Work Text:
BLACK ICE
The following are a series of digital diary entries and fieldnotes written by K., a junior member of the retrieval team sent to investigate and explore Outpost Fristed on April 15th. Names have been abbreviated as part of precautions taken to protect the identities of the team members who were involved in this privately-funded mission.
Before I begin the presentation, I will provide some background information on the reason for this retrieval expedition. This mission is part of my personal and privately-funded inquiry into the mysterious disappearances of the five members of the Sidja Group Repair Team sent to Outpost Fristed, consisting of Dr. Rosa De La Torre, Walter Heath, Graham Casner, Dr. Karina Schumacher-Weiß, and Jónas Þórirsson.
At the time of this recording, I have already amassed and categorised the collection of notes and documents from the 2010 Sidja Group repair team, collected by the retrieval team on this trip. All team members involved in the retrieval mission have since returned safely. Their personal and official notes were collected and recorded in the same manner as I had done for the 2010 Sidja Group repair team to preserve consistency in format and to help with event chronology. Any unrelated personal details have been redacted or edited in this recording as they are not necessary for the presentation. However, copies of all unabridged and unedited written and recorded material have been retained separately for further reference and to ensure accuracy.
This is K.’s diary entry for the first day of the retrieval expedition.
Day 1 – April 15th
It looks like I am finally going to Svalbard, although I still cannot really believe it. Svalbard is the sort of place you often hear stories about, but will never likely visit in your lifetime unless you have a good reason to.
I was first introduced to the story of the Sidja Group repair team by a course mate at the university who claimed to have insider knowledge about an ongoing research inquiry into a mysterious mission in the underground caves of Svalbard that ‘went tragically wrong’. We were both taking a postgraduate advanced geology course at that time and I was looking for some field research experience. Furthermore, I had prior experience with mountain climbing and had participated in an undergraduate trip to Iceland. I was understandably interested and agreed to hear more of this story, and so he introduced me to Professor M.
Professor M is an unassuming and straightforward person. Upon my arrival, I noticed that he had a small group of people gathered in his office. I was first provided with brief details and made to sign a non-disclosure agreement if I was interested to know more about the employment opportunity. Following a short interview and presentation of my academic interests and achievements (which i had been told to prepare before this meeting), the group of people and Professor M proceeded to engage in a discussion of existing information about the Sidja Group repair expedition. I soon found out that Professor M and the people – all postgraduate students from different majors – were part of the small group of researchers which someone had been secretly putting together with the intention of sending an actual team out to investigate Outpost Fristed. Professor M explained that he was in contact with this documentarian who had spearheaded the entire research project.
Over the course of a few months, I got to better understand the nature of the project and the details of the ill-fated 2010 repair mission. The natural question of the documentarian’s true identity had come up many times in these discussions, but Professor M would either evade it or tell us that the documentarian did not wish for her personal details to be revealed. The only thing we understood about her was her burning determination to see this investigation through to the end.
Professor M announced one morning, as we were all gathered in his office, that a date had been finalised for the retrieval expedition. He was one of the team members and he was looking for an assistant who could join the team to handle logistics, among many other things. Although potentially dangerous, he reiterated that it would be an excellent learning opportunity. We were excited at first, but soon sobered up with the realisation of the gravity of this mission. Professor M reminded us that the Svalbard incident had not been covered in any public headlines, nor had there been any successful official efforts to return to the outpost for investigations thus far due to suspiciously severe weather conditions.
In the end, I was one of the two assistants whose vacation schedules could accommodate a short three-day trip to Svalbard. My prior experience with outdoor exploration and climbing made me a suitable recruit for the expedition. Weather conditions at that time looked favourable for travel, and Professor M stated that the team wanted to arrive and leave as soon as possible. I was then introduced to the finalised group of researchers who would make up the retrieval team. Forms were signed and the necessary paperwork completed before I was declared an official member.
We go with the knowledge that there is a chance we may not return. Still, we feel a sense of duty to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the repair team. Regardless of the outcome, I am grateful for this opportunity and cautiously optimistic about my chances of survival.
If all goes well, we will be back in a few days.
The following are notes written on a separate page after this entry. While short and concise, they provide some insight into the retrieval team's first morning at Svalbard.
- We have arrived at Longyearbyen. The time now is eight twenty-seven in the morning.
- Briefing mentioned that Outpost Fristed is located ‘just south of the border to Nordvest-Spitsberger National Park’. We are waiting to rent our snowmobiles.
- The team looks to be in fairly good spirits. Our team leader has been discussing quietly with a local guide who will bring us to the outpost. We are still waiting.
- Slight delay in the process of releasing the snowmobiles to us. Time now is nine in the morning.
No other documents were submitted regarding K.’s personal or official notes on Day 1 of the expedition.
Material gathered from the other members document that the retrieval team arrived at Outpost Fristed at approximately 1015 hours. The team spent the rest of the day investigating the amenities of the bunker and surveying the compound of the outpost. They stopped in-between for lunch, tea and dinner. They left the outpost at approximately 1800 hours on snowmobiles for Longyearbyen, where they were slated to spend the night at a local motel.
This is K.’s diary entry for the second day of the retrieval expedition.
Day 2 – April 16th
Yesterday’s journey was rather tiring and I was too exhausted at the end of the day to make a proper entry. I intend for parts of these diary logs to be incorporated into my final report, and as such I need to write them carefully.
The team went straight to the main bunker after parking our snowmobiles, where we started the generators and tested out all the electrical appliances. Many of them were not working, but that was to be expected as this place has not been inhabited or visited in a while. The main door had been left unlocked when we arrived. A cursory check of the rooms revealed that the entire place had been left in a disorganised state, with furniture, boxes, and pieces of old equipment knocked down and left in odd places. Bedding was torn and thrown about all over the place, as if whoever had removed them had done so in a frenzied state of mind. We were unable to ascertain if anyone had quietly visited the bunkers in the last seven or so years that it had been left abandoned as any footprints would have been quickly covered up by the snow. However, it was clear that no attempts had been made to clean up or repair anything in this outpost since the day it was abandoned by the Sidja Group repair team.
I walked around the circumference of the main bunker and found several large gashes in the concrete along one side of it. These gashes were tightly packed with ice. They were about as tall as a human and ran in jagged, parallel lines. Four of the lines were evenly spaced, with a fifth line that was clearly separated from the rest of them by a larger margin. It was hard to tell what could have made those gashes, although at first glance I supposed them to be made either by the claws of a very strong and angry polar bear or some sort of pickaxe. I took several photographs of the gashes and reported my findings to the team leader.
A check of the kitchen at the back of the bunker located the source of the pungent smell which grew stronger as we went further inside – soggy cartons of rotting food which had long gone bad. The smell was so strong inside the kitchen that the team decided to open all the doors and windows to air out the bunker. Even with the strong winds, the air took several hours to clear, during which a few members of the team stayed behind to continue searching the living quarters while the rest of us went on to begin preparations for our assigned tasks.
We were subsequently separated into different groups based on interest, ability and specialisation to begin our in-depth exploration of the outpost. I was part of the underground group sent down to seek out the supposed ‘hellish’ cave which lay under the ‘icy rocks’ of the outpost, as was mentioned in the anonymous letter received by the documentarian. The other half of the team was sent to investigate the bunkers and to collect any important pieces of evidence they found.
We spent much of yesterday combing the compound surrounding the outpost for a natural or man-made opening of any sort, but we could not find any. We then decided to check the bunkers. A hatch was discovered in the floor of the storage bunker, covered by boxes and crates of supplies. This storage bunker was already unlocked earlier by the other half of the retrieval team. They found something of import in this storage bunker. I myself was not there at the time of the discovery, but a team member from that group related the events to us afterwards. However, for the purposes of keeping my notes organised, I will begin first with what my team discovered.
Under the hatch, we found a smooth stone-hewn passageway with built-in handrails. These handrails ended after a short stretch of walking. We descended further and located the cave as described, but found it to be disappointingly empty. By the time the team leader radioed us to reconvene at five-thirty in the evening, the team had not yet completed our full exploration of the cave, as we had discovered some passageways which we felt merited further study. We resolved to continue the rest of the exploration the next day.
It was during the daily debrief that we learned of the discovery made by the group assigned to investigate the bunkers. Their exploration of the storage bunker reported the same state of mess which we had found in the main bunker, except that the smell which pervaded the air inside the storage bunker was worse, described by most of the members as akin to that of ‘rotting meat’. Unlike the main bunker, the door to the storage bunker had been tightly locked and covered with a thick layer of rust. The team had to use a crowbar to break the lock open.
The interior of the storage bunker had been stocked with the usual crates and metal shelving, but the team also found evidence of habitation there, in the form of blankets and old clothing clumped messily into a corner. The source of the smell was attributed to the strips of degrading meat scattered around this pile. They also located two backpacks filled with written and recorded material, which they found to be belonging to the members of the Sidja Group repair team after brief examination of the contents. The two backpacks were immediately stowed away safely and kept under the watchful eye of a few members as the rest of the team went back to the main bunker to search for more of such notes and recordings.
We stayed overnight at a motel located in Longyearbyen. This arrangement seems a little impractical, as it would surely save the hassle of travel time if we stayed on-site. However, for the safety of the team and at the risk of disturbing any valuable evidence we might find in the bunkers, it was decided that we should not spend the night at the outpost.
