Episode 13

Episode 13
Longyearbyen 78˚13’N
On a chilly overcast morning we big farewell to the expedition crew and the Polar Pioneer and climbed onto a bus for a short tour of the small town of Longyearbyen. It is named after John Munro Longyear from Boston USA who formed the Arctic Coal Company in 1906 and began mining coal here. Coal is still mined here and powers the local power plant, the only one in Norway fired by coal.
The town now has a population of 2000 to 2500 depending on the season. There is a hospital but pregnant women are shipped off to the mainland three weeks before they are due to give birth; only the early arrivals are born here. No-one is buried here now either, the bodies are shipped off and buried on the mainland, the only graves here are from long ago. The school is fairly large as most of the people living here are young families. It is both primary and secondary combined. There is a small shopping centre that is quite new; it has everything the community needs.
In the same building as the museum and the tourist office is a small university. About 150 students from many different countries come here to study. The most popular courses are those doing research into the effect of climate change. This is suppose to be a very good place for such study. Our guide on a short bus tour after we left the boat was a Dutch girl who has been here 4 months doing such research. Her group are still compiling there findings but she said that they were all very surprised at what they found; it wasn’t at all what they were expecting, but exactly what they were expecting she didn’t say. One thing she did say they determined is that plants grow better in warmer weather rather than colder. Probably cost a fortune for this group of students to come to that conclusion.
The small shopping centre includes a large and well stocked supermarket with an arctic clothing department as well as household wares and school supplies: There are other arctic outfitters too, and stuff is not cheap here, expect to pay about $80 AUD for a good pair of warm gloves similar to what I could buy in Canada and the US 5 years ago for about $10AU. Even cheap knitted ones, not hand knitted either are around $20AU. We did see some good Canadian Goose down jackets for $700 AU some with at 30% discount and we wonder how much we could get them for from the internet as they look like really good coats. Food is expensive as almost everything has to be shipped in, I think even the reindeer meat is shipped in as here the locals are only allowed to shoot one reindeer per family per year or some such thing. Most people only spend about 3 or 4 years here then go back home.
There are other stores and some cafes, bars and restaurants and some travel excursion companies shops. A big indoor sports centre has a 25m swimming pool and a rock climbing wall. Its not possible to do rock climbing on the mountains here as the rock is too soft for pins to be driven into. All around the residential areas there are lots of snowmobiles parked, just out in the open. There are also trailers for them, a snow cat, that’s a vehicle mounted on caterpillar tracks that carries several passengers. Kids sleds sit discarded next to sand pits where more toys lay about. At present bicycles are the most popular means of transport but there is a hell of a lot of cars for a place that has only a few k’s of road and much of that is gravel. Found out later that cars are cheap here as there is no tax on them and they can be taken across to the mainland and used for three months then brought back. Hurtigrutn must run a car ferry up here I think though I haven’t seen anything about it.
There is a church up on the hill that commands a good view over the town, its very modern but quite nice inside. It’s Lutheran: I believe it’s the only church here. Near here too is a war memorial and a plaque on one of the old pylons that used to be part of the original conveyor system to carry coal from the mine to the power plant. While walking around here we accidently came across a sundial. It was officially unveiled on 6th March 2004. The instigator for it’s erection was a Tasmanian woman, and it was built at Lindisfarne in England. A leaflet there described all about it and the fact that it is the most northerly placed sundial in existence and is specially designed to work at this latitude; it also works as a moon dial. A web site gives more information:- www.longyearbyen.com/sun
The houses are built well up off the ground. Big pylons are sunk deep into the permafrost and insulation is laid then the wooden floor above that. This is done to prevent the permafrost from melting, if it does melt then the pylons become unstable and everything goes awry, as in Russia. Big pipes run around town delivering hot water, this is heated at the power station and then sent around to heat the buildings. It is much more efficient energy wise than having separate heating for each house.
There are several old coal mines around the town, the one in production now is mine no.7 and its well out of town. Half of its production is used for the power plant the rest is exported to some European countries mainly Germany. Apparently there is quite a lot more coal here that can be mined in the future. The seams run horizontally into the mountainsides and vary from .8m to about 3m in thickness.
We took a dog and cart ride; this is an alternative to dogsledding that isn’t possible if there isn’t any snow and at this time of year snow is only on the high peaks. Down low there isn’t really enough for sledding until November or even January sometimes. The most popular time for sledding is from late February onward when the light begins to return. The kennels where we took the ride have 80 dogs, most are male. They breed their own dogs but this year they didn’t need any more so they do not have any pups. The dogs are pure Alaskan Huskies, unlike in Alaska where they mix in other breeds as well. Here they like the purebreds and they also keep them in much better conditions. They have good wire mesh pens on gravel. In Alaska we saw that most dogs were kept just on the ground and it got muddy and really messy with dog pee and droppings, not so here, they are kept very clean.
The pups begin their training when they are 8 months old, at 12 months they begin working and continue until they are 9 to 12 years old. That’s a good long working life. They are feed mainly on dry dog food but in winter they also get some seal blubber to keep them in good working shape. Winter and spring is the working season: Another kennels we visited on the tour feed their dogs only seal meat in the winter and they don’t use them for anything at all during the year when there isn’t any snow on the ground. That kennels had at least 100 dogs and they had some seals hung up to dry. They also gave us some seal meat to try; first you took a piece of thin wafer crispbread, spread it with sour cream then added a small piece of seal meat. It was very salty and may have been cured, and I must say that I didn’t like it particularly. An old style hut built here, it is circular with a fire in the middle. Around the wall are all the bunks used for sleeping and covered in reindeer hides. Reindeer hides are especially warm as the hair is hollow and it keeps warm air trapped inside.
Anyway back to the dogsled ride: It was a lovely sunny day, probably around 4˚ in the sun with a chilly breeze blowing. The kennel owner arrived in a landrover to pick us up and take us to the kennels. We were given very heavy insulated overalls to wear over our clothes then we watched the dogs being harnessed up. I am certain that each dog in the kennels wanted to be picked for the job. These dogs just seem to live to pull the sled, it’s what they love to do. Once they are in the harness they behave much better though sometimes they still will have a go at one another. All these dogs are very friendly to humans, and most get on ok with each other, this is not the case in Alaska where they often tear each other apart and some will attach humans too. Here they use 2 lead dogs side by side in case something should happen to one, such as an injured foot. We had nine dogs pulling our cart, 4 pairs and an odd one immediately in front on the cart. The cart was designed with a bench seat in front where two people could sit but only our girl driver did so, behind was a bench seat of either side that could each seat 3 people. There were 4 of us, a Swedish lady, another Australian fellow from Newcastle and David and I. The man who had picked us up sat with us and told us about the history and the area as we were pulled along. Something that I had never heard before is that the moon shines 24 hours a day here in the winter. Now I bet that gives some very eerie lighting effects: Combine that with the northern lights and that would be something special: We saw some pink footed geese fly past and some barnacle geese on the ground but the reindeer we’d seen yesterday had gone.
