Entry Two: The Ship

My passage into the High Arctic will be aboard the Rembrandt van Rijn, a three-masted schooner built in 1924, once an ocean-going sailing ship before she was refitted for Arctic waters. She is 49 meters long, carries a small crew, and can hold just 33 passengers. Not a cruise ship, but a working ship, built for ice, storms, and the kind of silence you only hear far north of the ordinary world. For an artist, the name feels like a good omen. Rembrandt van Rijn.

In Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf, the ship is called the Ghost. My project is called Ghosts of the Ice, though not because of London’s vessel. Still, the echo lingers: Ghost, Rembrandt, Ice. A small constellation of words that seem to circle each other in the dark.

If you wonder how the logistics work: each cabin is shared by two people, about twelve cubic feet of shelf space per person. Enough for boots, layers, notebooks, but not much else. Every piece of equipment must justify its weight. Storage is a kind of philosophy here: bring less, carry what matters.

Photo by Claire Dibble (The Arctic Circle)

The ship is staffed by seasoned sailors and Arctic guides. On land we move in groups, always with armed escorts, Svalbard law requires it, the ice bears demand it. At night, the Rembrandt turns into a small floating community. A bar run on honor. A projector for the occasional movie. A shared HiFi where anyone can choose the next song. Artists and scientists giving talks in the dim light, sharing beginnings that will ripple far beyond the ship.

You can follow the Rembrandt van Rijn in real time on MarineTraffic. Watching her dot drift across the seas is like seeing the future in miniature. For now, she is tracing the fjords of Greenland, before she turns north again.

I imagine the wooden decks underfoot, the sound of sails in the wind, the constant reminder that wood, steel, and sea are never far from one another. A vessel both fragile and strong, carrying us toward a place where maps end and stories begin.