excerpts from Magnetic North Pyramiden, Svalbar

Butler, Jenna

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 14No. 2 Tenth Anniversary Issue Article 613-1-2016Magnetic North, Pyramiden, SvalbardJenna ButlerPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Photography Commons, Place andEnvironment Commons, and the Poetry CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeButler, Jenna. "Magnetic North, Pyramiden, Svalbard." The Goose, vol. 14 , no. 2 , article 61, 2016,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61.from Magnetic North Pyramiden, Svalbard by Jenna Butler   1Butler: Magnetic NorthPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 20161. Sasha is the lone figure on the wharf.   Momentarily, we are time-blinded, thinking Czarist Russia. He greets us in scarlet cherkesska, polar bear rifle angled along his back: Sasha, improbable tenant, unconvincing miner.  What they do in this town weeping its coal ichor into the sea: pick metal. Fourteen of them, vagabond pack headed by Sasha, tour guide, tender of low spirits. They come from Russia because there is no work; here, there is no work, but at least they can pick metal, pack it into scabbed old shipping containers for the resupply ships from Murmansk. And they are left alone to do as they will, мужчины без дома, these men without homes, without countries. 2The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 2 [2016], Art. 61https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61 2. Every building abandoned to gulls and gannets, a squalling, skirling mess. Stink of guano smother-weight, painting the tongue. Even the hospital has gone to birds, though Sasha explains that the plants have also taken over. Their wild, wastrel tendrils pushing through the outside vents, pressed like supplicant palms against the glass. Sasha himself has not fallen ill since leaving Russia a decade ago, but others have raided the hospital for tablets and syringes. Morphine for the bad days. Sasha turns his collar, refuses to enter. Says the air is poisoned with mercury from broken thermometers after the town was left. Was left. Like a child or a family, walked away from, abandoned. But here, the whole town left, more than a thousand in clots over years.   We turn our backs on the hospital with trepidation, uneasy at the dankly verdant windows behind us. Greening glass, leaves spreading their veins like suicide or palmistry. 3Butler: Magnetic NorthPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2016 3. One room remains, half Russian teashop, half bordello. Napped crimson wallpaper and gilt mirrors resurrected from bird lime, parquet floor high-glossed with lemon polish. We drink Kubanskaya, all Sasha will touch; original, he explains. Kristall and Moscow-Petushki; we drink to times and places we do not understand, the bitter, amputated stories of these hardcast men.  They were meant to be miners. After the second war, Russia remembered Pyramiden, abandoned against the Nazis. Clapped men in ironclad contracts, sent them back across the ocean into the shankbones of the mines. But the boreholes bled themselves out in the forties; left to their own devices, rain and snow took the coal out to sea, topped the shafts with inky cesspools. So they pick metal, cuts on their hands rimmed with black, coal inching toward bone. Drink vodka in the evenings in the one room pushing back 4The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 2 [2016], Art. 61https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61against a settlement’s decay, Russia boiling out of their blood as the coal works in. For six months during his first Svalbard winter, Sasha tells us, he did not leave the common room. It takes time, he says, to armor yourself against that much dark.  The one surviving telephone is an iron ramshorn, Cold War-era megalith on the way to the docks. It works in one direction only: outward, to Russia. Open channel in a hackneyed conversation, Pyramiden bleeding its story in annual runoff clear to the Arctic Circle.        5Butler: Magnetic NorthPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2016JENNA BUTLER is the author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry, Seldom Seen Road, Wells, and Aphelion, and a collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge the of Grizzly Trail. Her research into endangered environments has taken her from America’s Deep South to Ireland’s Ring of Kerry, and from Tenerife to the Arctic Circle, exploring the ways in which we navigate the landscapes we call home. A professor of creative writing and ecocriticism at Red Deer College, Butler lives with three resident moose and a den of coyotes on an off-grid organic farm in Alberta’s North Country.  To see Butler's earlier publication in The Goose go to http://www.alecc.ca/uploads/goose/TheGOOSE2012Winter10.pdf   Photos: JENNA BUTLER © 2016  6The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 2 [2016], Art. 61https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61

Magnetic North, Pyramiden, Svalbard

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 14
No. 2 Tenth Anniversary Issue Article 61
3-1-2016
Magnetic North, Pyramiden, Svalbard
Jenna Butler
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America
Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Photography Commons, Place and
Environment Commons, and the Poetry Commons
Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose
This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante
de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Butler, Jenna. "Magnetic North, Pyramiden, Svalbard." The Goose, vol. 14 , no. 2 , article 61, 2016,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61.
from Magnetic North 
Pyramiden, Svalbard 
by 
Jenna Butler 
 
 
1
Butler: Magnetic North
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2016
1. 
Sasha is the lone figure on the wharf.  
 
