Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 4th by Enrico Lucca and Ellie McGrew

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog.

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

July 4th by Enrico Lucca and Ellie McGrew

This morning we woke up and went to the town of Malmberget which can be seen across the valley from our cabins. Malmberget originally began as a classic mining shanty town and is still built around the mining industry. Tragically now it is being destroyed by the mine itself. This town of a couple thousand began to develop a large sinkhole in the 1960s and LKAB has bought part of the town and homes in the affected areas.

The entire town will no longer exist within the next 20 years. We walked around a neighborhood close to the deformation zone where it was incredibly run down. Mixed among the remaining homes were the ghostly remains of walls and gardens outlining the areas of houses that have already been removed. Looking through the fence you could see the giant hole a block or two away where the ground is collapsing. It was impossible not to wonder when it would expand and consume the land that you were currently walking on. Afterwards we headed over to the old sports hall where there was an exhibit showing Malmberget’s history. The display housed different pictures from community events such as dances, concerts, and pageants and also old class photos from the 1960s and 1970s of the local school. These images depicted Malmbergert in happier times before its slow destruction. In the gym was a large photo display of houses throughout the town from different years and old mining photos. A large model of the town helped display the layout of Malmberget. Finally we went to a historical recreation of the original shanty town where people were selling goods from the old buildings and homes. The shanty town is one of the few things in Malmberget that will be preserved and moved.

After lunch, an hour and a half drive led us to the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Laponian Area”. At the Naturum Laponia Visitor Centre, a guide showed us the exhibit and explained why a 9400 km^2 large area in North Sweden was designed as a World Heritage Site in 1996.

Laponian area is one of the 32 World Heritage Sites whose selection was based on the combination of unique natural and cultural values. This site contains exceptional natural beauty and it has been occupied by the Sami people for over 2000 years since the transhumance of reindeer herding. However, the exploitation of natural resources, which started in the early 20th century in Norbotten County, has posed several obstacles to the reindeer herding and to other activities which are impressed in the culture and in the history of the Sami communities living in the area. One of the most severe obstacles is represented by the numerous dams and their connected infrastructures, i.e. power lines and roads, which are used to regulate the water level in the Lule River for the production of electric power. 25% of the Swedish hydropower comes from the Lule River which was originally a basin composed of 7 lakes and alpine streams and is now transformed into a huge lake.

On the way back to our cabins we had to slow down and stop many times in order to herd lots of reindeer off of the road.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 4th by Enrico Lucca and Ellie McGrew

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 3rd by Brittany Hancock-Brown and Mark Patterson

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog.

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

July 3rd by Brittany Hancock-Brown and Mark Patterson Today was the day we hiked down from Tarfala Research Station. When we got up, there was a lot of wind and rain and therefore very cold and not a promising start. We all gathered and packed our things and went down to the dining hall for breakfast. Instead of Adam making breakfast, we found Pia in the kitchen baking wonderful smelling bread. Along with the usual oatmeal, we had a great breakfast before we headed out. We headed out and the rain had stopped falling as hard—So that was good! We had to take our time coming down from the station because of the wet conditions in the weather. While waiting for the group to catch up at the first bridge, there was a Bohemian Rhapsody jam session. We also noticed that there was much less snow on the mountains than there was when we had walked up only days before. The water levels, consequentially, were much higher in the rivers and creeks that we crossed. By the time we reached the valley, the clouds had cleared up and the weather became ideal—cool, gentle breeze, and a lot of sun. Overall the hike back was much smoother than the trip up. We stopped at the Sami Restaurant and I had a reindeer burger. It was delicious!

After we reached the end of the King’s Trail, we waited for the bus to arrive. To our delight, the bus was massive, posh, and we had it all to ourselves! We switched vehicles at the airport, which was preceded by a challenging game of Frisbee with high winds. The new vehicles were private vans which we are renting for the remainder of the trip. We drove to get dinner and some of us chose to eat at Frasses and others ate at a pizza place. We then went to Coop to get food for the next few days. It took longer than expected since we had to coordinate meals with our new roommates and because some of us still have trouble reading food labels and navigating foreign stores. Then we started our hour and a half journey to our cabins. In our van, we passed the time by playing “guess the Disney song” game which involved Martin playing random Disney songs on Spotify and having us try to identify which movie it came from as quickly as possible. When we finally arrived at our cabins, we were delighted to see how wonderful our living spaces are. We have comfy beds, private bathrooms, full kitchens, a TV, wifi, and even a sauna! Perhaps the best thing of them all is the perfect view from our kitchen windows of the midnight sun.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 3rd by Brittany Hancock-Brown and Mark Patterson

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 2nd by Saloni Sheth and Laura Schultz

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.


July 2nd by Saloni Sheth and Laura Schultz

Today, we did not struggle. At least, we didn’t struggle as much as we did on Sunday, the day of our canceled flight and carrying too much luggage. After a nice morning consisting of the normal breakfast at 7:30, we had a break until 10, when we went with Pia, one of the station’s research assistants who is also the station’s flower expert. We had a field excursion to the nearby vegetation monitoring area. Here, we identified ten different species of Arctic flora in various stages of blooming. Studying and identifying plants based on their physical attributes is called phenology.

Pia then told us all about how the blooming of several of the species has varied over the past few years, most likely due to how the climate in the area is shifting. In addition, she explained to us that the reindeer that roam the valley like to eat more than just lichen, as many people imagine they eat. During the winter, lichen is pretty much the only vegetation remaining available to them, so that is what they settle for. However, when more plants and greenery are in bloom, the reindeer are happy to eat that instead. We found this particularly interesting because we too had thought that reindeer mainly subsisted on lichen year round.

Pretty much this whole time that we were out, it was quite cool and rainy, so we were happy to head back to the station for lunch. However, the fog that had enveloped the valley did allow for some very nice pictures.

After the fog lifted and we had a nice lunch of fish and potatoes, we met back in the classroom for two final lectures here at Tarfala. The first was given by Ninis about the REXSAC project that she and Dag have recently established. The second was from Mark about public history and Arctic tourism, which we paid careful attention to since our research topic is the impacts of tourism in the Arctic. To wrap it up, we had a really interesting discussion about the day’s reading about a Sámi man named Nils Sarri who was integral in establishing tourism in the Kebnekaise area in the early 20th century.

