Facilities here are very basic. People sleep in tents, but since it’s really cold, they have to wear hats and jumpers. The menu is limited, but there is cooked food.

Crates with fuel and equipment are dropped from planes, which the staff – most of whom are professional Arctic workers – then has to find. After that, they must clear a runway, and erect a base. If they don’t find enough barrels with kerosene, there won’t be sufficient fuel to heat Barneo.

Finally, after a year of planning, and days and days of hard work, Barneo is finished, and the first visitors arrive on a plane. Among them there are scientists, surveyors, and explorers, but the majority are tourists.

Each has paid tens of thousands of dollars to be here, helping to pay the two million a year it costs to keep the enterprise afloat.

Over the coming weeks, some people will travel from the base to the North Pole, and others will conduct important experiments, but most will simply be amazed that they can live here at all.