We made a stop after about a half hour and 5k’s and the dogs were given a drink of water, then we were off again. We ended at another group of buildings owned by the kennels. Here they have built an exact replica of a house that William Barents, the Dutch explorer had built on Nova Zemlyn (not sure I’ve spelt that right) in 1596. It is quite a substantial building and on display are implements that could have been used at that time. The bunks around the wall are mostly longer in this house so as to accommodate the taller 21st century human, it Barents’ time they were only 170cm long, the bunks: The fire place too is more modern as it now has to be made of steel and set well above the floor to meet local fire standards whereas in Barents’ time it would have been on the floor. The wood used originally would have been cut from the driftwood collected around the shores of the islands; that driftwood comes from Siberia on the sea currents, the timber used in this house came from Norwegian forests. We enjoyed a coffee here and watched a short video of winter sledging. It looks like a really different experience and something that I would love to try sometime. Outside the dogs were taken out of their harnesses and tied to pegs then given another drink of water.
David got a short video of the dogs pulling the cart as we started on the return trip. Again we stopped to give them a drink about halfway. These sled dogs can average 10k’s an hour for around 6 hours a day with 6 in the team. When out on long sledging trips in the winter the dogs sleep outside the tents and should a polar bear put in an appearance then 5 dogs can take it down if necessary. Everything is done to avoid such a circumstance, but it can happen, in such cases it is often an old bear that is starving because it cannot hunt successfully.
We decided that we would visit one of the coal mines: There is only one open for tours and the info I read said that you didn’t have to take an organised tour but pick one up at the mine. It being only 3.5k’s from town we decided to walk. Turned out to be somewhat further but we got there eventually after about an 80 minute walk and that was with some shortcuts where the road zigzagged up the mountain. When we had started out it was -4˚C and although the sun had reached the valley by this it really hadn’t done a lot to warm it up but we had got fairly warm walking. When we finally got to the mine there wasn’t a soul around and we thought we’d wasted our time but just as we were about to leave a car rolled up. A man got out and offered us a tour now if we liked, we gratefully accepted. When we went inside the building leading to the mine shaft we found that there wasn’t any electricity on. It couldn’t have been off long as the room was warm from the heating. There was enough light from a window to see by so the fellow started by showing us the maps and charts of the mine shafts and explained the system of mining that had been used here.
This mine worked from the early 1970’s until 1996, by which time it was almost worked out, but it was also the time when the Norwegian government cut out the subsidy system and the mining company had to become economically viable or go out of business and this mine wasn’t going to be a paying proposition. The seam of coal is in a very narrow band from about 60cm thick to 1.4m thick, so that makes it very awkward to mine. The equipment used dates from the 1920’s and 30’s and its very labour intensive.
The mine has one long main shaft running through it for 3.5k’s, were we were was 270m above sea level and the shaft exited at the other end at 50 metres above sea level in another valley but at the level of the coal seam. This shaft has two railway tracks so the electric trains can go in empty on one track and come out full on the other. Off this main shaft there are evenly spaced side shafts that vary in length depending on how far the coal seam extended out in any direction. Some were several hundred metres long.
Long wall mining was the method used here: This is where the coal is taken out from the side of the shaft and gradually they work their way through to the next shaft, taking out all the coal between shafts.
The men worked in teams of three in three shifts of 8 hours round the clock. The first shift would have to cut out the first 15cm or so from the bottom using one machine, drill holes in the top and place in the explosive and that would blow the rest of the seam. They would do this along the length of the shaft: Second shift would come in with a scraper and scrape out the coal that had been loosened, drop it into the bins on the line below and have them ready to be hauled out, the third shift had to move the props that hold up the roof. This is very soft rock and all roofs have to be propped or they cave in, so the props have to be moved into the bit that had just been taken out. First though they have to take out the props from further back and for this they had tools with extended handles so that they weren’t quite so near to the caving roof. If one of the props was extra difficult the dirt beneath it might have to be dug out first then pull it out but some proved just too difficult to move so they got left behind to be forever embedded in the mountain. This shift had to move 200 to 300 of these props in their 8 hour shift so that it was ready for the cutting and blasting again.
We were each given a pair of overalls to wear and some work gloves, a hard hat with a lamp and a special breathing apparatus in case of dust from a cave in or methane gas. This is just a standard safety procedure but here the levels of methane gas are extremely low in the coal and in this mine they are almost nonexistent. Now we were set to enter the mine:
These mines are dug into the permafrost so they are going to be cold, this one has a constant temperature of -2˚C and during the summer, and I don’t know why, frost forms on the shaft walls making them sparkle in our torch light and white and sparkly when we shone the torch around. It looks really pretty. Icicles were hanging from some of the cables. The man showed us where they have a seed bank in one of the side shafts. There are hundreds of thousands of seeds from the Nordic countries in this seed bank. This is a good place to store them because of the constant below freezing temperature.
We saw where the fire engine is kept, it runs on diesel that way should there be a power failure it can still be used. About 500m along the main shaft we went into a side one and here the man showed us all the equipment he had told us about and explained how it worked. We were allowed to climb up into the narrow area of the seam that the men last worked on, it was only about 50cm high and these men would work in it for 8 hours with just a couple of tea breaks and a meal break. Just think of laying there in that narrow space with hundreds of metres of mountain overhead and knowing that this is soft rock that caves in very easily. Hells Bells!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wasn’t claustrophobic in there but I don’t think I would have liked to spend 8 hours in there day after day, they earnt their money I reckon. The power still wasn’t on when we got back to the meeting room so the man said he couldn’t do what he’d come to do in the first place and offered us a lift back to town that we gratefully accepted. When we went outside two male reindeer were grazing away peacefully at the edge of the car park. They are relatively tame here as no shooting is allowed in this area.
Our next project was to climb up to the cairn on the mountain, walk along the top and come back down by the glacier. For this trip we had to have a gun just in case we should meet a polar bear. So we hired one from one of the shops, and away we went. It was a steep climb and we were late starting after our coal mine expedition. The ground was rough going too, much of it over large angular shaped stones, bits of moss here and there and higher up a little patchy snow. I did ok but David was very slow, when I got to the top I had to wait a while for him. We still weren’t ad the top, just the cairn sitting right on the cliff edge and a view out over the town below. David, when he arrived was very exhausted and it was getting late so we gave the idea of the walk along the top away and instead descended along much the same route David had come up, not quite as steep as my route. The sun had gone from the valley by the time we got back and the temperature beginning to drop again so we returned the gun, didn’t really need it for that walk; it’s along the top that we might have encountered a polar bear. We still had 2k’s uphill to walk back to the hostel where we are staying.
The day we left we awoke to a very light sprinkling of snow on the ground. As we walked down the road towards the town centre we passed the school and there, sitting out in the yard on benches was a class of smaller children with a teacher having a lesson as if it were a pleasant summer’s day. All were dressed in their snow suits and the grainy snow was still falling lightly. By the time we left for the airport the snow was settling nicely. As we flew out the cloud had come down really low so we couldn’t see much at all.
It wasn’t until we were nearly in Tromso that the cloud began to break up and we could see some snow on the mountains as we came down to land there. It had been raining too. A short stop then on to Oslo and again it was thick cloud cover most of the way, clearing only in the last few minutes before landing. The airport is well out of the city and is surrounded by farmland with lots of fields of ripening grain and plenty of patches of forest. We landed there around 7pm and were already on the fast train into Oslo before the sun set around 8pm.
