WITNESS: Camping in Antarctica

Alister Doyle has been working for Reuters as a reporter for 25 years. Based in Oslo, he has been environment correspondent for two years after postings in Britain, the European Union, Central America, France and Norway. He visited Antarctica with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg this month and describes his experience.

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

TROLL STATION, Antarctica (Reuters) - If you think a sunseeker is someone who likes lounging on Caribbean or Mediterranean beaches, meet Joern Dybdahl.

In the southern summer, the 46-year old Norwegian works in Antarctica as a technician at a research station. The rest of the year he is on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen -- so he almost always lives in the land of the midnight sun.

"It's a special life -- it's not for everyone," said the tanned trained welder of his extreme sunseeker lifestyle in two workplaces 17,000 km (10,560 miles) apart.

"It's because I'm scared of the dark," he joked.

Dybdahl is in his fourth summer at the Troll research station, 250 km (155 miles) inland, amid jagged mountains that remind Norwegians of the homes of the troll giants of fables.

In Svalbard, he works at a horse-riding centre. Several colleagues share his Arctic-Antarctic double-life -- only eight of them stay at Troll through the Antarctic winter.

I met him on a 36-hour visit where I, by contrast, found even "summer" harsh enough -- especially since I had to sleep in a tent in bone-chilling temperatures of about minus 15 Celsius (5.00F).