, this blog post would be incomplete without the mention of what many in my course (including me) were most excited about for this trip – the Northern Lights. Since Tromsø lies above the Arctic Circle, we had a pretty good chance of seeing the lights in Northern Norway.

Our guide drove us 40 minutes away from the city and its light pollution, stopping at a remote, dark spot where another tour group had already arrived. At first, we only saw a faint, pale gleam in the sky (which the unsuspecting passerby would easily mistake for light clouds). Several minutes later, the lights became much more prominent, forming visible white sheets against the dark sky.

Though the lights appeared white in person, the iPhone camera in night mode + our amazing tour guide’s long exposure lens were able to capture their actual green color. The photos below are not photoshopped, I promise!

*Photo credits: currently searching for our tour guide’s name!

Despite not seeing the lights’ characteristic green color, the experience was just as amazing. It amazed me how often and quickly the lights would change shape, completely transforming their pattern and configuration in the sky, going from simply outlining the mountains to rising upwards from their peaks.

If you look closely at the rightmost photo above, you can spot a shooting star in the upper right corner! That was just one of the few we witnessed 🙂

Now I’m back in Copenhagen, and still can’t believe all that I was able to see and learn in Tromsø on our long study tour. Besides crossing off a good few bucket list items, the trip was also a great opportunity for me to get to know the lovely people in my Polar Biology course and bond over our shared experiences and fascination of the Arctic.

I’ll probably keep raving about how amazing my long study tour was for a couple more months (or years). For the meantime, this post will do.

If you’re considering taking Polar Biology at DIS Copenhagen, feel free to contact me with any questions you have about the course in general / long study tour. As you can probably tell, I’d be happy to talk more about it and offer some personal insights.

Thanks for reading, and talk to you soon!

— Nat