A guide tells her story about how the Arctic environment teaches her to become more careful each day.
Transcription from interview with Kristin [14-10-2016], unedited:
“Often you think the more experienced you get the tougher you get. But here I noticed the more experienced I get, the more careful I get. Because you really realize the power of nature. What I really enjoy is that the weather decides everything here. if it is bad weather in a city, like Trontheim, you think it is just bad luck, but you will still do your plan. Here you can’t do that. If it is a bad storm coming, you can’t do what you planned. You have to accept it, deal with it, and learn to enjoy it.
People can sit in their house because of the storm and be annoyed about it. But it won’t make any difference. You can sit around and be annoyed with all the things you can’t do because of the storm, and you have to learn to take that as free extra hours. Free hours that just came to you, and you can use them to read, or relax. During this trip we have plans, but that will be updated day by day because it will change. A wise mentality here is to plan, have an idea and be open to change. Because the weather predicts.
And a lot of places you wish the weather to be good, but if it is raining you still do what you have planned. Here you can’t. Living like that affects you, because you don’t think in km’s or hours, you think in a different way. The weather and the wind decide everything. The same with the distances. 50 km of distance doesn’t tell you anything of how long it will take. If you really need the structure. If you can’t deal with: well, I guess there is no fishing today. Then you won’t be able. You have to just take it as it is. There is no point cursing about it. The weather doesn’t care about you being sour all day. You just take the good parts of it and accept the forces of nature.”