Up until around three this afternoon, Friday had been all uphill. I was fed up and my thoughts were revolving around the pizza in the freezer and not the poem I was trying to scratch down on paper.
I left my poem mid line, went to check my emails and found an unexpected gift – an email from the Scott Polar Research Institute, telling me about The Big Freeze, a free Polar Art Festival hosted by the Polar Museum.
Mood elevated stratosphere high and pizza all but forgotten, I made a dash for the festival page. After getting acquainted with the extensive festival programme, I frenziedly signed up for a spot. The email confirmation came through moments later, and, well, you’d have thought all my birthdays had arrived at once.
There’s a lot happening over the duration of the festival (it’s from the 4th of March to the 14th) and I’m looking forward to everything. Though one of the things I’m most looking forward to is the showing of the film Tunniit: Retracing The Lines Of Inuit Tattoos by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril who also directed the excellent film Angry Inuk.
For the past ten or so years, hardly a day has gone by without me doing something that’s in some way connected to the Arctic or Antarctica. Both play an intrinsic role in my life, though it’s been a rare occasion I’ve encountered someone similarly infatuated with these places. So, as well as looking forward to the events the Deep Freeze Festival has to offer, I’m hoping, really hoping I’ll be able to connect with other people who also ‘feel most alive’ when talk turns to the polar regions.
Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen 