| It was amazing to see how a place that’s barely been touched by man can thrive.
Streams boiled with arctic grayling. Residue settled undisturbed in the streams. And
pollen dusted over the land and just lay there.
|
Norilsk was the biggest hellhole I’ve ever been in. Stalin brought political
prisoners to this place above the Arctic Circle and worked them to death in the
nickel mines and refining plants. The people who work in those plants now are still,
in many ways, subjected to similar conditions. They hand-dip electrolytic plates into
corrosive chemical solutions. They breathe the fumes and die very early. Norilsk is a
town of rotting, spewing, belching, leaking pipes crisscrossing the tundra and
carrying pollutants that leave big brown spots on the ground. It’s a very depressing
place.
|
The leader of the expedition limited alcohol consumption to two shots of vodka and
one beer per night per person. The Russian adventurers protested the first week, but
the men survived by occasionally slipping off to have an extra drink.
The last night of the expedition, we were all drinking pretty heavily. We looked
ridiculous hanging on to tiny trees to stay upright while firing flare guns and
raising toasts to nature’s beauty. |
