If Santa Claus lived at the North Pole, there would be a few people who had particularly good chances of meeting. On board the research icebreaker "Polarstern", around a hundred women and men from the international "Mosaic" expedition are drifting through the high Arctic at 86 degrees north latitude. Your ship is locked in the ice there for a year, it is the most complex polar expedition ever.
The first part of the expedition was exhausting. Heavy storms kept confusing the comparatively thin ice around "Polarstern". Power lines from the ship to the measuring stations in the area had to be relocated, devices had to be brought to safety before sliding into the Arctic Ocean. The team that had to deal with these conditions is now on its way home to Germany. The successor team has only been on board for a short time.
"We'll have a nice Christmas"
Ten days before the festival, the group came to the "Polarstern" with the Russian icebreaker "Kapitan Dranitsyn". The team also includes sea ice physicist Christian Haas from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven as the new chief scientist and Sven Schnieder as head chef. And Schnieder, who also brought fresh provisions, already knows the plan for the holidays. "We will have a nice Christmas," he says.
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"Polarstern": Holidays near the North Pole"Seafarers are sentimental - even if they don't show it that way," explains captain Stefan Schwarze. For this reason, the lounges and dining rooms of the "Polarstern", called fairs, have been decorated since the advent season. "That is tradition. And traditions remain in the sea, even if they have long since died out elsewhere."
No candles, artificial trees
Of course, some participants in the expedition will also work on the holidays. Routine jobs such as technical checks and data backups for automatic devices must still be carried out, if possible in the morning. Then it is important to decorate the two dining rooms for Christmas Eve, as well as the so-called Blue Salon, the parlor of the ship. Fir trees made of plastic are set up, but Christmas candles are not allowed. "The worst thing that can happen at sea and especially now when drifting in the ice is a fire on board," says Captain Black.
The evening is celebrated in the blue salon. Chief commander Haas and captain Schwarze give short speeches in English (Haas) and German (Schwarze). There is also mulled wine, cookies and Christmas music from the choir and chapel on board. "The officers appear in uniform, everyone else in the best thread they have with them," said Captain Black.
Santa Claus with whiskers
Traditional dishes are served on the table: "We will make bockwurst and potato salad on Christmas Eve, as we know it from the north," says head chef Schnieder. And then there's the mess. Each expedition participant brought a small gift from home and put it anonymously in a jute sack. A disguised Santa Claus with a beard distributes the presents. Afterwards, according to the "Polarstern" tradition, there is a "Christmas Party" in the decorated equipment room.
Work should also be reduced as far as possible on the first holiday. Celebrating together should increase the sense of community of the expedition participants, who in the coming weeks and months will have to rely on each other blindly in the adverse conditions of cold, storm and darkness.
Dessert: Baked apple ragout with vanilla sauce
Chef Schnieder really serves up the good mood on December 25th: "There is a pumpkin creme brulee as a soup, then we make a goose leg with red cabbage and dumplings or potatoes, very classic, nice sauce with it Custard." Wild is on the menu for the second Christmas holiday.
Sitting together, eating well, talking to each other. This is the "Polarstern" program for the Christmas days. However, there is no television, far out in the Arctic Ocean. Because the ship is so far north, there are always difficulties in connecting to communication satellites. Calls break off after a short time, the transmission capacity for data is very limited.
"The social media hardly distract, because apart from WhatsApp nothing works and that only occasionally," says the previous expedition leader Markus Rex. "I think we can see a lot of the Christmas party on expeditions at home."