Momentarily, we are time-blinded, thinking Czarist Russia. He greets us in scarlet 
cherkesska, polar bear rifle angled along his back: Sasha, improbable tenant, 
unconvincing miner. 
 
What they do in this town weeping its coal ichor into the sea: pick metal. Fourteen of 
them, vagabond pack headed by Sasha, tour guide, tender of low spirits. They come 
from Russia because there is no work; here, there is no work, but at least they can pick 
metal, pack it into scabbed old shipping containers for the resupply ships from 
Murmansk. And they are left alone to do as they will, мужчины без дома, these men 
without homes, without countries. 
2
The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 2 [2016], Art. 61
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61
 2. 
Every building abandoned to gulls and gannets, a squalling, skirling mess. Stink of guano 
smother-weight, painting the tongue. Even the hospital has gone to birds, though Sasha 
explains that the plants have also taken over. Their wild, wastrel tendrils pushing 
through the outside vents, pressed like supplicant palms against the glass. Sasha himself 
has not fallen ill since leaving Russia a decade ago, but others have raided the hospital 
for tablets and syringes. Morphine for the bad days. Sasha turns his collar, refuses to 
enter. Says the air is poisoned with mercury from broken thermometers after the town 
was left. Was left. Like a child or a family, walked away from, abandoned. But here, the 
whole town left, more than a thousand in clots over years.  
 
We turn our backs on the hospital with trepidation, uneasy at the dankly verdant 
windows behind us. Greening glass, leaves spreading their veins like suicide or palmistry. 
3
Butler: Magnetic North
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2016
 3. 
One room remains, half Russian teashop, half bordello. Napped crimson wallpaper and 
gilt mirrors resurrected from bird lime, parquet floor high-glossed with lemon polish. We 
drink Kubanskaya, all Sasha will touch; original, he explains. Kristall and Moscow-
Petushki; we drink to times and places we do not understand, the bitter, amputated 
stories of these hardcast men. 
 
They were meant to be miners. After the second war, Russia remembered Pyramiden, 
abandoned against the Nazis. Clapped men in ironclad contracts, sent them back across 
the ocean into the shankbones of the mines. But the boreholes bled themselves out in 
the forties; left to their own devices, rain and snow took the coal out to sea, topped the 
shafts with inky cesspools. So they pick metal, cuts on their hands rimmed with black, 
coal inching toward bone. Drink vodka in the evenings in the one room pushing back 
4
The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 2 [2016], Art. 61
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61
against a settlement’s decay, Russia boiling out of their blood as the coal works in. For six 
months during his first Svalbard winter, Sasha tells us, he did not leave the common 
room. It takes time, he says, to armor yourself against that much dark. 
 
The one surviving telephone is an iron ramshorn, Cold War-era megalith on the way to 
the docks. It works in one direction only: outward, to Russia. Open channel in a 
hackneyed conversation, Pyramiden bleeding its story in annual runoff clear to the Arctic 
Circle. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5
Butler: Magnetic North
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2016
JENNA BUTLER is the author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry, Seldom Seen 
Road, Wells, and Aphelion, and a collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: 
Farming on the Edge the of Grizzly Trail. Her research into endangered environments has 
taken her from America’s Deep South to Ireland’s Ring of Kerry, and from Tenerife to the 
Arctic Circle, exploring the ways in which we navigate the landscapes we call home. A 
professor of creative writing and ecocriticism at Red Deer College, Butler lives with three 
resident moose and a den of coyotes on an off-grid organic farm in Alberta’s North 
Country. 
 
To see Butler's earlier publication in The Goose go to 
http://www.alecc.ca/uploads/goose/TheGOOSE2012Winter10.pdf 
 
 
Photos: JENNA BUTLER © 2016 
 
6
The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 2 [2016], Art. 61
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss2/61


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Magnetic North, Pyramiden, Svalbard

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