LOOKING Back certainly brought a surprise to the face of one Canadian.

This person was Naomi Short originally from Taunton who had featured in Looking Back on March 1.

We reproduced an article which was originally in print in March 1993, in the County Gazette.

This is what the article said in 1993:

STUDENT explorers Naomi Short and Philip Coles, both from Taunton’s Richard Huish College, are getting ready for a chilly summer.

Somerset County Gazette:

This was originally printed in the County Gazette on For the two 17-year-olds are off to the Arctic.

They beat 300 applicants to win places on the British Schools’ Exploring Society’s July expedition to Norway.

This was in the County Gazette on February 26, 1993. Naomi from Stoke St Gregory, and Philip from Taunton will spend six weeks in the Svalbard archipelago- a group of Norwegian is lands on the edge of of Arctic pack ice, midway between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole.

Naomi and Philip had several interviews to get on the trip.

And now this is what Naomi had to say when she contacted The County Gazette: "MY mother sent me a cutting of the “Somerset duo head to the Arctic” article in the Tuesday March 1.

"At first I thought I was in a time warp, but then I realised this was a Looking Back feature. I thought it would be fun to drop you a line and complete the story.

"That first Arctic trip inspired a love of the Arctic and cold places for me. I went on to study geography at university, specialising in cold environments.

Somerset County Gazette:

"I worked on glaciers in the Alps, Scandinavia and Alaska, on an ice cap on Baffin Island (eastern Canadian Arctic) and on an ice shelf in Antarctica. Along the way I developed skills in using satellite radar to map how things are moving on Earth.

"We use it to monitor how glaciers and ice caps flow, and thus determine how healthy they are, how buildings, roads and runways move when built on permafrost, and thus how to build them better, and more recently to monitor trucking safety on ice roads (seasonal roads built on frozen lakes in the Arctic).

"I moved to Canada to pursue my research interests. I bring my Canadian family back to the West Country almost every summer to enjoy the beautiful place that I grew up."