Day one, two and the northernmost BigBand

With UNIS welcome procedure comes a mandatory safety course. It is meant to teach us basic survival skills that might be necessary in this hostile environment. But during the first lectures the  focus was rather on what could potentially go wrong. After learning about wind holes, crevasses, hypothermia, falling through sea ice, frostbite and avalanches (just to name a few) the polar bears seam like one of the smaller problems. However the guys from logistics at UNIS seem to be the best to learn from.

This morning my group went camping. In case of an emergency on a snowmobile trip the groups always carry a box with basic survival equipment for the arctic with them. Two of the most essential things are tents and gasoline stoves. To be prepared first learned how to light and work with the stoves. To my surprise they seemed far easier to handle and burned way better than any other gasoline stove I used before. Same for the tents. We learned how to put them up under (imaginary) blizzard conditions. After two runs inside we took the gear out and build the tent in the snow. We also learned how to set up a trip wire as a warning system in case a polar bear attack.

In the afternoon our first aid knowledge was refreshed and extended. We went over the procedure when finding an unconscious person and how to handle the situation. We also learned how to treat different types of common injuries. The things you also learn in a ordinary first aid course. But the nice ladies form the Red Cross surprised us with some chunks of raw meet and we could practice how to treat an arterial bleeding of wound with deep cavity.
Of course we went out late on and practiced among other things how to wrap up a person to prevent it from becoming hypothermic.