Photo Journal

15 Mar, 2008

The airplane that left Grise Fiord was flying over the coast of Ellesmere Island. I have no idea how to express my special feeling for the view beneath from the window. The land that we probably cannot describe with human words spread over, and then I though the land will not easily permit human beings to live there. Rubbing and fixing my face on the frozen window, I was completely absorbed in the view of the earth seen beneath.

After flight for a while, the airplane entered the sky up from the Cornwallis Island where Resolute Bay is located. Staring at the ground, I saw two tiny black spots like pepper along the river. The moment I wondered, Raimond, seated in front of me said, "Your friends are around there, aren't they?" like a joke.

Arriving at the hotel in Resolute Bay, I said to Mr. Doi and others at the hotel, "I saw the two." "It can't be." they laughed. But my instinct told me that those two spots absolutely had been the two, so with the help of Troy, the pilot who was having a rest, I compared today's airplane route with the adventure party's latitude and longitude which I confirmed by communication the previous night. Those points were perfectly correspondent with each other.

I had asked Mr. Doi, a professional photographer, how to take good photos at Narita airport on the day of departure. He had said, "You shouldn't take a photo of stuff which you see in front of you, but gotta do with your heart. "With your heart" had been a fashionable, cool word among us since then. The reason why I was able to see the adventurer's party that could not be actually seen is the help of my passion for the two.

Mr. Oba often says, "The earth has special beauty, scale, and fear." The adventurers are stepping into the land where few adventurers were able to walk, in fact where there is no human beings living. Searching for what they can gain just there, they are walking step by step just depending on their strength.

I would like them to describe me what I couldn't experience only seeing from the airplane window for a short time. I would like to know deeper and deeper each heart of the two who are moving on ahead.

Noriko Miyashita