Lee Thomson

I have taken planes, trains and a jaunty big red ferry over the last several days to arrive at Tromso, Gateway to the North (it says so on the signs). From here I catch a bus to the airport, and a plane to Longyearbyen on Svalbard, at which point the official part of the trip begins.

I’ve been practicing sketching rather than snapping pictures. That is a hard habit to fix in place, only partly because the sketching and painting move much more slowly than the scenery. A fellow sketcher sat with me yesterday and we sympathized on how hard it is to be realistic, but also how little it matters later – we have a memory of staring at the landscape and producing a representation of it, and caring too deeply about “correctness” rather than over all impression is a mistake.

To that end, have some pictures from the ferry: