The journey begins!
One month before leaving shore, the route is planned.
Doffa went to Lyngen to try his seaman abilities on the little shrimpboat Unni. (And actually to make a first tune on his new Ukulele! – need to get this thing rockin’ till we get to Svalbard …)
From our last meeting, looking at maps and getting prepared for the route.
We did the graphic identity for the worlds northernmost philharmonic orchestra. 
People ask: Kvitbjorn? I´ve heard that name, I´ve heard about the Kvitbjorn disaster. What was that?
The Kvitbjorn disaster occurred on August 28th 1947 when, in heavy fog, the Short Sandringham flying boat Kvitbjørn, hit a mountain close to Lødingsfjellet in Lødingen, Norway. The flying boat crashed en route from Harstad to Bodø, the two stopovers between its origin Tromsø¸ and destination Oslo. All thirty-five people onboard (twenty-eight passengers and a crew of seven) perished, making the crash the deadliest in Norwegian aviation at that time.
FRIDTJOF NANSEN, here´s a quick introduction from Norwegian Refugee Council.
Looking around the office, we find that much of our work IS influenced by our localization “on top of the world”. One project we´ve been laying hands on lately has been creating visual “tools” for the 2011 celebration of great Norwegian heroes/explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen.
Explorer Børge Ouslands close encounter with polar bear mom+2 kids.
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Fridtjof Nansen had nearly reached the North Pole with his companion Hjalmar Johansen. Very close to the magnetic pole, they had to turn around to head towards the mainland further south, running short of food as they were. As they had to cross open stretches of water, the two turned their sledges into kayaks. As they prepared to enter their small unstable boats, Hjalmar Johansen was attacked by a huge polar bear, which threw him onto the ice. Johansen, known for his incredible strength, stretched his arms and held on to the cheeks of the bear.
Nansen, in the meantime, desperately reached for his gun, which he had already placed in his kayak. But the boat slipped away, and the great explorer had to struggle to get hold of his kayak and his rifle. Johansen, looking into the terrifying teeth of the polar bear could hardly hold on for much longer. But he kept his calm and respectfully spoke these famous words to his patron.
Advanced technology, supposed to bring us safe through the ice. Actually, she has the highest class as ice breaker, in other words better than Titanic had.
Here she is! MS Kvitbjorn in all her pride and glory. The owner of the ship gave us a round trip and bought us coffee at the local Statoil. He was a great guy with lots of scary stories about polar bears, torn off limbs and eating heads off doves on Greenland. Unfortunately he´s not joining on the trip, but we suspect that there are others in the crew with good stories of similar value.
Kvitbjorn is built in 1970, defined as a sealer, but converted to crabber in 2000. She has 600 m3 new freezing hold for crab. Life boat (aluminium) carrying 16 persons. (I fear we will be around 20 or more.)
