Getting to the North: Linden by Clara Arnaud

As soon as I saw Linden, I knew it was not a “thing” but a person. It was a deep night, in Tromsø harbour, and the snow was falling heavily. A deep night, one of the last ones before the midnight sun. He appeared like a prince in the black, deep, snowy polar night.

In our culture, we find it hard to give animals—let alone trees or rivers—any real individuality. Even less do we consider non-sentient entities as living beings; our sense of life is apparently reduced. But I know there are other worldviews where rocks, clouds, even objects are seen as endowed with a soul—where the definition of the living goes far beyond the one admitted by modern Western science. And while it seems essential to have common notions, such as those defined by science, I have always believed that they are insufficient to restore the breadth of our sensory and intimate experience of the world, to measure the richness of our relationship with beings.

I believe that Linden has a soul, and a beautiful one at that. Let me introduce him to you. Linden is a proud three-masted pine ship, 50 metres long, looking fantastic under full sail. Linden was built in Finland, and as a crew member told me, being a real Finnish boat, they built the sauna first and then the boat around it! I would soon discover how important the sauna is when you’re crossing cold seas and storms.

I met Linden by chance—or maybe not, maybe we were meant to meet. For a girl who grew up partly around sailboats, hanging out on the pontoons of Finistère during her first years, the daughter of a sailor, you could say I’ve been unfaithful to the sea… It took me more than thirty years to get back to it.

So yes, it was not only by chance, but also by destiny, and partly the result of my obsession, that I finally returned to the sea, riding Linden like a seahorse from a dream.

When I learned that I had been accepted into Artica Svalbard, the northernmost artists’ residency in the world, to begin writing my next novel, I immediately thought that I would have to find a way to reach 78° North slowly—and not simply land at Longyearbyen airport. I made that decision not only because it is more ecological, and I try to be consistent with my beliefs, but also because it seemed harsh and inappropriate to be thrown into the deep North in just a few hours’ flight. Harsh for me, and disrespectful to this territory.

I thought Svalbard was one of those edges of the world that deserved to be approached with respect, consideration, and delicacy. An archipelago you have to ask permission to enter, and that you must approach only after an initiation rite: a crossing of the Barents Sea, measuring, in the meantime, its insularity and its remoteness.

So I threw a few bottles into the sea, taking the form of polite emails, and one of them miraculously made it to the pontoon of the Linden—or more precisely, to the email inbox of the captain and the owner of the ship—who were sensitive to my project and decided to invite me.

“You have to be on board on April 11th,” Bjorn told me on the phone, his Norwegian accent testifying to the reality of his existence and of the invitation. “You’ll be traveling as a crew member. Is 4am-8am and 4pm-8pm OK for you to take your watch?”

“Yes, yes, yes, sure, I’ll be there on April 11th, I’ll do my best to pretend to be a crew member, and I’ll do the 4-8 watch. Deal done.”

Their miraculous invitation gave me the opportunity to get to know this boat and its crew for two weeks, to sail the seas with them, and to be an improvised sailor—me, the mountain goat. And now, while seated in a cozy apartment in Svalbard, looking at the snowy mountains through the window and remembering that crazy experience, I can swear to you that Linden is someone, and a trustworthy master, who patiently gave me my first lessons on the sea and safely brought me here.