In un long form pubblicato su Outside e rientrante in un progetto che culminerà nella pubblicazione, nel 2021, di un libro sugli esploratori artici, la giornalista e scrittrice statunitense Andrea Pitzer ci accompagna in un viaggio nelle acque dell’estremo nord – a bordo di una nave da spedizione, l’Alter Ego – alla ricerca delle tracce dell’ultima, tragica esplorazione polare del navigatore olandese Willem Barents, intrappolato e morto su un’isola dell’arcipelago russo Novaja Zemlja con altri suoi uomini, nel giugno del 1597, nel disperato tentativo di scoprire un passaggio tra i ghiacci che permettesse di raggiungere l’Estremo oriente. Nel corso dell’articolo la Pitzer riflette sull’ostilità e sulla bellezza del paesaggio artico, sul riscaldamento climatico e sulla sua vita privata.

I’m heading to the Arctic thinking about death.

Lying facedown in the top bunk of an overnight train inching from Saint Petersburg toward the Russian port city of Murmansk, I have a berth waiting for me on an August expedition sailing north.

I’m working on a book about Arctic explorers, and that means swimming in a sea of sorrow. In my train compartment, dead adventurers haunt me: Faithful sled dogs eaten by humans or swallowed by chasms in the ice. Sailors devoured by polar bears or their own shipmates. Even when no animals or people are stalking them, polar explorers have a tendency to starve or freeze or succumb to disease.

I’ve come to Russia at age 51 to re-create parts of William Barents’s third voyage to the Arctic from 400 years ago. Crossing and recrossing the sea northeast of Scandinavia, Barents, a Dutch navigator, went looking for a passage to China, but he and 16 men were trapped by sea ice during the summer of 1596. For nearly a year, they were stranded hundreds of miles above the mainland on Novaya Zemlya, a pair of large islands extending all the way to 77 degrees north. Five sailors died, including Barents himself, who perished at sea after they abandoned their ship and he and the remaining crew tried to get home on small boats. His quest to find the lucrative route to China was a brave but dismal failure.

Once we leave Murmansk, our boat will sail the same formidable waters. Setting out with a Russian crew aboard a yacht called Alter Ego, I’ll follow in Barents’s wake over the sea that now bears his name.

Immagine da Wikimedia.