We got to our friend Sigrid’s’ home without any problems and were warmly greeted. We spent a lovely few days with Sigrid and went for some walks with her in the forest areas around Oslo. Each day we would set out with a basket or bag prepared to collect any mushrooms (sopp) we could find. Sad to say we never did find any although Sigrid had read in the newspaper that this year there was a really good crop of mushrooms. Someone else had beaten us to them. Except for one day we had lovely weather up to 17˚C, though I must say it didn’t really feel that warm to me, rarely took my jacket off. Sigrid also had a lovely crop of ripe plums on her tree and they were so sweet and juicy that we ate lots of them. The day we left turned really warm, it was 6˚C when I’d looked at the thermometer first thing but by the time we got to the bus station it was t-shirt and shorts weather. To get to Torp airport that is around 120k’s from Oslo we had a lovely bus trip through the countryside, and the bus cost wasn’t as much as the fast train from the other airport. That other airport is the main one.
Torp is the airport used by Ryan Air and a couple of other discount companies and it was almost deserted until our bus load of passengers arrived. The buses are run to connect with departing and incoming flights. The Ryan air flight had cost us a total of $61 AUD for the two of us including airport taxes, the fare was only $1 AUD ea. We left Torp in brilliant sunshine and very shortly run into thick cloud cover that stayed with us all the way to Stansted where we couldn’t see the ground until we had nearly landed. Stansted too, is in amongst farmland.
Back in England we went back to the same B & B where we had stayed before going to Iceland and where the car was waiting for us. We had another night here before heading back to Arundel and to our poor long suffering friend Heather.

Episode 12

Episode 12
A very dreary morning Saturday morning it looked as I peered out the port hole before breakfast. A quick trip to the bridge though boosted my enthusiasm as in front was a massive glacier terminal; this is Samarinbreen. One of the crew told me it was about 2 mile wide (3.2k’s), face up to 50m high.
After breakfast we set out in the zodiacs to get a closer look. Our zodiac was driven by Giles, the doctor on board. He had a close encounter of the glacial kind about a month ago when a massive piece of ice calved off about 150m from the zodiac he was driving and created some huge waves that the zodiac surfed out of the area. It was a very scary moment apparently: Now Giles is not keen to get too close to the ice face.
He gave us a really good trip around and we passed through the massive amount of brash ice. It is made up of thousands of pieces of ice of all sizes and can be very thick so that the zodiacs sort of plough their way through it with much crunching and bending of propeller blades. We saw a bearded seal pop his head up a couple of times and there were a large number of kittiwakes flying around and standing on the ice. Some glaucous gulls too: We cruised around for a long time looking at the ice and the caves and other formations. Every now and again there would be an almighty crash as a piece of ice somewhere along the face would calve off and fall into the water but oddly enough it is not easy to see where this has happened. The sound reverberates around so you can’t tell in which direction it has happened and there is so much broken ice from recent falls. A big iceberg is sitting on a rock; it looks like an ice castle. We made a short landing here and climbed up the rock that is made of silt rock that looks like slates laid vertically side by side. From this vantage point we got a good view over the brash ice and back to the ship. Only a few years ago this island and its ice castle would have been part of the glacier. Some of these glaciers are receding around 200m per year. Back on the ship we could get a good look at the area behind the glacier and could see that many smaller glaciers feed into this one glacier with this massive ice terminal.
From here we cruised along to another big glacier terminal, Hornbreen, and here the ship went is as close as practical and we slowly cruised along its length. On the land just before we got to the glacier a polar bear was spotted but I couldn’t see it. Our lunch was cut short when it was announced that another one had been spotted on a berg. When I made it up to the bridge he was no longer on the berg but swimming along near the ship. We watched him for a couple of minutes then let him go on his merry way. Last seen making his way through some more brash ice: They are very good and powerful swimmers and can swim hundreds of miles.
Later in the afternoon we were going to make another landing at an old trappers hut on Sophiebogen but just before we set off a bear was spotted near the hut. We were in the first zodiac to depart with Adam as our driver. Here there wasn’t only lots of brash ice but lots of shallows and rock islands, the islands are all marble, and so is the rock underneath. A good swell was running too just to make things a little more interesting and some swift currents were flowing over and around the rock that was at or just above water level. We made our way to one outcrop and found a place to put the zodiac into and Adam climber up the rock for a better look at the hut and the bear, well the bear turned out to be a rock, same colour but not as fearsome as the bear. After hearing this we thought the landing would be back on again, still, it was better to have a good look around so we continued on some way further with everyone on the lookout for anything that resembled wild life. Naturally Lyn didn’t contribute very much to that, but I could tell Adam when the water got really shallow as I was sitting right up front. Someone with sharp eyes, not sure who spotted a real bear this time asleep under a rocky overhang. Adam stopped the motor and we drifted in some way and got a really good look at him. After Adam radioed the other drivers they too came over and all went well until the last zodiac arrived and that was one too many for the bear so he upped and strolled off. Negotiating our way around the rock and the brash ice we keep track of him for a long way until he laid down again near the shore. The possibility of doing a landing at the hut one zodiac at a time was discussed with us watching the bear to begin with but I don’t think anyone actually got back to that place before the bear got up and wandered off again and we lost sight of him. The project was then abandoned. At this site there are a lot of small hills, ravines, caves, and even just rocks where a bear can be lying and be impossible to see. Others have been surprised by bears here even though they have looked for them first. We did see a couple of ring seals as we made our way back to the ship. Later in the day I got a good view of one of the many puffins flying about the ship
Two of the kayakers had a mishap on this last outing and overturned when they got caught between the shallow rocks and the brash ice, no one was hurt and they were wearing dry suits but they were still very very cold when they got back on board.
It is now Sunday and our last full day. Looking out from the flying deck I could see a lovely mountain with a sharp peak facing the fjord with very steep slopes, there was some mist over the higher parts and this gave it a very mystical appearance. It was drizzling with rain too, and we had another ship moored near us but couldn’t see anyone from it about. This is Alkehornet:
We climbed once more into the zodiacs and went across to land on the pebbly beach. There is a hut here is excellent repair and smoke coming from the chimney. At present there are a policeman and a scientist staying here. They are patrolling the area in a motorboat checking on the condition of the historical sites and making sure that nothing has been disturbed. This hut is also frequently used by the governor of Svalbard hence its good repair.
The high cliffs at the top are nesting sites for a few species of birds and it is because of this that there is so much good food for the reindeer. The bird dropping leave nutrients on the scree slopes so that mosses and grasses can take root and grow. The slopes that the birds don’t fly over are free of vegetation. Of course, once there is something for the reindeer to graze on, they then leave their droppings and that adds to the nutrients so the vegetation improves.
Some reindeer had been spotted on the slopes and no polar bears in sight so we set off up the slopes to get a closer look at these animals. We were fairly lucky and got reasonably close to them. It was a small herd of 10 to 12 animals. Some big males with lovely ‘racks’ of antlers: Two or three of them had rubbed the velvet off the rack or were in the process of doing so with long bits of the velvet hanging down. Another couple had only just shed all the velvet and their antlers were a very bloody looking red. There was on fellow that hadn’t yet shed any of his velvet. The males shed their velvet at the beginning of the mating season, the rut, after that they will drop the antlers and begin growing new ones for next year. The females who have smaller antlers keep theirs for a further month or so but it isn’t understood why.
A couple of these males were having a bit of a spar their antlers interlocking but their heads never touched as the antlers kept them apart. It seemed to be a bit of a shoving match more than anything. In the group there were a few females too, one with a fawn that had no antlers at all but it stayed very near its mother. It must have been this seasons faun; there was another one that I think was a youngster too but it had very tiny antlers.
