THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO
Endless summer… the end of the Midnight Sun period, above the Arctic Circle
Arnie is Explorer at Large, Northstar Travel Group and this is a monthly column he’ll be doing for WONDERLUST
In 2023, I did a cover story for Travel Weekly about cruises to the North Pole on the Ponant icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot.
It was a terrific trip, combining adventure, luxury (an Alain Ducasse restaurant on board), science (six researchers and working labs), expert lecturers and the Arctic’s glorious wildlife: polar bears, blue whales, walruses, seals, reindeer. We even had a close (and friendly) encounter with the nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker “50 Years of Victory.”
Returning from the Pole, we anchored near a glacier in Northwest Spitsbergen National Park in Svalbard, Norway, still above the Arctic Circle. It was the last day of the “Midnight Sun,” the summer period when the sun never dips completely below the horizon. At 11:37 pm that night, just a sliver of the sun remained above the horizon — just enough to bathe the glacier in an incredible orange glow and offer a once-in-a-lifetime — or, once in my lifetime — photo opportunity.