When the lectures concluded, the rest of our night consisted of dinner and plenty of free time in order to prepare for our departure in the morning. It feels like our time at Tarfala has flown by, and we have learned so much from our field trips. We will be sad to be going, but are excited for the next chapter of our Arctic adventure in Gällivare.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 2nd by Saloni Sheth and Laura Schultz

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 1st by Evan London and Kasja Lundgren

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

July 1st by Evan London and Kajsa Lundgren

Our second day in Tarfala valley began with our long awaited lecture on the cryosphere (consisting of ecosystems with year round frozen water including glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost ecology), presented by Ninis Rosqvist. We began by discussing what should be included when designating the Arctic region. The Arctic has many overlapping definitions what the cutoff for the Arctic region? Should it strictly be considered regions above the Arctic Circle, excluding southern Greenland and almost all of Iceland? Or perhaps the area of the map above above the 60th parallell, including the cities just north of Stockholm? Or even defined by more natural boundaries such as the tree line and the Arctic Ocean’s convergence zone? There’s no easy answer, but all of these potential definitions are important to consider especially when determining which actors should be able to dictate the outcomes within our planet’s northernmost regions.

After getting a better idea of the icy regions we were considering as ”Arctic”, we started to look at how the polar region has been fluctuating in temperature over time. The human recorded weather data date back to the 1700’s, although records from this era need interpretation due to the differences in measuring practices between our present and the past. Filling in the rest of the long term record requires more scientific inquiry and data collection. The methods include some truly ingenious techniques such as biochemically analyzing trees preserved within peat bogs and even looking at the formation patterns of stalagmites and stalactites within deep caves. With our ability to look at the temperature pattern of the last 10,000 years, we can see that the overall trend has been one of polar cooling, however looking at the last century of the graph is a whole different story. We couldn’t help but think of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth where similar graphs were shown, and yet even with all this public attention for the past 10 years, it still seems like not enough is being done to mitigate anthropogenic climate change.

To lighten our spirits after contemplating the drastic changes to the polar climate, we began preparing for our hike on Storglaciären. Our kit provided by TRS included: an ice pick-axe, a harness and crampons. With our equipment stowed in our packs, we set forth to the tounge of the glacier ascending on the moraine. Before stepping on the glacier we had our lunch and had good look at the processes in the paraglacial area (the new land revealed by the receding glacier). We could now very clearly see the old 1910 extent of the glacial ice and the moraine of broken up bedrock that the glacier carries with it through the natural motion of ice melt and gravity pulling the mass down the valley floor.

Now acquainted with the periphery of the glacier, we proceeded to ascend to the Automatic Weather Station near the very top. From this vantage point within a bowl of mountain rock we could see across the valley we hiked through the day before last (29/06/16) along with the upper reaches of Kebnekaise, truly a sublime vista!

But what then to make of this Arctic sublimity? To answer this question we needed to return to the lecture hall at Tarfala for Mark Safstrom’s lecture on H.C. Andersen’s The Snow Queen and the Arctic narratives of 19th century romanticism. This romantic period found expression in a desire to make progress through regress, to make a return to our primordial natural state. The lure of the untamed icy expanse for those seeking fame and adventure inspired a multitude of expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, some of which ended fatally, but all became part of the larger narrative that the polar regions of the Earth were only meant for those who could muster their masculine might to proclaim themselves masters of the ice. It’s funny to think what these early male explorers would think of our group with our strong women majority who have clambered the icy slopes just as spryly as they did.

After the day’s activities, we’ll have no trouble sleeping, preparing ourselves for what tomorrow brings~

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: July 1st by Evan London and Kasja Lundgren

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 30th by Karl Blomgren and Kathy Limes

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.


June 30th by Karl Blomgren and Kathy Limes

In the morning, we got up and got a lot of breakfast. We also made delicious sandwiches (although we didn’t make enough L). Those sandwiches accompanied us on the lakewards journey that Ninis assigned us. We were told to walk down to the frozen lake, then walk north to the base of the mountain and back to Tarfala. We walked along the river and investigated (and debated) the geologic history of the region.

We saw a few glaciers, and were enchanted by a group of reindeer that we found wandering along the snowfields in the valley. We also found some stone circles, where the brave sandwiches tragically perished in the line of duty. We hiked back to Tarfala along the base of the mountain, trying our best to avoid the patches of snow (or battlefields, as some argued) along the way, and had a couple of really dramatic snowball fights when and as we failed. Kajsa tried to tackle Martin into the snow, but was unsuccessful, much like Katy’s attempts to hit anyone with her snowballs.

After we returned, we had a two hour break. Katy took a nap, Karl stayed on the E rock and mourned the sandwiches.

Then, we had an outdoor lecture on the geologic history of the region from Ninis. She talked about what we had discovered on our hike – how the landscape was shaped by glaciers, how the lake was formed, what kinds of environments were found there, and what it might look like in a hundred years. She also dazzled us with the massive time scale of the valley’s history, and of the ice ages that shaped it.

We then went inside to have a lecture with Mark.

He talked about the Arctic in the enlightenment age, and more specifically, Carl von Linné and his perspectives on the Sàmi. We talked about travel writing in that age – how it was a combination of genuine information and fantastical storytelling, and had a rousing discussion on the assigned reading.

After that, we had beet soup, beans, and bread for dinner, and then the official day was done. Karl went on a hike, and Katy went to sleep. The evening hike was directed towards Kekkonen peak, but also managed to include Tarfalatjårro.

This is a picture of some of the hikers on Kekkonen peak.

Tomorrow, we’re going on a hike up one of Tarfala valley’s glaciers. We can’t wait!

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 30th by Karl Blomgren and Kathy Limes

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 29th by Martin Alesund and Rachel Gutierrez

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

June 29th by Martin Alesund and Rachel Gutierrez

Hiking Day

In the early morning, everyone got up on time and we all met up at the bus to head to Nikkaluokta. The weather looked ominous. We were not thrilled to have to hike in the rain. We arrived at the Nikkaluota station and gave our bags to the helicopter, visited the guest station, and started our journey.

