More on the Svalbard Zombie menace

22 July 2008, 1910 EDT

From Damien Mansell of Swansea University:

The cabin was situated on the top of a ridge, at the bottom of a large valley looking out to the Arctic Ocean. The Ocean met large ice-cliffs and nunataks, which stared back at us from across the water.

We shared out all the necessary equipment and supplies amongst our packs and pulkas (sledges). Those who skied ahead of us had the coal and fire wood and we were welcomed by a toasty warm fire.

Adam and I cooked up a large chilli to satisfy our growing bellies. It took much longer than we anticipated as we had to melt snow to produce drinking water, and you need a lot of snow to make a reasonable amount of water. Conversation in the candle-lit cabin was mostly about the possible confrontation of a polar bear.

Then in burst Professor Doug Benn and Dr Nick Hulton, armed not with rifles but whisky and a guitar. It was a brilliant night and, along with Dr Ian Rutt who walked with us to BjØrndalen, they performed this years ‘Svalbard song’ about the Svalbard zombies and permafrost graves, it was very surreal.

It is becoming clear that we must now ask ourselves a terrifying question: how long before Svalbard raises a force of Zombie Panzerbjøorn?

UPDATE: are our own Black Bears a fifth column? Dave Noon chronicles a suspicious incident.

Image: Map displaying sea monsters lurking around Svalbard. Source: Universitetet i Tromsø

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.