‘I take people to the end of the world for my job – it changes them’

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Torstein Gaustad is an expedition leader with Hurtigruten offshoot HX, which means he takes groups of cruise customers to Antarctica and the Arctic to witness the remote and wild areas

When it comes to dream jobs, tastes vary. For some, it may be working on a Caribbean island with their partner for £160k a year. For others, trousering £30k embarking on a year-long pub crawl would fit the bill.

Torstein Gaustad’s may not spend his days piling on quite as many delicious empty-carbs or soaking up the sunshine, but his job is certainly up there in the ‘I can’t believe you can do that for a living’ stakes.

For the past 15 years the German, French, Norwegian and English speaker has been leading expeditions with Norwegian cruise firm Hurtigruten and, latterly, its offshoot HX. During his time aboard state of the art adventure cruise vessels he has travelled to the farthest flung corners of the Earth, showing groups of lucky tourists places baked through with awe and peril few will ever see.

“It is indescribable,” Torstein says of his recent journeys from the city of Ushuaia at the very bottom of Argentina – which was recently made famous as the end point of Race Across the World – over Drake Passage to the Antarctic peninsula.

“Antarctica. There is a feeling to it, you can’t describe it, being there, seeing it, hearing the ice cracking around you. You change. It is such a pristine part of the world, so untouched, people hear and see what we need to protect. It creates awareness of the polar regions. What climate change can do to these regions. People come out of Antarctica with a feeling and willingness.”

Often the HX vessels offer passage to polar scientists heading for the research stations deep inside the frozen continent. To pay their way, they deliver lectures to those onboard and lead them in exploratory projects including whale counting.

While the number of people who can venture off the boat and either onto the islands or out onto the waves are limited by strict laws designed to protect the remote purity of the continent, those who do get off the ships are able to witness the icy world from a whole different perspective.

“We do zodiac landings and cruising, and we have small boat cruises where we go into beautiful, remote areas. Sometimes we take guests out when a lot of huge icebergs come in from the coast and get stuck in the bay. It is amazing, with the different shapes of the icebergs. They look like sculptures. You have the penguins jumping up, leopard seals in the area and even humpback whales,” Torstein added.

For an even smaller, luckier few, spending a night camping on Antarctica is occasionally possible. However, you have to wear special boots and clothes to avoid any risk of contamination, and occasionally the threat of spreading avian flu to the penguin population is considered too high for the trips to go ahead.

The particularly brave and thick-skinned among the sailors even have the opportunity to throw themselves into the Antarctic waters in an act of reckless ice-plunging that most wild swimmers would die for.

When he isn’t exploring the depths of the Southern Hemisphere, Torstein is leading exhibitions to the Arctic Circle. Specifically, Greenland.

“Our new voyage takes us further north, which means more chances of seeing polar bears. It is a combination of nature landings and small boat cruising, in fjords and nature areas,” he continued. Guests are taken onto land accompanied by a cultural ambassador to meet some of the small communities of people living on Greenland.

“They talk to the guests about their culture and history and then perform a masked dance. You feel part of the culture. It is a different feeling from the normal touristy things, it is a personal thing. When you see the community spirit of the cultures in the Northwest passage, you feel that you can learn something from this.”