The mating season will start very soon, and the fauns are born in March so that they have the summer to grow and become independent. Here they have no enemies; the polar bear leave them alone because they run too fast, too much energy is used trying to catch one. These reindeer are much more stocky and chunky than those we saw in Alaska. They seem to have shorter legs and are a slightly different colour too. Both the Alaskan and Eurasian species have the same Latin name. The ones here are very fat now as it is the end of the summer and they must have enough fat to tide them over the winter months when food is scarce.
After lunch we watched as the ship made its way along Isfjorden to our last landing of the trip. The mountains changed formation, quite suddenly we were in a very old pre-Cambrian land formation with the mountains made up of a great many strata of sediments that have been laid down when this area was around sea level at a latitude similar to that of the Persian Gulf now. The mountains had flat tops, levelled by the ice sheet from the last ice age. The top part was sheer cliffs of maybe 50m with a great many strata of colours from fawn and yellow to orange, brown and even black. These cliffs where deeply eroded with steep gullies fairly evenly placed that gave the cliffs an almost rippled appearance. Below the cliffs the scree slopes are also variegated but with vertical stripes. The bare slopes are the fawn colour but the gullies are darker, tan and brown and red depending on the mosses and grasses growing there, under the bird cliffs the mosses are thicker and greener.
This is an old gypsum mine site. The gypsum was found just a few metres above sea level and was first mined in 1919 but then halted only to be restarted in 1930, but it wasn’t a success then either as the gypsum was found to be of a very poor quality. Much of the infrastructure is still there. The mine shaft has nearly all collapsed just the opening is visible; a the short rail line that ran to the shore on which the bins run, it is now falling apart. An old wooden ship is lying on its side, it was used to ferry the gypsum from the shore to the bigger ship. The fjord is too shallow to bring big ships right up close to shore. A small hut is all equipped with a few items that wouldn’t have been available at the time but we couldn’t go inside just look through the window.
Walking around the beach Eva spotted a fossil lying there, it looked like it was a shell. Further around were some bird cliffs but we found we couldn’t walk all the way as there has been a rock fall blocking the beach and the scree was still trickling down, so we went in the zodiacs round to the cliffs and saw some puffins, the late ones that haven’t left yet. These are funny birds to watch flying, they beat their wings really fast all the time as if they will fall out of the sky if they stop, which they probably would do. Not like the fulmars that glide of the air current.
Now our cruise is practically over, tomorrow morning we will be landing in Longyearbyen. It has been a wonderful cruise even if we didn’t get to see walruses or beluga whales. I really recommend this company, and its an Australian company, Aurora Expeditions. They do both Arctic and Antartci cruises, including one to the Ross ice shelf this coming February, one around Scotland, and are introducing a couple of new ones next year, one around PNG and another around the Kamchatka peninsular. Might look into one of them further:
© Lynette Regan 9th September 2007

Episode 11

Episode 11
Thursday and this found us nearing King Karl’s Island where we made a landing around 9am. The weather had settled greatly, there was still a small swell that we lost once we went around the top of the Island. We landed on a gravelly beach and as soon as we did so someone spotted an arctic fox off in the distance and we watched it for sometime. To everyone else it was a fox to Lyn it was a white blob in the far distance that moved. The white is its winter coat and apparently it hadn’t fully changed colour it still had some brown on it.
Near here too we saw a tiny trappers hut. It was only about 2 metre square, built entirely of wood, probably from what was washed up on the beach here at some point. It would only have been used to two or three nights at a time, it had a wooden bunk. Much of the wall has fallen down in recent times and it’s the policy of the government to leave such things alone so it will eventually fall to bits. Just nearby is an old Polar Bear trap too, one of the type in which there was a gun placed and a trip wire led from the bait to the trigger so that the poor animal was shot through the head when it tried to eat the bait. A very indiscriminate way of hunting as it often killed females with young cubs, so that the cubs died too and caused the major depletion of Polar Bear numbers on Svalbard.
We went for a walk of about 1k or so and passed some ice polygons along the way, these were round ones. Some old whalers’ graves on a bit of a rise took our attention. They are from the 17th century and can clearly be seen as each one has lots of stones placed on top. This is because a deep grave couldn’t be dug in the permafrost, so being very shallow lots of rocks were placed on top to stop the scavengers. I don’t know how well it worked but now there is one exposed skull to be seen. Research has been done on the bodies and some interesting clothes and tools have been found. Many of these people died of scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency. The irony of this is that a little plant growing on the grave is called the scurvy plant. It is rich in vitamin C and grows well in Svalbard.
We came to a small harbour seal colony. These are the same type of seal that we saw on Iceland. Some were basking on shore in amongst the seaweed, some playing in the water and a few were lying on rocks that were just underwater so that their backs were in the water but the rest of their body wasn’t. From a distance they looked like the shape of a small kayak, with their heads up at one end and their tails up at the other. They have lovely tails too, with twin flaps; one of them was twitching his back and forth all the time like a dog wagging two tails. They took no notice of us.
Along the beach hoping from rock to sand and back to rock were a couple of sandpipers. I think they are purple sandpipers as they have coloured legs. In any case they are lovely little birds that came fairly near as they pecked a living from amongst the rocks and seaweed. Overheard a long tailed skua chased a kittiwake trying to get it to drop its food, it was successful too.
Over the next few hours we moved position to our further most northerly point, 78˚58.5”, 1.5 nautical miles short of 79˚. Our longitude I am not certain of but we are around 8˚ east of the 0˚ meridian. We are in a large fjord with a huge tidal glacier at the head and a couple of other smaller tidal glaciers. The town of Ny Alesund is on the other side of the water from where we anchored. Some of the crew have gone there to get extra fuel for the zodiacs, whilst we visited the site of New London, or Camp Mansfield as it was known for some time.
When we landed on shore here we immediately saw a load of rusting equipment. Then up on the bank we came to the first of two good wooden houses that we built here. On this first one, above the door is a plaque with the name ‘Camp Mansfield” on it. Beyond that is a lot more rusting old equipment including some boilers and a steam crane: Some steel railway line too on which the crane stands:
This is the site of an old marble quarry. In 1906 Ernest Mansfield found marble here, from the piece he took back to England it was determined that it was of very good quality and was an extensive deposit. In 1911 the Northern Exploration Company decided to set up a mining business here and over the next 3 years built houses and work sheds and brought up much heavy steam powered equipment from England. In 1914 just as they were about ready to start mining WW1 broke out and everything was put on hold. It resumed again in 1919 only to fall flat on its face soon after; all the marble broke up as soon as it was cut. It is of poor quality and is fractured by frost. In all the setup years no one had bothered to check its quality. The whole project was abandoned and the equipment that had cost so much in money and effort to get here, left to rust away over time. Some of the things have been taken away by people who could make use of it, but the rest remains and now cannot be touched by anyone. There are two very small quarries here as well.
While we were looking around this site three reindeer took our attention. They were on the next ridge, a fair way off and not worried by our presence. Three males, one had antlers with velvet still on, the other had antlers with a pinkish tinge when the sunlight caught them, this is because he had just rubbed the velvet off, as for the third I have no idea. We left them and walked for about two k’s over the crumbling stony slopes and soft spongy tundra mosses. Arctic willow grows here too, it’s the local version of a tree, growing a mere 5cm above the ground with tiny leaves. It qualifies as a tree merely because it’s a woody plant. Saw four more reindeer, at least everyone else but Lyn did, we came to a high point then returned. Out in the fjord we saw another small ship at anchor, about the same size as ours. I got quite warm walking but just standing looking I soon cooled off. By the time we got back to the ship we’d been gone about 3 hours.
