Contemplations in sleepy town of Gryllefjord, empty after the summer season.
pnw & travel
Last Day in Svalbard
I had the day to myself. Jim had gone off on another boat trip, but I elected to stay behind today. The boat yesterday didn't agree with me, and after days of travel, hiking, and boat-tripping, I needed a day to just... be. I knew I'd probably miss out on polar bears, so I walked…
Barentsburg Ahoy!
An adventure by sea to the Esmarkbreen (glacier) and settlement of Barentsburg.
Arctic Fossil-hunting
How did fossils of tropical trees and plants make their way onto an artic archipelago? They didn't - it moved up north!
78 North
From the top of Platåberget, Longyearbyen looks small. In the late summer evening fog, a few lights are on, but the sun won't "set" for at least a few more hours. The bare, greenish hills and mountains close in around the village, and we can hear the ships horns and a helicopter somewhere, but the…
Chasing the Night
Our long day of international travel began with Jim's Russian friend and coworker, Dmitri, driving us to the airport. He assured us that a ten-hour flight was hardly anything, at least we weren't flying to Russia! It was hard to keep that in mind as we squirmed in our seats 8 hours in. We…
The Great American Eclipse
In the movie "The Dark Crystal," there is an event that occurs every 999 years ("The Great Conjunction") in which the three suns converge and create a powerful beam of light. The light tore a rift in the earth, revealing the Dark Crystal. It also allowed the creation of the evil Skekses and burned up one of…
Beezley Hills
I wrote (and photographed) this for the Washington chapter of the Nature Conservancy last year. This event is coming up again soon, and we need it more than ever. The proposed federal budget for 2018 cuts billions in funding for conservation, climate, and scientific study in general. This sort of program - generating bipartisan, urban-rural, hunter-conservationist engagement…
Letters from Ecuador 10.26.2006
Ten years ago this fall, I – freshly graduated from high school – flew to Quito, Ecuador, to teach English at an orphanage. Ok, well, really, I was getting out of my hometown, making my mark, immersing myself in language and culture, learning something new about a corner of the world far, far away from my tiny…
Letters from Ecuador 10.14.2006
Ten years ago this fall, I – freshly graduated from high school – flew to Quito, Ecuador, to teach English at an orphanage. Ok, well, really, I was getting out of my hometown, making my mark, immersing myself in language and culture, learning something new about a corner of the world far, far away from my tiny…
Anna A. Snook 