Martin befriended a rabbit within with first five minutes of the hike. That was the only form of wildlife we saw today. The cheerful group hiked further and then the rain came out of the sky like a faucet. We were not cheerful anymore. We were soaked. Then, we walked and walked and walked some more in the rain.

The rain stopped and we took of all of our not-so-waterproof raingear. “Idiots” the clouds thought and then the rain started again. We were again bathed in nature. We ate snacks along the way and eventually lunchtime came. By this time, Rachel was feeling light-headed and it had actually not rained for a while so we were slightly happier. We had a beautiful lunch near a beautiful riverside and we were able to see glaciers on the mountain.

Then, we started on the very tough part of the trail. We had to stroll through rivers, stumble through glaciers, balance and climb on rocks, and try not to fall over at every step. By this point we had hiked most of the way and were feeling very exhausted. When we finally say the research station, we cheered! We had made it! Our legs were not going to fall off before we got there! The 24 kilometers / 16 miles was not a cake walk. It was the toughest as scariest thing I have ever done in my life (Rachel).

Then we had a lovely dinner and showered and are now ready to sleep for the next century to recover. Tarfala research station is the coolest place we visited by far and if you already didn’t google it, do it now.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 29th by Martin Alesund and Rachel Gutierrez

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 28th by Enrica Lucca and Ellie McGrew

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

June 28th by Enrico Lucca and Ellie McGrew

Exciting day with planned visits and unexpected meetings in Kiruna

Personal profiles:

My name is Enrico Lucca and I am 23 years old. I am pursuing the last year of a Double Degree in Environmental Engineering at KTH and at Politecnico of Torino, in Italy.

Ellie McGrew: I’ll be starting my fourth year at the University of Illinois this fall majoring in earth and environmental sciences with a minor in geography. I really enjoy outdoor adventures and a trip to the Swedish Arctic sounded like a great one; plus this trip included different topics which link closely with what I’m interested in studying.

After an energizing breakfast we walked through the town aiming for the base of the “Midnattsolstigen” (Midnight Sun Trail): a 2 hour trail which goes up to the top of the Luossavaara mountain (724 m). Even before starting the trail the idea had been to come back there during the “night” to experience for the first time the Midnight Sun, but the weather forecast was not encouraging.

The Kiruna municipality has installed panels all along the trail giving information about mining, Sami history, reindeer herding, geomorphology and flora and fauna of the Luossavaraa mountain. Once we hiked through the woodland and crossed the tree line, we ended in the low alpine zone from where we had a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape. We observed several signs of the so called technological mega-system for Norbotten, which was built in the early 1900’s to support the mining activities: power lines, highway, railway, waste rock terraces, the remains of prospecting activities and old open pits which are now filled with groundwater. These infrastructures and the old pits represent obstacles for the reindeer herding, which has its routes from the winter to the summer grazing fields going in the SW- NE direction.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 28th by Enrica Lucca and Ellie McGrew

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 27th by Brittany Hancock-Brown and Mark Patterson

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

June 27th by Brittany Hancock-Brown and Mark Patterson

We have arrived in the Arctic!

Today started bright and early, as all the Illinois students and Enrico got up to catch the 5:12 bus from Universitetet. We then hopped on the train to Arlanda and met up with Dag, Kajsa, Martin, and Karl. We checked our bags, printed our boarding passes, and headed to the gate. As we boarded, we got good news that there were empty seats on the plane and that Enrico, Saloni, and Laura wouldn't have to wait until the afternoon to fly to Kiruna!

We landed in Kiruna, checked into our rooms, and went out for pizza. After lunch, we reconvened with Dag and Mark to start the day's activities. First, we met Dan Lundström from Hjalmar Lundbohmsgården and hopped on to start our bus tour of Kiruna. Our first stop on the bus tour was near the base of Luossavaara, which is where LKAB originally wanted Kiruna to be relocated to. Dan went on to explain that the political leader in office chose not to have Kiruna relocated there, but rather to the east of town. As we took in the views near the base of Luossavaara, Mark pointed out a peak in the distance and identified it as Kebnekaise. We continued on our bus tour and Dan pointed out several different areas and buildings. One of these areas was a former block of houses that had been torn down and replaced with art pieces and a park to preserve the memories of those who lived there. We continued on past the site in which the new city will be located and then looped around back towards town.

We got off of the bus at the Kiruna church. Dan gave a brief history of the church before we entered. He explained that the church was built to be more of a meeting place rather than a church, which is why the church does not contain any religious symbols. The inside of the church was breathtaking. We had a discussion regarding the church's significance to the people of Kiruna and how it may change when it is taken apart and moved.

Our tour of Kiruna continued on to the inside of City Hall. We covered a variety of topics including the art within city hall, the four different deformation zones of Kiruna, Sami mittens, and the demolition of old city hall and construction of the new city hall in 2018.

We continued onward to the Hjalmar Lundbohmsgården where we ate reindeer, salmon, or vegetarian sandwiches with coffee and tea while Dan wrapped up material for the day. Some of the points he made during his conclusion that we found particularly interesting were that the people of Kiruna have more faith in LKAB than the community and that if the mine were to close, one-third of Norbotten's 250,000 inhabitants would be affected in some way or another. He also described his organization and how it acts as a sort of middle-man between LKAB and community leaders.

Our day together concluded with the group eating delicious pasta and talking about the days events. Everyone is exhausted from a long and busy day, but excited for tomorrow starting off with a hike on the Midnight Sun trail!

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: June 27th by Brittany Hancock-Brown and Mark Patterson

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Environment and Society in a Changic Arctic Field Notes: June 26th by Laura Schultz and Saloni Sheth

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

June 26th by Laura Schultz and Saloni Sheth

Today, we struggled.