In the evening we had a BBQ out on the deck in the freezing weather. I am not into this BBQ culture I’m afraid and really couldn’t see the point in eating a meal outside, standing up, in heavy clothes. Hot mulled wine was on offer too, but after one taste I threw mine overboard and even the fulmar below didn’t appreciate it, can’t say that the Arctic beer was a great improvement either, but that may well have been due to the fact that it was just too cold to drink beer. Even rugged up I was just too cold to enjoy it though most partied on. I came back inside as soon as I could and sat in a place where I could enjoy the view in comfort and write this too.
Friday morning found us quite a ways south from our position yesterday. We are now south of Longyearbyen on Isfjorden on Bellsund the next major fjord to the south. We entered Recherche Fjorden and directly in front of us was the wide Recherche glacier; it has a terminal face about 12m or more high in places and possibly as wide as 2k’s. As we cruised up towards the glacier we passed others along the way and also saw a few buildings on shore that are used by scientific researchers. We anchored in front of the glacier and someone spotted a Polar Bear on a ridge in front of another glacier. Quickly the zodiacs were out and we climbed aboard. We had been warned that it was extremely cold, about +3˚C with a nasty wind coming off the glacier, so most of us had put on extra clothes to be sure. First we went and looked at the polar bear. It was up on the ridge and just looked like a white blob to me until he came a little closer by walking down a ravine and arriving at a point nearer the beach. Still a good way off but better for me to see him. He walked along the top of a low hill of moraine and I got a good view of him and how he walked as he was nicely silhouetted against the darker background of moraine. It was very large animal we believe.
After watching him for a good while we then went along to the glacier and entered the lagoon in front of the terminal that is crowded with melting icebergs and brash ice. The terminal face is around 20m high, and is quite dirty with moraine. There are a few big caves and a large area of icefall. We saw a little ring seal that popped his head up several times around our zodiac. Don, our driver this time thought he saw a Beluga whale so we set off in search of it and instead found a bearded seal basking on the rock. This fellow seemed quite content to let us come fairly near although he kept an eye on us. With the sun shining on him we could see his light coloured, long whiskers; they are more of a moustache than a beard. He was a big fellow of 2m to 2.5m long and extremely round, probably a good 2m in girth at his thickest point. He certainly wasn’t overextending any energy on our presence.
We toured about the bergs too and had a look at the terminal moraine that still has much ice underneath all the rock and gravel. We could see some icicles hanging down in the cavern above the water line, this cavern has been melted out by water and wave action. This lagoon is tidal though the tides only vary around a metre or so. A really clear berg we examined closely and could see the trapped air bubbles. These bubbles can be extracted and tested to ascertain what the atmospheric conditions were like at the time it was trapped. That could have been hundreds of years ago or thousands, just how they determine that I have absolutely no idea. The katabolic wind blowing off the glacier was fearsomely cold, and one zodiac load cut their tour short and went back to the ship, the rest of us hardier souls stuck with it though I must say my feet, even with 3 pairs of socks, were painfully cold.
While the ship moved a short distance back around a point east of Recherche Fjorden we had a fairly quick lunch then another outing in the zodiacs at 1pm. This one was to have been a landing at an old whaling station but another polar bear was on shore, just on the other side of a small point necessitating that the plan be changed.
We cruised up to the point and just far enough beyond it to see the bear, then the motors were cut and we drifted in a little way. The 5 zodiacs were then tied together loosely side by side and one motor was started and we moved in a little closer as quietly as we could. This bear was probably a little smaller than the last and was eating something up on the bank above the beach. It seemed quite content to continue doing so even though we moved in a bit closer still. It was probably still another 400m or so to the bear. Then he ambled down onto the beach to where its main food supply was lying. It was eating blubber from a sperm whale that had died last year. While it nibbled on the blubber we snuck in a little further, and kept doing so from time to time. We decided that is was mostly likely a little female on her first season alone when she sat down and attended to her toilet giving us a good view. She would look at us but wasn’t particularly interested. We were only around 150m from her when she decided to get into the water but this was only to sit in an cool off it seems as after about 10 mins she got out again. Just the same none of the zodiac drivers were taking any chances; each one checked that the outboard on their boat would start quickly. Polar bears can move very fast on land and swim very fast in the water. This water was shallow too, she could easily have waded out to us. I don’t know how long we stayed and watched her but it was a long time and although it was very cold we all enjoyed it. Just a short distance away we went and inspected some of the vertebrae from the sperm whale; there was a long piece of the tail section still intact just above the high tide mark so we got close without getting out of the zodiacs. The shallow sea floor was littered with more pieces.
Back round the little point we had a closer look at the old whaling station without getting out of the boats. On the beach were many piles of bleached bones, we could see many skulls. They are from Beluga whales that were the speciality here. The fjords here were full of them and they could be netted and dragged ashore where they were harpooned then butchered. It seems that the oil from the beluga is supposedly the finest of all whale oils. At a high point up on the bank was a stone lookout tower, it may well show up on photos of the bear as it was behind her. We went back to check on her before going back to the boat but this time she heard us coming and decided that she’d had enough so turned her back and ambled away.
Back on board it was time for a cup of tea and some of Brendan’s lovely chocolate slice, and then I headed up to the bridge to watch our progress. Don then told us that in another hour we would have another landing where we should be able to see some arctic fox. Along the way we passed an interesting cliff face. Kent explained that the dark zigzag line up the cliff face was from a very ancient folding of the rock, and then it had be turned 90˚ when it folded again.
On this landing not near so many went out, some had decided they’d had enough cold for one day. Those of us that did go were rewarded. We were to have landed here too, but yet another polar bear was around so we had to make the most of it from the boats. In only three zodiacs this time due to the smaller number it was the people in our boat that spotted the foxes. The American lady was very pleased to spot the first one, a very fine specimen with white fur and a lovely bushy tail. He ambled back and forth over some green and yellow tundra giving us a good chance to see him well. When he went out of our sight we went off to see the polar bear but the bear had disappeared down a ravine so we didn’t see him, still we came back and looked at the bird cliffs. Birds occupy little holes and ledges all the way up the cliff face. Here its mainly glaucous gulls now, these are a large and aggressive gull. There are also just a few kittiwakes and some arctic terns. We saw two long tailed skuas chasing a kittiwake. They do this to make the kittiwake drop the food it has then they catch the food before it hits the water. Well sometime they do, but not always.
While we were looking at the birds we also kept lookout for more foxes and this time David spotted one, he was skulking about near the birds. This one was a little more greyish, the same colour as the lighter rock. We also decided that this one was a female too by the way she squatted. As we watched she went up and down the rock and tundra and poked her nose into several holes but we didn’t see her get anything to eat. On this outing we sat through a couple of light showers that were snow flurries on the mountain tops giving the mountains a little more white dusting.
We’ve had a good day and seen some new animals. Now we are all very keen to see Walruses, the place we visited up north to see them we found they’d left.
