So the first day was all inside, we listened to talks from the governor of Svalbard and the chief of police as well as an environment talk followed by an initial safety talk and clothing advice.
The environment officer gave us lots of information about the archipelago and all the rules they have to follow as much of it is protected in some way or another. Some of these rules included:
- not leaving litter to not harm the environment
- not to touch or take anything that could be cultural heritage (basically any old building or mine)
- don't take any fossils you find, or mess with nests/ lairs
- at certain times of the year some places you have to be careful when visiting so as not to interfere with any breeding birds
We were also spoken to by the chief of police who told us about all the search and rescue operations they do every year and gave us some examples of some of the rescues.
The first aid/safety talk was mostly scenarios of things that could and have gone wrong in the past including images of frostbite injuries and sites of avalanches and crevasse accidents ad where they occurred.
The whole point of they day was to make us aware of the dangers of Svalbard and show that the hands on training could save our lives. The day started at 9am and went until around 6pm so it was a very long day, but tomorrow we'll be doing two four hour hands on exercises 8-12 then 12:30-4:30.
We've been separated into 7 groups of around 16/17 people so we can all have a go at all 8 exercises and on Saturday we have a practical scenario exercises and written test. I'm in group C with Lucy and we're doing Rifle Training and Emergency Equipment/Camp i'll write another post with how it goes tomorrow
Miriam
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