Saloni’s morning: The morning started off rough with over-packing issues, so I rushed through getting ready and headed to the bus stop to meet the rest of the group. Unfortunately I missed the bus—and my group—by three minutes and the next one wasn’t for another half hour. I resigned myself to getting to the train station by foot, which was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I accepted the fact that I looked like a mess in the rain, running with two suitcases, a hiking backpack ready to burst at the seams, a knapsack, a jacket, and furry hiking boots. Thankfully, I found the rest of our group waiting at the train station, and when they saw me arrive out of breath with my luggage they all applauded. I thought my morning journey would be the roughest part of my day—it couldn’t possibly get any worse, right?

Laura’s morning: I thought the day would be just fine when I woke up. I got out of bed, showered, and had breakfast all in good time. From there, I started to get delayed- I had to forgotten to take my trash out and my last minute packing of loose items took longer than anticipated. But the real problems began when I had to leave Lappis and carry all of my luggage… which included a suitcase, a duffel bag, my backpack, a boarding bag, and a tote bag. It was a combination of my own overpacking and my mother’s encouragement to bring more that led me to be this weighed down. Thankfully, after getting it all outside, I caught the bus to the subway and then the subway to KTH, a process that looking back was relatively pain-free. However, once we all stepped out of the subway station, the worst part of my day began.

The journey:

Walking to Dag’s office on the other side of campus was painful for all of us. And it certainly didn’t help that it was raining. Once we got there, we dropped off our extra luggage and thought the difficulties were over. That was when we got the news that our flight had been cancelled, and that the next flight Norwegian Airlines could get us on wasn’t for four days. After looking into alternate options, we found an overnight train that left that afternoon and would get us to Kiruna by morning. Excited to take the scenic route, we were content with this plan. Then we realized that nine minutes in between train transfers was too risky and could leave us stranded in the middle of the night in a random city. Now the best option was to book a different airline for the next morning. This would work out fine for ten out of the thirteen travelers in our group, but for the three of us that would be on standby (the two of us and Enrico) it was just one more struggle. But we have no other choice, so here we are, waiting at the airport and hoping three people just don’t show up for this flight. The positive highlight of yesterday is easy to pick out—when we were headed back to Lappis for the night and Enrico bounced off of the bus walls… Maybe it wouldn’t have been funny on any other day, but after a day like yesterday, any sort of comic relief was very welcome. :)

Environment and Society in a Changic Arctic Field Notes: June 26th by Laura Schultz and Saloni Sheth

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: Week 3 at KTH by Evan London and Kajsa Lundgren

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

By Evan London and Kasja Lundgreen
 
Hi, Kajsa and Evan here!

Time has flown by fast, the third week at KTH has now passed and we are leaving for Kiruna and new adventures tomorrow. This week has been quite busy with lectures together with Dag where the focus has been on the Swedish north, colonization, and heritage in Arctic politics, amongst other things.

It’s been interesting to learn how the Swedish North played a crucial role when Sweden was about to re-define itself during the 19th century (after the Great Power era). The North was of great importance in many aspects; resources, science, and power production. Due to the industrial revolution, which reached Sweden around 1870, there was a huge increase in the demand of steel. This also contributed to the northward expansion and colonization.

During the industrial revolution people didn’t care much about environmental protection, not that they didn’t care about their surrounding nature, but more of a common understanding that no matter how humanity changed the environments, nature would always win in the end. One might call it “the unbeatable power of Mother Nature”.

In the late 17th century there was a shift in this way of thinking and the first law for bird protection was imposed in the year of 1888 in Germany. In the states national parks were established and this idea was then brought to Sweden by Adolf Erik Nordeskiöld who argued that Sweden also should establish national parks. Laponia was at the same time acknowledged as a World Heritage. This lead us into the definition of heritage and how historical narratives have been used to highlight the importance of certain individuals in order to make claims and “prove” historical connections between nations and locations of interest. An example discussed in class in South Georgia where Great Britain and Argentina are using history to tell their own story of how they are connected to the island.

As the week drew to a close, we presented in our essay groups about the status of our research. Everyone had great presentations with a lot of good questions, a really good position for us to be in before heading up to the Arctic.

Friday was Midsummer, and the american students went south to the celebration in Nynäshamn. It was a great representation of an authentic traditional midsummer complete with a maypole and folk dancing. There was no better way to end the week before we head up to the Arctic on Sunday.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: Week 3 at KTH by Evan London and Kajsa Lundgren

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: Week 2 at KTH Royal Institue of Technology

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

Here you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

By Karl Blomgren and Katherine Limes

This week, we started to get into the real material of the course. On Monday and Tuesday, we talked about the history of the arctic - beginning with a general orientation to the Arctic on Monday (and an introduction to the essay topics for our final projects), and then a discussion of the human history of the Arctic.

We talked a lot about the exploitation of the Arctic by humans, what resources were there and how we utilized them (including a discussion on what a resource actually is), and a discussion of the history of humans in the Arctic, from ancient times to the present. We talked about the earliest settlers of the Arctic, and were introduced to some of the major schools of thought in archaeology. We then covered our essay topics, which were mostly to do with the effects of the modern usage of the Scandinavian Arctic on the Arctic as it is today, and as it will be in the future. On Tuesday, we covered some of the modern uses for the Arctic, including resource extraction and science. At the end of the lecture, we had an exercise role-playing an international arctic expedition crisis meeting.

In the next part of the week, we talked about the history, culture, and economic life of the Sámi. We began with a general introduction to the people of Norrbotten, including the Swedish minorities that live there, and then we began discussing and watching Sámi film. All the films we watched were made by Sámi filmmakers. We began with a feature length film about the Kautokeino rebellion by Nils Gaup, and continued the next day with two short films by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Liselotte Wajstedt, both of which were on modern Sámi. We then went to the Nordiska Museet exhibition on the Sámi, which we discussed in the context of the former exhibition.

Ending the week was a lecture on the geopolitics of minerals, and a group seminar on current mining developments on Greenland.

Karl’s bio and week:

I follow the engineering physics programme at KTH in Stockholm, the city where I’ve spent most of my life. I decided to take this course out of personal interest in the topic, and a fascination with the polar regions.

The time of year being as it is, I’ve spent much of my time outside of class this week following the European football championship. Between matches I’ve also tried to stay on top of the readings, and enjoy the lovely summer weather.