© Lynette Regan 7th September 2007

Our trip Episode 10

Our trip Episode 10
Sunday morning and we were moored near Bear Island (Bjørn Øer). It was overcast but the wind was only light so the sea was still calm. We set out in the Zodiacs and did a cruise around the icebergs. A couple of them were enormous, one was very high and almost square except when we got up one end, went round the corner and found that it had a big bay in that end, almost like a huge ice amphitheatre. Underwater it stretched out about 20 or 30 metres just below the surface. As we went over it in the zodiac I hoped that it didn’t move just a few inches or we could have become marooned on it. You can see ledges on many of them; these ledges are formed as they sit on one level for a while then rise, often at a tilt and form another ledge, so that after several tilts they have a ‘Sydney Opera House’ appearance, one shell inside another: That ice above the water must melt faster than that below I suppose. They can also capsize or break up without any warning so its not a good idea to hang around too near especially on the tall ones.
Many of the glaciers have a line of almost clear aqua through them, sometimes it’s a thick line other times so thin it seems no more than a pencil mark. This is caused from water, either melt water or rain water that has collected in a narrow crack or fissure and then frozen. It’s amazing how straight some of these cracks of frozen melt water can be, and often they go right across the berg.
We landed on Bear Island with the hope of seeing some wildlife, but the wild life had other ideas, so all we could do was admire the scenery of the rugged jagged peaks about us. A small mountain range somewhat resembled the teeth on a saw, big teeth they were. Another was similar to Mitre Peak in Milford Sound NZ, except that this one has no bush on it whatsoever. I did find some more blueberries to pick from the tiny bushes that were growing no more than 6” (150cm) high. What plants that do survive up here are all very low to the ground. The snow and ice weigh them down for a good part of the year.
A family of Eider ducks, mum and 4 chicks was the only wildlife we saw; our guide Don said they are very late and will probably become part of the food chain. They looked lovely all strung out in line. One of the other zodiacs saw a seal whilst a different one caught a distant glimpse of 2 arctic hares. These animals are snow white all year round.
Back on board and we begun making our way back down the Sund and out into the open sea. We were now about to head further north, a 29 hours sea journey up the coast to Kaiser Frans Joseph fjord where hopefully we will make some more landings starting tomorrow afternoon. As we came back down Scoresby Sund we passed even larger icebergs, one the crew roughly measured for us, it was 30 to 35m high and 120m long approx, and about 55m across; that’s one hell of a big ice cube. Of course these are only glacial bergs; the really big bergs are in the Antarctic where the big tabular bergs from the iceshelf can be many k’s long and much higher.
By 8pm we had come to the first of the sea ice and as we ate our dinner we could hear the ship begin crunching through it. By the time many of us had got up on the flying bridge or bridge we had long left that belt behind but there will be much more to come as we head up the coast we have been assured.
Some of the mountains we passed looked very pretty too. The ice sheet long ago has carved out a series of plateaux up their sides and each of these had a layer of snow on it but the steep sides didn’t so it gave an horizontal striped effect.
Don told us about 2 Kiwis (New Zealanders) that are currently attempting to cross the Greenland ice cap. They have a couple of kayaks with them that they have put Teflon runners underneath and modified so that they can be used as a sled over the ice and later when they reach the west coast they plan to kayak down that some way to some town. No mean feat to get up onto the ice cap with all that gear, then down again. The glaciers all seem very rough.
Monday morning came with crystal clear powder blue skies. The sea was almost mirror smooth, the bare mountains around with just the odd patch of snow were gloriously reflected in the water broken only by the odd ice floe that was drifting past. There was barely a breath of wind. A more perfect day one could hardly imagine. We were cruising up Davy Sund. However, by breakfast time we had come to a standstill. The ship can travel through pack ice that is 3/10 coverage, but not more than that when it has passengers on it. In front of us was pack ice of around 8/10 coverage and that was only what could be seen further on it may well have gotten worse. So it was decided that we shouldn’t go any further but return to the open sea and head off for Svalbard. The open sea though is not all that open at this latitude. There is a large belt of sea ice that extends a long way south. Our captain has heard from another ship that there is a channel through this pack ice almost due east of our current position so he is hoping that the channel will remain open and we can cross through it, other wise if we have to head south and around it then that will add a further 160 nautical miles to our journey to Svalbard.
Before we turned around though we had a trip out onto the ice: This is sea ice, frozen salt water, it’s not high like the glacial bergs can be but it does get a few metres high, it has little hill and gullies in it and pools of frozen melt water not always frozen solid. The zodiacs were put in the water and we were taken across to a large ice floe only 20 metres away. It would have had an area of around 3 to 4 acres (16,000 to 20,000 sq metres). It wasn’t at all slippery as I expected. Some snow had fallen on it some time and formed icy crystals that sparkled like billions of diamonds in the bright sunshine, but that also meant that the surface was rough and easy to walk on. We all had a great time walking around it and Adam found one melt water pond that was frozen solid and we all had a walk on that too. Then back in the zodiacs and Robin took us out to another floe where a few of us climbed on to this one, one person at a time, she took the zodiac back out so photos could be taken of a lone person on the ice. That was fun. I even laid down on the ice, doing my seal act, not sure I could keep it up for hours but for a few minutes it was great.
In between the ice floes is the ‘grease’ ice. This is the very thin stuff just setting, like a thin skin over the sea. It crunches and breaks up when the zodiacs go over it. It also means that the sea water is below freezing as sea water does not freeze a 0˚C but just a little lower.
After the zodiac cruise Robyn, deputy team leader decided that, it being such a perfect day it was time for the polar challenge. Now the polar challenge is to take a leap of faith into the freezing water here amongst the ice floes. The temperature of this water is 0.3˚C ; that’s just a whisker above freezing. The gangway was lowered so that the bottom platform was 6 inches below the water level and a Russian crewman was stationed there, just to throw you in I think in case you chickened out at the last second; also to haul you out after. Also there were two crew members in a zodiac to give assistance if required, and Giles the doctor was on standby too. A few of us rushed to get changed into our swimmers and stood there on deck in the chilly air, about 9˚C with just a towel wrapped around until it was our turn. Robyn started the ball rolling by being the first. I took the plunge, about 4th or 5th in the queue, and yes it was dam cold. I timidly dived in, not going deep as the water gets much colder just centimetres below the surface, and swam back to the landing stage, that was quite enough in that temperature. David had to be hauled into the zodiac as he said he couldn’t get his legs to work, mine had felt much the same. Tell you what, when we got out and climbed back up on deck it felt positively warm standing there in wet swimmers in the sun. About 7 passengers took the plunge the rest just stood and watched including most of the Swedes. Judy from Canberra was the eldest at 76: Living in Canberra would be a good introduction anyway.
After all this excitement we upped anchor and set course for Svalbard. We headed back down the Sund and then across an area of sea ice, our captain negotiating our way through the ice floes. Most of us stood out on deck or on the bridge on the lookout for seals and polar bears. With the seals we were successful seeing several. Mostly ring seals, these have a ring pattern on their bodies, but to me it just looks like black and grey patches, and one was a hooded seal, don’t know his special features as he looked to me very much like the others. Still who am I to argue; they are very difficult to see when far away as they are the same colour as the shadows on the ice. The polar bears though avoided us. They are often spotted on the ice as this is one of their favourite hunting places, always a seal or two about to snack on.