We set off at seven-fifteen this morning, having been delayed by the aftermath of a particularly fierce snowstorm the night before which created immense snowdrifts in the parking area. We made it to the outpost in good time and continued with our work after a short briefing. The underground team once again descended the hatch and returned to the cave. We spread out to search the crevices for any openings we might have missed, but all of these passageways led to dead ends. Standing there in the middle of the calm and dull space with our voices echoing around the chamber, it was hard to believe that anything menacing could have risen from these depths to torment whoever wrote the letter.
Nevertheless, the team took many photographs and video recordings of the cave. Extensive and detailed notes were also taken about the structure of the cave with some additional information provided by one of the team members – a well-travelled geologist – about the possible rock types and formations visible from where we stood. A rough map was also drawn of the cave, with all possible passageways identified and labelled. All in all, the group spent about six hours down there. We returned to the storage bunker through the hatch for lunch and dinner breaks.
The group assigned to search the bunkers had managed to locate more notes, most of which were written hastily on slips of notepaper and shoved away or dropped into crevices and under furniture. Two of the technicians on the team were looking out over the compound of the outpost while they were examining equipment on the roof of the main bunker and spotted something in the distance. Three members of the team were sent out to investigate. They reported having discovered a ‘splayed, mutilated and rotting corpse of a mature adult reindeer’. One of the biologists who went with them, Mr P., examined the corpse. He was unable to determine what exactly had killed it but he ruled out the possibility of the attacker being a polar bear. He also noted that the corpse had not been picked at for scraps by any wild animals.
The underground team completed our exploration and documentation of the cave earlier than expected and we went back up to assist them. To search for the notes, we had to unscrew and shift fixtures and furniture. Most of the team spent the rest of the day doing this, and we all returned to the motel earlier than usual to sort out the collected written and recorded material.
With permission given by the documentarian, we viewed a few of the videos on the video recorder while sorting out the material to confirm that it was relevant and that it did belong to the Sidja Group team members. In that quiet room, the voices of the Sidja Group team were heard together for the first time. We were unable to make sense of many of the references in their conversations and logs as we did not view the recordings in a chronological order, but we could tell from the tones of their voices that they were tired and frightened. It appeared that Mr Heath, the repair technician and IT specialist, was also the one doing most of the recording.
I am currently sitting in the safety of my motel room as I write this. Longyearbyen is an interesting place and the scenery from my windows is impressive. I called my parents earlier, after dinner. Tomorrow is the last day of our exploration and to be honest, there is not much left to uncover. The outpost today stands as a shadow of its former self – bleak, empty, and unreliable. The splendid cave village which was reported by the team in the recordings is not there, and even I am finding it slightly difficult to believe that we did not find anything beneath the bunker. Still, the fear I heard in their voices was real. The state of the bunker when we found it already attests to the fact that the incident did happen. Something had happened in there, something which made the repair team so frightened and careless that they left the place in such a horrible state and disappeared altogether without a trace.
I remember standing still at many moments while looking around the caves and the bunkers, just pausing in my tracks and stopping whatever I was doing to get a sense of what it would have felt like to be here with the Sidja Group repair team, as one of the team members, facing whatever they were facing. I tried to imagine the chill and the loneliness, the sense of desperation to leave. We knew that the weather reports in those two weeks had detailed unusually strong blizzards which muscled on through the many nights without any signs of abating. I stood out in the snow and dragged my crampons through the ice, trying to get a sense of the difficulty of travelling in severe sub-zero temperatures with the merciless wind buffeting me on all sides. I had been in terrible conditions before while mountain climbing in Patagonia and the Himalayas, but I wasn't sure if I could have survived a grueling trek through this part of Svalbard in sub-zero temperatures cold enough to blister bare skin within seconds.
All they wanted was a job.
Despite everything, it amazed me how the repair team was still able to keep such detailed notes on their daily events and experiences. We were briefed on the importance of keeping clear and organised notes of our expedition in the event that anything should occur. As it turns out, the repair team’s extensive documentation had preserved the reality of their plight till this day and quite possibly remains the only proof that they had experienced and seen something malicious down there in the caves. Even in their moments of panic, they kept records in the hope that someone would see them, that they could somehow retain that semblance of human connection through the act of storytelling and narration. The several excerpts of writing I read just now in the meeting room revealed to me the thoughts and feelings of five different people with different backgrounds, yet each growing closer, unknowingly united by their common fear.
Fear does that. It brings people together and tides them through darkness.
Even though there is a slim chance, it is foolish to believe that the team members are still alive. It has been seven years without any new information about them, after all.