In class I’ve particularly enjoyed the different group exercises and discussions we’ve had on this week’s topics.

Katy’s bio and week:

I study Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois, although I’m originally from Colorado. I chose to take this course because I was interested in the history and impact of technology, and I wanted to see the arctic.

In no particular order, this week I’ve done a ghost tour, visited the beach by Lappis, and gone to Helsinki for a quick visit. In class, I’ve enjoyed learning about the geology of the arctic.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: Week 2 at KTH Royal Institue of Technology

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Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: Week 1 at KTH Royal Institue of Technology

This article and the images originally appeared on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic blog. 

There you can read about the Arctic course taking place in the summer of 2016! The participating students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology together with the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are writing about their experiences throughout the course.

Week 1 at KTH by Martin Alesund and Rachel Gutierrez

This week, we were given a brief overview of the course that we are taking. We also learned some general knowledge about the arctic, including: global climate change, melting glaciers, the rise in sea level, and the melting permafrost. Our main question we want to answer is: “How the society is affected by the climate change and its consequences?” We also learned that there are economic interests in the arctic that are also being affected by the climate change and climate change may pose a particular threat to these economies. The goal of this course is not “reverse” or “stop” climate change, but rather to better prepare for what is going to happen in the future and how to cope with these changes to the environment. Ms. Rosqvist was supposed to have lectures on Thursday and Friday but she was unfortunately ill so we watched a video supplement that described reindeer herding and how climate change is changing the routine of the Sami people and reindeer herding.

Bio on Martin and Description of his Week: My name is Martin Alesund and I am 25 years old. I am studying the first year in the master program of Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Infrastructure at KTH. I´ve been living in Stockholm my entire life. Here comes a short summary of my week, since me and Rachel were at different places. The day before the course started, I wrote my last exam before the summer and had a massive migraine afterwards. The headache came back three days straight so despite coming to school for the 45 minute course introduction I was home in bed. I worked during the weekend. So my week wasn’t great and I´m really looking forward to the upcoming course.

Bio on Rachel and Description of her Week: My name is Rachel Gutierrez and I am from the University of Illinois in the USA. I am majoring in Atmospheric Sciences and minoring in Geology and I will be starting my fourth year in the Fall of 2016. I decided to take this course because I am interested in climate change and I thought it would be an amazing experience to be able to go to the arctic and learn about it. This is also my first time traveling to Europe, so my week has been quite exciting. I arrived on Tuesday, June 7th with some other classmates and spent a long time dragging our luggage from place to place as we tried to find the place to pick up our keys for the dormitories. Once we were settled, which took a surprisingly long time, we rested for the upcoming day of class. After class, my fellow U of I companions and I went touring around Stockholm. We went on a boat tour of the canals and bridges around the city and got to learn a little bit about the buildings that are on the water. We also went to Skansen, which I personally loved because I got to see many baby animals, moose (my favorite), and walk through 19th century villages and learn about the Swedish history and way of life at that time. Next, we visited the Vasa Museum which was absolutely incredible! I learned so much about the tragic fate of the Vasa ship and it was extremely fascinating to see how so many artefacts from the ship were preserved, almost as if a piece of 17th century Sweden is frozen in time. My first week has been filled with many new experiences and challenges, but I am certainly enjoying my time exploring a new place.

Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic Field Notes: Week 1 at KTH Royal Institue of Technology

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Malmberget, 3rd and 4th of July

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Jessica Malmberg and James Buckland

Early in the morning we pile in the car and drive from Dundret to Jokkmokk, just a half hour south. A few minutes in, the car comes to a screeching halt - four or five reindeer are on the road, trotting nervously back and forth, coats molting and hooves clattering on the thin concrete stretch of road.

Reindeer are free-roaming - they are herded, loosely, by region, but they are not fenced in - and these were free-roaming down the road. Our tour guide at the Laponia Naturum yesterday mentioned that they are sometimes hit by cars and then not reported. Instead, we sit and wait for them to cross the road. Then we drive on, a little slower and a little more aware.

Close to Jokkmokk, we drove over a bridge, crossing  Lule river, and suddenly we see colorful paintings. There is a small dam sitting across the river, but the roar of the waters is nothing compared to the brilliant paintings done across their floodgates. In the 1970s, when the dam was constructed, local Sami artists designed their facades - bold red and yellow swathes with symbols and glyphs strewn across them. It is beautiful and very, very strange. The control building above the dam has is colored, as are the concrete buttresses holding up the wall. It doesn’t look like art, but it doesn’t look like a dam either. I think it’s quite beautiful. There is a bitter story behind the dam and the artwork, though. When the plan of the dam was presented, the people of Jokkmokk and especially the Sami people started protesting, since the dam would have a big impact on the Sami village and the surrounding Jokkmokk area.

In Jokkmokk we went to the  Sami cultural museum, Ájtte. It is a phenomenally well-designed and engaging museum, with beautiful art and artifacts, reconstructions and reproductions, informative text and interactive exhibits alike. Our tour guide, a very patient young Sami woman, takes us through some of the main exhibits and talks with us at length about the history of the Sami people - their daily life, their customs and costumes, and the reindeer-husbandry lifestyle. A large portion of the museum follows reindeer husbandry across a yearly cycle, tracking eight seasons for eight stages of the animal’s reproductive cycle. As the reindeer move across Norrbotten, so do the individual Sami families who own them - as they have done for hundreds of years. It is a very beautiful and very engaging museum - we could have spent eight hours there and not seen it all, it was so much.

After having lunch outside the museum we head back north towards Porjus where we are going to have a guide tour in the old hydropower station. Porjus is the first great hydropower station build in Sweden in 1910. It was mainly built to provide the mines and the communities around the mines with electrical power. Porjus is today the 4th greatest hydropower dam in the Lule river, producing 480 MW/year. When arriving in Porjus we are met by a big brick building and a quite big powerplant. Today is the dam’s machinery room underground in the rock so you can’t see so much of the hydropower dam. Just the empty river and the earth dam.