We crunched on through the ice, a few floes the ship drove up onto until they split, but most we just pushed aside as we passed. It was the middle of the night by the time we’d passed through the ice and now as I write this on Tuesday morning we are sailing through a heavy swell with the ship gently rolling. The outside temp is 5˚C and the decks are icy. The cloud is low with a mist in the distance. It’s time for breakfast:
Not many at breakfast, some are ill, others just not feeling too good. We were informed that the wind gusts were 40 knot ph and the sea had a 3 metre swell. It wasn’t long before those sea gusts reached 50 knots and the swell increased to 7 metres. It began raining too so everything became a vision in shades of grey. The waves breaking over the bow are fascinating to watch and I spent a really long time up on the bridge watching them. The biggest ones when the ship met them at just the right angle would send the spray right up over the bridge windows. I could sit there and watch the boat bow dip right down into some troughs and pitch right up high when the stern went into a trough.
We had a couple of lectures during the day, one on polar bears by Adam. It was interesting. There are estimated to be around 3000 bears on Svalbard. They find most of their food in the winter, in the summer it is more spread out and difficult to find. The pregnant females find a snow den to lie and await the birth of their cubs in October and have their cubs around Christmas/New Year. They have from one to three cubs and stay in the den suckling them until about April when the cubs are big enough to venture out. They are born very tiny and naked and must be kept warm. She then spends the next two years raising them finally sending them off at nearly 2 ½ years old.
The other lecture was by Kent our geologist and was an introduction to geology, much of which I had covered in high school. Still it was an interesting lecture learning about the different types of rocks and how they are formed. It is an odd fact that granite is found only on the continents and not under the oceans and also that it is found only on earth, it has not yet been found on any other planets. Though how they can be sure its not there beats me. Not that many probes have landed on other planets to rule it out completely I should think.
Wednesday the sea had calmed a little and continued to do so all through the day. The wind had dropped to around 30knots by morning and the swell down to 5metre and not near so choppy. Those that had been seasick the day before showed signs of recovery. Fortunately for me I had not been seasick at all and David only slightly, enough to skip a meal but that’s all. We had another couple of lectures, one on the birds of Svalbard by Adam. He is very good, he knows the names of these birds not only in Latin but also by their English, Swedish and German name. The only bird that winters over on Svalbard is the Ptarmigan; all others migrate to warmer climes in search of food. Another lecture was by Kent on the geology of Svalbard. It seems that these islands have lived in the tropics. At some point about 500 million year ago or, was it 1 billion, can’t remember, it was in a position south of the equator, this is when the initial coal deposits were laid down, then it drifted north of the equator and more coal deposits were laid, since then it has continued to drift northward, given long enough it may well pass over the north pole. Did you know that the sea over the North Pole is 4500m deep and that the ice over the South Pole is 4000m deep. Just thought I’d throw that bit of trivia in for good measure. We have also passed over an underwater volcano that is only 500m below the surface of the sea, now we are over 3000m deep seas. By evening the weather looked to be definitely improving with a good sunset and some patches of blue sky about.
During the afternoon and evening over the last couple of days we have watched some movies as well as documentaries. Most of the movies have been of dubious standard, but the documentaries have been great. One on polar bears by the BBC follows the life of a female raising her cubs mainly. It has some incredible footage of her with a baby cub in an icy den. This was filmed with a hidden camera. Another one we watched was made back in the very early 1900’s about the life of an Eskimo family called ‘Nanook of the north”. Considering when it was made it is very good. It shows this family’s struggle for survival in finding food in that harsh environment in northern Canada around Hudson Bay. These native people of this harsh climate are really quite amazing.
© Lynette Regan 5th September 2007

Episode 9

Episode 9
So our sea voyage starts:
We boarded the Polar Pioneer on a dreary wet afternoon and soon found our cabins and our way around. We are only 49 passengers; the expedition crew is a mixed bunch with a New Zealander as expedition leader, some Aussies, a Swede, a Brit/Dane, and possibly others. Of the passengers we are fairly mixed too, though most are Australian there are a group of Americans, some Swedes, a couple of Canadians who live in England, a few Brits, one from the Isle of Man, a few New Zealanders and maybe some I’ve missed.
Our first day out was a day at sea crossing the Denmark Strait. It was a beautiful day, some cloud about but only a light breeze, the sea was very calm, the sun came out in the afternoon and it got quite warm. We saw sperm whales, minke whales, I saw both them, one sperm whale went right under our bow. Some people also saw white beaked dolphins and orcas but I missed them. A great many birds around the ship and sitting on the sea, they were fulmars and kittiwakes. Some icebergs about and one we passed fairly close to had one sloping side and it was thick with birds.
We had a talk given by Adam, a Swede, on the whales, especially the Blue whale that is the largest mammal that has ever lived. The largest one ever caught was on South Georgia; it was 33m long and weighed 190 tonnes. They can blow water from their blow holes up to 9 m high. Yet these huge creatures live on the smallest, eating mainly krill and phytoplankton. Fin whales are the next largest mammals. Another interesting thing he mentioned is that the amount of krill in the oceans is around 3 times the weight of all the humans on earth. That’s one hell of a lot of krill.
Our second day out and the water is still very calm. There is much more cloud about and looking out the port hole we could see that we were anchored off a small bay. The bay I don’t think was named but the cape beside it is Kap Dalton. After breakfast we kitted up in our outdoor gear with wellington boots on our feet and life jackets over our warm clothes and boarded the zodiacs for our trip into land. We landed on a black sand beach with strategically places boulders just to make things a bit awkward. Ken the geologist gave us a short talk about the geological structure of the place. Many layers of lava one over the other, you can see them from the strata in the rock exposed by the gouging ice of passing glaciers. It is obvious too, where these glaciers have gouged out the rock forming plateaus at different levels as they slowly receded. An old hut here was built in 1900. It is looking rather sad now and beginning to fall to bits. There was no glacier here when it was built and its believed that there has been no glacier here for a thousand years or more.
Very little precipitation falls here either in the form of snow or rain. There are some plants here and there but most of the ground is just bare rocks or gravel. The clumps of bright yellow leaves are Arctic willow, its a small shrub really but here it grows flat to the ground, the yellow leaves being its autumn colour, an odd plant here and there is still green. There are also some lovely little red or russet coloured plants; they offer such a contrast in colour to the brown/grey of the basalt rock. Interesting formations on the ground are known as ice polygons. These can cover quite an area, each one adjoining the next, let me try and explain them: To start with there is an area of a few square metres that is flat and maybe covered with mosses or lichens, and around that area are much larger rocks; these larger rocks form lines that criss cross each other. They are formed over thousands maybe millions of years and created by the freezing and thawing of the ground. Each time it freezes the rock and gravel is lifted a little, when it thaws the smaller rocks fall into the cracks shoving the bigger ones off to the side. It’s a slow process and as we wandered about we could see these polygons in various stages of their evolution. On a bit of black sand some people saw a polar bears foot print and also that of an arctic fox. Our guides carry guns when we go ashore and precautions are taken in case Polar Bear should be about as they can be very dangerous animals. Musk oz can also be about here but its unlikely that either will be present here at this time, the musk oz need tundra to graze on and the polar bears prefer to be on the ice.
Looking up high into the hills around us we saw glaciers and on the high horizon is the white of a glacier that leads back onto the Greenland ice cap. The ice cap is only about 15 k’s from here.
All back on board after a hiccup with one of the outboard motors on a zodiac we headed off northward again. Saw a group of seals in the water directly in front of us, when we got really near they quickly swam off. Soon after lunch we cruised up Rømer fjord for our second landing of the day.
