Quiet work amidst the reeds
By Herwig Prammer
The light is soft and warm, yet I am astonished at how cold it is. The thermometer says minus 15 degrees Celsius, but it feels far lower. In the car I did not recognize how strong the wind was blowing from the north.
Ernst Nekowitsch makes thatched roofs from reeds that grow along the shore of Lake Neusiedl, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Vienna, Austria. He tells me to have a look around. I will find his workers out in the reeds, he says.
So I climb up on the roof of my Land Rover and try to position myself in reeds higher than my vehicle. When I see the harvesters with their machines on the expanse of frozen water, I wonder why I cannot hear them. It is so quiet here. There is just a swoosh of reeds swaying in the wind. I take my cameras and walk along the grooved lanes the harvesting machines cut through the reeds. It is more difficult than I expected. The ground I cover is a 15-centimeter-thick layer of ice as smooth as glass. Sometimes you can even see the lake bed.
A young woman stops her small tractor with balloon tires and welcomes me. Julia, the daughter of Ernst Nekowitsch, explains that she is actually a beautician, but in the winter she helps with the harvesting and in the summer she joins her father roofing. Her father has leased more than eight square kilometers (3.1 square miles) of reeds at the lake, and usually they harvest two to three square kilometers (1 square mile) each year – assuming it is cold enough and the ice on the lake is thick enough to bring on the harvesting machines. Nearly all of the reeds are exported, most of it to the Netherlands. Here on Neusiedlersee we have the largest reed belt in Europe besides the Danube delta – always enough work, she laughs, as she starts her tractor again.
Celebrating in the cold
By Petr Josek
It is the first week of February and all of Europe is squeezed in a deep cold. Everybody is tired from freezing temperatures and the forecast for upcoming days is not good. The photo wire is full of suffering homeless people, steaming chimneys, frozen water and so on.
Thinking of how to illustrate this winter differently I remembered that the traditional Shrove festival was taking place around this time. That Shrove site I decided to take pictures of is known for its Shrovetide masks and cultural traditions listed in UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
I came to the Czech village of Vesely Kopec early morning as temperatures were lower then 23 degrees Centigrade. Revellers accompanied by music started to parade, dance and sing through the village dressed in light costumes with white gloves on their hands. Trumpeters had to often stop their music due to their frozen instruments. And everybody needed a warming up drink.
Vesely Kopec means Happy Hill, and it sure looks like it is!
Lucas
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Race into the cold
By Petr Josek
Mountains, snow, wind, cold, sun, dogs, sleds and mushers. Those are elements you meet in various combinations when you go to cover the Sedivackuv long dog sled race in the Czech Republic’s Orlicke mountains. It’s a beautiful place. I’ve been covering the race since 2005 and I always look forward it. You need to get well dressed for that, we call it double-full-full. I remember temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) with strong winds.
There is always the obvious problem of how to cover the same event differently every year, especially as we don’t have giant mountains with high summits and there’s not always bright sun. But I think that nice pictures showing the event and describing its atmosphere can’t hurt once a year.
You go to the start line and take some pictures of excited dogs. They already know what’s going on, what is ahead of them. They bark as they rush up the hill and disappear in the horizon to face the next stage which over four days counts more than 240 kilometers (149 miles).
Living without electricity for 29 years
By Cathal McNaughton
John McCarter is 77 years old and has been living without mains electricity at his home at Downhill, Londonderry county, for 29 years.
It seems incredible that a pensioner who lives so close to the prosperous Causeway Coast tourist area in Northern Ireland is allowed to live in such basic conditions.
However, John is the perfect host and couldn’t have made me more welcome when I arrived at his modest wooden cottage set against the backdrop of the dramatic Co Derry coastline.
He explained that he has been having a drawn out dispute with his landlord and a family member about getting mains electricity connected to the property. The mains supply is just at the end of his garden but, while the dispute continues, John remains without electricity relying instead on coal fires and candles as temperatures drop.
When I was growing up, my grandfather lived in a small cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water. He heated with two coal burning heaters. There was no sheeting on the internal walls and I could look through the cracks to the outdoors. He cooked on a wood burning cook stove. Walked to a spring daily for his water and still trapped rabbit, squirrel, turtle, etc. for meat. We would go to see him every weekend and take groceries. We walked about half a mile back into the woods to the cabin carrying our boxes of groceries. His lights were oil lamps.
He became ill before the weekend and trudged a mile and a half to the bus stop and came into town; then walked three blocks to our house. He died that night. The human spirit is awesome! His name was John also. I pray that John of this article is helped so he can remain in his home.
Walking the glacier
By Lisi Niesner
Usually I am absolutely not a fan of places where a mass of tourists assemble. I hate standing in line, dislike crowded sights, do not endure guides, prefer to eat meals characteristic of the country I’m visiting and I particularly cannot stand how functional tourists dress in their newly bought outdoor clothing – even if it is not necessary at all. That wind and water repellent jacket, those pants with a cooling fiber effect and, of course, the super soft sneaker shoes replacing the aerated sandals.
However, it has become a routine of mine to visit my relatives who live in the Zillertal valley but I had never visited the tourist attractions in the area. The Zillertal valley, located in the western Alps in the Austrian province of Tyrol, is well known for their “hardcore” tourism that has been operating for years.
It has never been easier to reach the top of a mountain or a glacier without shedding a drop of sweat. The expenses amount to around 30 euros and after a 30 minute ride on the cable car you will get access to a stunning view! On clear days you can look infinitely far.
An arctic adventure
The Arctic Ocean in March is basically an ocean of ice. Almost the entire thing is covered from October to June in an icepack that only partially disappears in the summer and is still very solid in March.
Why would anyone in their right mind volunteer to spend a month to a month in a half in temperatures that usually don’t exceed -10 degrees Fahrenheit or -23 degrees Celsius? In the case of the roughly two dozen souls who work either for the British, Canadian and United States Navy or the Arctic Physics Laboratory Ice Station, it is because there is work to be done.
And the first piece of work is to physically build the camp. To do this, firstly a piece of “multi-year” ice must be found, that means that it is thick enough (theoretically) that it won’t split in half and will support the weight of a camp while having enough room for an airplane runway and helicopter landing pad. Next, these folks need to load an antique airplane with enough plywood and nails to build a half a dozen un-insulated boxes to live in, this usually takes about 3 days as the workers must fly back to their base at Prudhoe Bay each evening to avoid the -30 to -50 degree temperatures until they build enough shelters to house them all.
Over the course of roughly a week the camp actually morphs into something of an oasis of civility surrounded by an ocean of ice that is continuously floating around on the Arctic Ocean as it is driven by the prevailing wind of the day. The huts are heated by jet fuel and become quite cozy while a large tent is erected for cooking and eating. All this to support a command center that communicates with two nuclear submarines below the ice. The camp is a support base for the U.S. Navy and exists to understand how best submarines, sonar systems, and underwater communications can work in such a harsh environment.
Great story and very nice slideshow! Though while “Man urinating into a box” might be a classic mime routine, I could have done without seeing it in your slideshow. 
Björn Heregger is an Austrian Freeskier! He is not from Sweden!
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