Coming into the reception we are greeted by our guide, Ida. She shows us around the old building, which was the station house at the time of the opening of the hydropower plant. We get to see the old control room with lots of buttons and sticks. In the center of the room is a table placed with two really old telephones, which was how the staff was communicating during the beginning of 1900. Thereafter we took the elevator down 50 meters underground to see the first turbine and generator that was built 1910, at that time only producing 17 MW/year.

At the reception we see that the two Sami girls that we had as guides at Naturrum the day before also guides at Porjus hydropower plant. We would think that Sami people that is reindeer herders wouldn’t want to work part time at a place that have affected their environment tremendously. But this shows the complicated relation between the Sami people and the industrialisation of the Norrbotten area.

After the visit at Porjus we went back to Dundret, Gällivare, to start packing our things for the travel back to Stockholm the next day.

The course came to an end at the 4th of July. We have seen so much, visited various places and driven to many places in rain, walked up the mountains surrounding Tarfala in the midnights sun. But it was time to go south. In the morning we packed our things and had a final discussion regarding the course. Thereafter we headed back towards Kiruna, to fly back to Stockholm. We have learned so much, had so many interesting discussions thanks to everyone who was a part of this course!

Malmberget, 3rd and 4th of July

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Malmberget, 2nd of July

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Tina Cheng and Nathalie Pekleh

Our first activity of the day was travelling to New Boliden's mine -  Aitik - in Gällivare. It is the biggest copper mine in Sweden with an area of 7000 hectares. Our guide for the day was Olle Baltzari and he told us a little about his background and his way from a job as a mechanic to a job in the mine. To extract the copper from the waste rocks they use explosives every week and place it in certain areas in the pit and detonates it. The copper ore are then transported to a nearby milling plant to be crushed into smaller pieces. They are able to extract 1 kg of concentrate of copper out of one ton of waste rock. Additionally, small amounts of silver and gold can be extracted.

We learned that the price of copper has dropped. New Boliden is trying to make their operation more efficient by reducing overtime of administrative personnel. However, they are continuing the production with the same capacity as before. We were then introduced to Sofia Lindmark Burck, one of two environmental coordinators working at New Boliden. She told us about her work there and what she was doing at Boliden. Her work involved planning, gathering and analysing data pertaining to New Boliden’s amount of pollution in the nearby environment. She emphasized Boliden’s attempt in lessening its environmental impact by conducting regular tests in nearby water for traces of toxic metals. They are also gathering and analysing data pertaining to dust and noise to make sure the mining activity is not affecting the health of neighbouring communities too much. Even though New Boliden is not required by the Swedish law to conduct some of these procedures, they choose to do it anyway to make sure that the nearby surrounding is out of harm from pollution.

After we received information from the environmental coordinator, Olle Baltzari guided us around the mine in a tour bus. We were (at least I was) amazed by the size of the open pit; it was 1 km across to the other side of the pit. He later took us to the milling plant and showed us the giant mill that grounds the waste rock into smaller pieces. Despite that, we were not able to see the actual crushing; everything was operated in containers sealed shut. On the way back to the entrance of the mine we saw a green healthy looking hill, very much in contrast to the otherwise gray dull looking landscape. Surprisingly, we found out later that it was the place where they brought the sewage waste from Stockholm. The tour ended with a group photo-op at the big shovel machine called 994 and we had a lunch break in the lunch room of New Boliden.

We remembered Olle telling us that most of people working in New Boliden Aitik live within 50 km radius from the pit, and a majority of them have grown up in Gällivare and Malmberget. We wondered if working in an ore mine would be the future for any of us after the ending of this course.

Following lunch, the group traveled to Laponia, a Swedish national park. The area was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 for its outstanding universal values in terms of nature and culture. Due to both of these values being present, it is referred to as a combined or mixed heritage site. Laponia’s environmental attributes include a visible documentation of Earth’s evolutionary history, ongoing and past biological and geological processes, a variety of natural beauty, and biological diversity. It is also a site of cultural heritage, as evidenced in the extraordinary remains pertaining to Sami culture.

Within the national park, we visited the Naturum; it’s name (“nature” and “room”) emphasized Laponia’s emphasis on both environment and society. We watched a short movie regarding the park, and were then given a guided tour of the exhibition. The exhibition detailed many aspects about Sami culture, especially their reindeer husbandry practices. Around Laponia, there are many unspoiled human remains from Sami in the past, including bark stripping and circular arrays of stones that were utilized for fire pits. The group was lucky enough to have Sami tour guides that engaged in reindeer husbandry themselves, and we were able to ask many specific questions regarding their culture.

After that, we made a quick detour to a waterfall that was visible from the Naturum. It was a wonderful example of the majestic beauty that Laponia has to offer. This sublime ending tied into our understanding of the national park as an area with extraordinary environmental and cultural values. We witnessed the cultural importance and transhumance of the site through our time at the Naturum exhibition, and caught a glimpse of Laponia’s natural beauty by the waterfall. Unfortunately, Laponia is facing threats of exploitation from mining and processing companies that want to use the land for national economic interests, and it is important to consider how this would affect the values of and attributes of the land.

Malmberget, 2nd of July

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Malmberget, 1st of July

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Victoria Wallace and Pontus Wallin

This was the first day of fieldwork in Gällivare, and we’ve started to see why this municipality calls itself the mining capital of Europe. The focus of today’s study was Malmberget, a small mining town situated just ten minutes away from central Gällivare.

In 2010, LKAB mapped out the extent of the iron ore bodies that lie beneath Malmberget and announced that they would continue mining, which meant that the entire community would eventually need to be relocated. As we walked by the fence that separates the community from the gaping mouth of the open-pit mine, we were struck by the reality that every home we passed would soon be claimed by the ever-expanding mine. But, paradoxically, if the mine were to close, many of these homes would be probably be abandoned as well. Scattered across the town are mätplintar: instruments installed by LKAB to measure the ground deformation caused by the mine.

With the shaky future of Malmberget on our minds, we next began to study in more detail the history of the small town. The day continued with a guided tour by a local resident in a reconstructed shantytown near the pit. The little wooden shacks were built as a tourist attraction to demonstrate how the mining community may have looked at the end of the 19th century, and the guide spoke about the everyday life of the miners and their families.