Until now.
With these notes and recordings, there is promise for some light to be further shed on this mystery. Although I have a strong feeling that none of the information revealed will be pleasant, I can only hope that this discovery will give some closure to the documentarian, the families, and the people involved in this arduous research effort.
No other documents were submitted regarding K.’s personal or official notes on Day 2 of the expedition.
Material gathered from the other members document that the retrieval team arrived at Outpost Fristed at approximately 0835 hours. The team spent the day exploring the caves beneath the storage bunker and searching for more documentation. They stopped in-between for lunch, tea and dinner. They left the outpost at approximately 1740 hours on snowmobiles for their motel in Longyearbyen, where they sorted out and, with my permission, viewed some of the material they had collected from the bunkers in a privately-booked meeting room. Following the nightly discussion, the team leader contacted me personally and sent some of the digital recordings over.
This is K.’s diary entry for the third day of the retrieval expedition.
Day 3 – April 17th
I write this on the flight out of Longyearbyen. We have just had our debrief and there was a general consensus that our mission had been completed without incident. None of the team members reported seeing or experiencing anything abnormal during their time at the outpost. We count ourselves extremely lucky to have made it back unscathed and on time. The weather today has been cold, but suitable for travel.
Svalbard is an enigma. It can be beautiful in its glacial indifference, but when the blizzard comes, it comes without warning and without restraint. It is a place of many mysteries, nestled in its quiet corner of the globe. The members of the repair team, understandably, had no time to appreciate the wonder of the wilderness around Outpost Fristed, given how cold and unforgiving the elements were during their time of stay on the island. I myself am already longing for warmer weather and the sight of green things. I can only imagine how deprived they must have felt while they waited for the storm to subside.
The concavities of Svalbard’s landscape look serene, but make one wrong move and you might never be seen again. Like black ice on the road. You think that there’s nothing there, but there is, and it catches you when you least expect it.
A mental image of the wilderness comes back to me now as I work through what will probably be my last entry for this retrieval expedition. In hindsight, the documentarian had given us an apt name. We were sent to retrieve something and we did, although there is still much work to be done regarding the organisation and interpretation of all these notes.
This morning, on our final visit to Outpost Fristed, I decided to take a few personal photos of the mountains which surround the patch of land it sits on. The sky was clear at the time and I was able to spot a few peaks through the frigid clouds. There was cold air on my face, and the occasional few bites of windchill. It is easy to miss the mountains, to become accustomed to their gargantuan presence after getting used to the polar environment. Mountains never fail to evoke a sense of wonder in me. That’s why I climb them. Perhaps some day I will return to Svalbard to trek up one of these splendid sleeping giants, but not in the near future. Outpost Fristed is the kind of place that you visit once and will not want to visit again.
We were packing up to depart, taking our bags and equipment, checking to make sure we had left nothing behind. We did not bring sufficient equipment to completely repair and restore the outpost back to its original working condition as we did not originally set out to clean up the place. I thought its remaining imperfections seemed fitting for its sad and tarnished history. Something about the battered yet sturdy grey bunkers suggested a wayward slouch in their structures as we headed back to where we had parked our snowmobiles. They seemed to be watching us set off through their dark windows and doors. Almost as if they were saying, run along, little man, be glad you’ve survived.
It would be quiet in there for a long, long time.
The steps taken away from Outpost Fristed were physically light, but emotionally laden with the fact that we had a privilege which the Sidja Group repair team never had: the freedom to leave.
No other documents were submitted regarding K.’s personal or official notes on Day 3 of the expedition.
The team made their final departure from Outpost Fristed at approximately 1830 hours on the evening of April 17th after clearing out all of their equipment and belongings from the area. Photographs and video evidence were taken of the outpost when they first arrived and just before they left for archival purposes.
The team then travelled back to Longyearbyen on snowmobiles and checked out of the motel at approximately 1940 hours. They surrendered all rented equipment and vehicles at approximately 1945 hours. They arrived at Svalbard Airport at approximately 1955 hours and waited in the departure lounge for their flight out, which was slated to take-off at 2300 hours.
The team arrived in Gardermoen Airport, Oslo, at approximately 0200 hours on the morning of April 18th. A chartered coach took them to a pre-arranged secure location where they could converse with me via videocall as a team and exchange all other necessary information pertaining to the expedition. Following this meeting, the team members were given their flight tickets back to their respective countries or to their next destinations, as per our agreement prior to their departure for this expedition. Transport and hotel accommodation were also provided for all team members who had to temporarily stay in Oslo as they waited for their flights to depart in the coming week.
This completes the collection of all documents related to and regarding K., a junior member of the retrieval team sent to Outpost Fristed on April 15th.