Polar Bears and Self-Reliance: Valais Teenagers Test Primitive Living in Greenland

In an age where comfortable Swiss youth are routinely insulated from the mildest discomforts of reality, twenty-one teenagers from Valais recently embarked on a rather unusual exercise in self-reliance. For three weeks, members of the "Elévation" mountaineering group from the Lycée Collège des Creusets in Sion abandoned civilisational amenities for an isolated fjord in southern Greenland, located a four-hour boat journey from the nearest permanent human settlement.

The expedition was not merely a wilderness retreat, but an exercise in collective self-management. Aged between 15 and 20, the participants were handed nearly 900 kilograms of food rations and told to manage their own survival. Rather than relying entirely on stored provisions, the young mountaineers caught their own fish, baked their own bread, and established order in their camp without the usual institutional hand-holding. Night duty added a layer of actual risk, as rotating watches were required to guard against potential polar bear encounters in the arctic wilderness.

Naturally, modern Swiss risk-aversion dictated that absolute autonomy remained somewhat cushioned. The group of twenty-one was supervised by three Youth+Sport leaders, three professional mountain guides, and an accompanying doctor. Yet, despite the presence of this Swiss safety net, the day-to-day burden of communal organisation rested squarely on the shoulders of the adolescent travellers.

The human outcomes of the trip, as articulated by the participants, reflect a quiet contrast to the noise of modern youth culture. Nineteen-year-old Julien Pralong noted that the mountains served primarily as a space for genuine community and dialogue, while seventeen-year-old Alice Carruzo pointed to the quiet simplicity of nature as an opportunity to be fully present with oneself.

The entire enterprise was captured on camera by students Baptiste Clerc and Florian Carron, who are using the footage as the foundation for their high school thesis centered on the concept of overcoming oneself. Their work aims to demonstrate how exposure to harsh conditions fosters virtues like courage, modesty, and solidarity. Whether a three-week stint in the Arctic can permanently cure the comfortable complacency of prosperous alpine life remains doubtful, but forcing young citizens to bake their own bread and keep watch for polar bears is an instructive departure from civilisational pampering.

Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com