Beyond the shantytown was the tall green Kaptensspelet, rising above the pit. While looking over the 800 meter-deep pit, we listened to the guide speak about the current phase of the move to Gällivare. The municipality has ambitions of constructing “world class arctic town” for the dislocated citizens, despite concerns regarding the growing tailing pond from the Boliden Aitik mine. If an accident were to occur with the tailing pond, the area could potentially be flooded by waste from the mine. This raises some serious questions, not least of which is whether Malmberget’s history of short-term city planning is repeating itself. Like in Kiruna, LKAB is very involved in city planning, and is even contributing funds to a local project to create a comprehensive model of the city of Malmberget as it stood around the year 1960.

It was a good day to draw comparisons, between Kiruna and Malmberget, between the past and future, and between the perspectives that were represented (LKAB, some local residents) and those that were not (notably Sami, youth, and women).

Malmberget, 1st of July

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Kiruna, 30th of June

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Daniel Klen and Jessica Sellin

Today was our first full day back from the Tarfala Research Station! It was sad to leave its majestic landscape and all the hiking it provided, but we’re excited to move onto a new landscape and the adventures it holds.

In the morning, we visited the Hjalmar Lundbohms museum. The museum was Hjalmar Lundbohm's house, the founder of LKAB, and shows the history of the mining industry in Kiruna. The pictures in the museum depicted the miners and their families that lived and worked in the Kiruna area during the early 1900s. We were able to get an idea of life in Kiruna for early miners and their families from the perspective of the miners and settlers of the area. The museum also focused on Lundbohm himself and the national value of Kiruna through pictures, where the royalty inaugurated railway stations, schools, and other significant buildings or institutions. Borg Mesch, who was a legendary photographer in the area of Lappland, took all of the photos. He settled down in Kiruna when the town was first starting, and hence he photographed everything from the time of Kiruna’s birth, i.e., the mining, buildings, railways, settlers, and Sami people. The museum also contained an exhibition that aimed to present the city move from different perspectives, independent from LKAB and the municipality. It covered reasons, background, difficulties, and opportunities through comprehensive time lines, illustrations, and maps.

In the afternoon, we visited the Sami cultural center in Kiruna, which showed the Sami history and culture from a Sami perspective. In comparison to the Sami exhibit at the Nordiska Museum, which portrayed the Sami culture from an outsider’s perspective, the Sami cultural center portrayed the Sami culture from a Sami-centered organization. In addition to traditional Sami tools and clothing, there were exhibits showing different facets of Sami life. There was also a story told in which you could sense the anger and frustration among the Sami people towards the settlers and the state of Sweden. The Sami cultural center gave us additional insight into what role the traditional tools and clothing showcased in the Nordisk Museum played in Sami culture.


After our museum visits, we drove to Gällivare and Dundret, where we will spend the rest of the course. Along the way, we stopped at Svappavaara to view a Swedish cultural site. In total, our day was spent engaging with many cultural heritage sites and the narratives they tell about Sweden and its people.

Kiruna, 30th of June

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Tarfala to Nikkaloukta, 29th of June

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Klara Bergman and Skylar Lipman

On Monday we had to leave Tarfala to head back to civilization in Kiruna. It was a sad moment for most people, at least for us, even though all of us probably longed for pizza and water toilettes. In the morning we were greeted by sun and blue skies, promising for a hiking day! We were fortunate enough to be able to walk on the snow without snowshoes since the night had been cold enough to keep the top layer crisp. After eating a strengthening breakfast consisting of porridge and saying our farewells to the crew at Tarfala research station we headed out. 24 km of hiking waited until we would reach the Nikkaluokta mountain station and some well deserved rest.

The hike started out well with some downhill walking in beautiful terrain with patches of snow and water. We followed the Dárfaljohka river and were sometimes overwhelmed by the beauty around us. Flowers, waterfalls and small mountain birches were just some of the natural features surrounding us.

For lunch we had crisp bread (for the last time in a long time probably), snacking on Freja’s trail mix throughout the day along with whatever else we scavenged back at the station. As our hiking paces varied greatly throughout the day, we experienced travel with shifting complexes of our peers. While phasing in and out of these various hiking groups proved interesting, hiking on ones own can lead to new discoveries, discoveries having less to do with humans and more to do with the rapidly changing landscapes.

Indeed, on your own you can move slowly, not feeling guilty to turn and stand in one place, photograph extensively, halt to examine undersides of leaves. While hiking on our own for a decent leg of the trip, one of us spotted one reindeer. In the relative silence of fewer pairs of feet, I heard surprisingly rhythmic, quick-paced plodding in the shrubs along the path. It took some time before the white fur and short, velvety antlers appeared from the dense clouds of mountain birth and willow, or “vide”, which currently sports equally velvety budding leaves.

During our hike we saw:
78.7 lemmings
1 mouse
1 toad
27 seagulls
1 reindeer
1,893 mosquitoes

Back in Kiruna we all enjoyed the benefits of being back in the city and had a good night’s sleep in real beds. THANK YOU to all the people at Tarfala research station who made our stay so amazing! From the highest peaks to the living glaciers, the smallest budding flowers and ancient lichen, we will not soon forget our experiences in Tarfala. Truly our sincerest gratitude!

Tarfala to Nikkaloukta, 29th of June

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Tarfala, 28th of June

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Corinna Röver

A warming climate causes glaciers to melt over time – but how do you actually measure the speed of glacier retreat? Today, we set out to learn more about a method used to answer this question. When a glacier recedes, it leaves behind glacial moraines – that is, soil and rock material transported and deposited by the glacier. These moraines, now exposed to sunlight, become hospitable to vegetation and lichens (consisting of a symbiosis of fungi and algae) start to grow on its rocks. Our field task was to measure the extent of these lichens, in order to calculate the time at which the glacier retreated and its moraines became exposed. Lichens grow approximately 0,2mm per year, and the bigger the lichen, the ‘older’ the moraine. We followed in the footsteps of researchers of the 1970s and used rulers to measure the diameters of lichens. Although this method is nowadays replaced by rock isotope measurements that offer more precise results, it is literally a good hands-on method to specify the age of the glacier-moraines. Our field task subjects were the Rhizocarpon geographicum lichens on two neighboring moraine ridges of the Storglaciären.

As we ploughed our way to the ridges through the slushy snow - our snowshoes had become a natural extension of our feet at this point - we were accompanied by two students from Stockholm University who came to Tarfala for their studies. They explained they use infrared measuring methods to investigate climate change, biodiversity and altitudes of micro climates in high alpine vegetation areas above 1200 meters above sea level. As this work has not been carried out before in this region, their research results will create a baseline that further research can build upon.

After the two had disappeared behind some slopes, we took our measurements, defined the aspects of the lichens (which direction they faced) and compared our results from the two ridges: while the lichen-diameters of Ridge number 1 extended from 5 up to 8 centimeters, the lichens on Ridge number 2 were considerably smaller, ranging from 1-3 centimeters in diameter. With some help from Pia and Hanna, we came up with the following conclusions: Ridge no. 1 is older and its rocks have been exposed since the 19th century or longer, while Ridge no. 2 might have become exposed in the 1910s – however, it still remains very difficult to date the moraine ridges through our method of lichen measuring.

We then treated ourselves to some knäckebörd-sandwiches and were free to explore the area on our own in the afternoon. Most of us hiked (in groups or individually) up to some nearby mountains surrounding the valley. Needless to say, the hiking in the stunning, sunny Tarfala valley area had become a favorite part of our stay at the research station.

Tarfala, 28th of June

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Tarfala, June 26

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Eleanor Althoff and Lisa Bysell

Because summer here is really one long day, we will begin recounting our days experience with yesterday nights’ hike to Tarfalatjårro. We learned several things on this excursion: 1) Wet rocks are slippery 2) The journey up takes around three hours (not two) and 3) James can get snap chats on the mountain. The hike up was very taxing, but the view at the peak was well worth the journey. Although it was cloudy, the deep valleys and high mountain peaks were clearly visible. At the top we took a few moments to take in the view, snap a couple picture, and record a video for a friend’s wedding before heading back down. We arrived back slightly before 23.00 and after notifying those in charge, we headed for bed.

The next morning started with a blue sky. This was a considerable change from the rain and clouds we were greeted with earlier in the week. What was more exciting though was the Sami representative that spoke to us later on in the morning. He informed us about the annual reindeer herding migration, the consequences of climate change on these activities, as well as describing the ICR (International Center for Reindeer Herding).  He made a very compelling presentation, which demonstrated how adversely affected the Sami people are by activities such as prospecting, mining, municipality planning, wind power, and military presence. We were all very grateful he could take the time to speak to us and join us on the hike scheduled for the early afternoon.

After the lecture it finally time for our hike to the glacier called Storglaciären. This glacier, which is located in the Tarfala Valley, has been studied for about 70 years and is the most monitored glacier in the region. We were equipped with harnesses and snow shoes before hiking up to the glaciers. Gunhild Rosquist, Ninis, held short lectures about glaciology, Storglaciären, and the surrounding areas along the way. For example, we learned that Storglaciären is 3,2 km2 and that the ice is as deep as 280 m in some areas. We also learned that glaciers behave differently due to regional climate. It is the summer temperature (melting the ice sheet) rather than the amount of snow fall that determines the mass balance of the glacier.  A warmer climate will result in longer summer periods and may contribute even more to the shrinking of the glaciers despite heavy snow fall in the winters.

Storglaciären is located just below Kebnekaise, which is the highest peak in Sweden. This will probably change soon as the peak has a glacial top that is likely to melt within a few years. The northern summit that is currently the second highest will then be the new highest Swedish peak. We look forward to learning more about the glaciers during the many hikes to come in the next few days!

Tarfala, June 26

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Tarfala, June 25

This series of posts shares field notes from the study abroad course "Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic." The course begins at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then students from the University of Illinois and KTH travel north to conduct research in the Arctic. This blog was originally posted on KTH's Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic webpage.

by Lucia Dunderman and Jessica Malmberg

Our first full day at the Tarfala Research Station! Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favor today. There were showers throughout the morning resulting in a few hours to work on our essays and enjoy the various buildings of the station and the view of the surrounding mountains.  Before lunch, we all congregated to the lecture hall in order to present our research questions and theses of our essays to the staff of the Tarfala Research Station. This allowed the staff and our program leaders to give us feedback and further information regarding our topics and research plans. This was a great learning experience on how to present our topics and incorporate new information and ideas from a group.

During lunch with the staff, we discussed our plans for the afternoon due to the change of weather. Luckily, the weather cleared up and we were able to go for a hike in the afternoon down Tarfala Valley to study the vegetation there. We first went to the research station’s test square, a plot of land that the staff constantly monitor for ten different plants. This information is published on a website which gathers seasonal change in vegetation around Sweden. The Tarfala test square was still deep in snow due to the lingering cold weather in the Swedish Arctic.

Facing opposite of the test square was the outermost edge of the 1910 moraine of Storglaciären. This moraine was decorated with large rocks, most likely resulting from a rock slide on the surface of the glacier that slowly moved to the end moraine. This moraine formation is different from the other glaciers in Tarfala Valley which are defined with more till. This glacier has been monitored since 1946, thanks to Walter Skytt who started the research on the glacier since it was reasonably safe to work on.

We traveled to exposed land in the valley to spot certain plants there. We were able to find most of the plants except a few since the weather has been cold and the rock has not been exposed for long. The vegetation was much more diverse than expected, it is just a case of looking closer. There were also various animal droppings including reindeer, Arctic hare, and lemmings. Reindeer mainly eat lichens, mushrooms in Autumn, grass, and small bushes. With climate change, these bushes would actually be increasing in numbers in the Arctic if it wasn’t for the grazing reindeer.

To finish our hike, we went to an outlook to take a current picture of Storglaciären. This outlook has been used to document the change in the glacier since the early twentieth century. Being at this outlook was a way to be a part of continual glacial research since we helped document this change through photography. This hike was a great introduction to the valley and the vegetation of the area.

Tarfala, June 25

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