Again Ken the geologist gave a short talk on the geology of the area, this is almost the northern extremity of the basalt and lava flows. It is quite similar to our last landing except that here there are a few hot springs, but they are not geothermal springs like we saw in Iceland though I can’t really say I understand how they come to exist; it’s something to do with water trapped in the basalt. The water does not have the sulphur fumes that you normally associate with hot springs. It is about 60C when it comes out of the ground and in this cold place soon looses its heat. What is most interesting is the little mound that has built up around the spring. It must be from the minerals in the water I think. One now resembles a wishing well in shape and size, the water is 60C and its about 89 cm deep. Just how it came to build itself into this shape no one could explain. Another one was also built up similar to this but it was also on a mound of small stones that are different to the basalt here. The geologist put forward the theory that during times when the springs are more active, like in the spring melt, then they spit up the odd stone or two. It’s as good a theory as any and no one has yet come forward to contradict him. The one on the mound looked like the water was coming from a tiny spigot in the top of a rock covered with mosses. Lovely long brown mosses grow in the warmest water.
Because of the warmth and moisture from the spring there is a lot more plants here; a small slope was covered in various autumn colours. In a small area there is a plant growing that is the only one of its type found here, its nearest know habitat is in the Azores, thousands of miles away. Probably been carried here by birds:
Many bones are scattered about here, it is a popular hunting ground for the native people, an Inuit tribe, they have a hut here. Really these people are not as native here as the descendents of the Norse, as they have only been on Greenland since the early 20th century, the Norse have been here for 1000 years. Anyway, they come here and hunt seals and whatever they can get, our Naturalist pointed out some Narwhal bones. This is a whale closely related to the Beluga whale and it has a long tusk that is an overgrown tooth on the left-hand side. Mostly it is males that have this tusk.
We had been lucky with the weather, although not sunny the cloud was fairly high, there was only the gentlest of breezes and the sea was very flat. These sorts of conditions are extremely rare in this area apparently. From here south some ways was the last bit of the Greenland coast to be explored and chartered because of the lousy weather. The air temperature was around 4C to 5C, but we all got quite warm walking about. No hiccup with the outboard this time.
Our first landing on Friday morning was just near Kap Steward on Scoresby Sund. Before breakfast I had been up on the bridge and could see the musk ox, 2 of them, that were on shore, on a small plateau above the beach grazing. They disappeared into a ravine a couple of times but then wandered out again.
We set off for shore and landed on the sandy beach, our geologist gave us a run down on the geology, we now have sandstone, with some granite rocks having fallen from higher up. In places the sand is pink and this is because there are trillions of garnets the size of a grain of sand. There is some lovely pink pieces of granite too. The sand is light and very fine. Small bits of ice clutter the beach, they are the remains of the many ice-bergs that have been washed ashore and broken up or just melted. A couple of huts here, one in a very dilapidated state, the other somewhat better. The local people use them for hunting expeditions. Outside one we saw the remains of a dead dog, it had a collar still on it and had been tied up, something had eaten its innards.
Don, our leader had been off to reconnoitre the best way for us to get as near as possible to the musk ox, when we came back most of us joined him on a stalking expedition. We were quite successful as we didn’t spook them and one looked at us for quite a while then came even closer. David managed to get some good video shots of them, but to me, even with the binoculars they were just two blobs in the distance, the best view of any detail is on video These look to be larger animals than what we saw in Alaska years ago. Of course how much is fur/hair and how much actually body mass is hard to tell, but I do remember from Alaska that the wool from these animals is extremely light and that the insulation qualities is something like 3 times that of wool. Here, they use the skin but I don’t think they use the fur/hair in the same manner, it isn’t spun into yarn.
Our afternoon excursion was into the settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit, yes I have spelt it right even though you all think it can’t possibly be so. This is a small settlement of native people, Eskimo or Inuit, but there also seems to be quite a few Danish around too. The lady in the tourist office was Danish, this is where we could buy a postcard €2 each $2.4 AUD, needless to say I didn’t buy many. We had been warned that sometimes the shops will only take Danish Krona and credit cards but on our visit they were much more obliging and accepted Euros and US$ as well. If you are all hoping to receive a post card from here then I hate to disappoint you but I only bought two, one I posted to my brother and family, the other to my father, I hope they reach their destinations. From what we’ve been told the chances are only 50/50 at best. That’s another reason I didn’t bother with more.
The smell was the first thing to hit me, the almost overpowering stench of dogs, sled dogs, fish, and goodness knows what else. The barking, growling, and yelping of dogs was very loud too. There were a few people out on the water in motor boats, some scooting about town on ATV’s and one of two cars about. Some snowmobiles were to be seen outside houses, but not as many as one would expect. Plenty of wooden sleds about though, so they must mainly use sleds and dogs. Around the village there were many sled dogs tied up, some had a little kennel each while others just had to sleep out in the open or in the case of a couple of groups they were tied down near the stream. These sled dogs have to be kept apart or else they will kill each other, except when they are put in traces and have a sled to pull, which is what they just love to do.

There is a hospital quite well equipped too, a kiddies playground set up by the visiting cruise ships, an indoor sports centre that seemed to be more of a large TV room than anywhere to play sport. A large school, well, there seemed to be plenty of kids around, but the school was closed. Perhaps they are still on summer holidays. There were several satellite dishes about the place so they must have the internet and satellite phone. A small hospital that seems fairly well equipped and a supermarket that keeps a range of food, hardware, electronic equipment, clothing and Christmas decorations. What more could you need! The temperature was just a little above freezing, the cloud low and thick, the breeze light and chilly, what better a summers day could you wish for:
Some of the houses were well looked after while other not so much. Most seemed to be painted the deep maroon that is popular in Sweden especially, other were blue or yellow all with white trim. Many had a sled outside as well as the dogs to pull it, and some had a musk ox skin hung up to dry. Didn’t see any polar bear skins: The village has a quota for hunting of about 50 polar bears and 180 musk ox, but it’s doubtful that such quotas are properly enforced. There was quite a bit of junk around like old packing crates, rusting bits and pieces but not a lot of garbage, but then plastic bags would very quickly be blown away.
By the time we got back to the lovely warmth of the boat the weather was closing in fast. The visibility had been reduced and we could barely see the other side of the fjord. We now are heading right up Scoresby Sund, soon we shall be in amongst the ice well and truly, but whether or not we shall be able to see very much remains to be seen.
The weather on Saturday morning wasn’t quite as bad, the fog had lifted a little and we could see the icebergs in front but not the tops of the mountains. We anchored in the middle of a fjord, Røde Ø (Red Island) fjord. Named so because of the red sandstone island off our port side: It is that colour from the oxidization of the iron in the sandstone, same as the sand in central Australia. We were soon on the zodiacs and with Adam at the helm we went of a cruise around the island. He pointed out some bird nests and a particular lichen that grows around them. It lives on the guano but can also exits on the fine particles that drift upward on the air currents so that it can live above the nests as well as below.
Another thing we saw was a basalt intrusion where the lave has flowed up through a crack in the sandstone. One of these intrusions stands just off the island, the sandstone that was once around it having eroded away over time. Facing it, it resembled the front of a church in shape, I thought so anyway. We landed on the island and walked up the tundra covered slope to get a view over all those icebergs in the fjord. It was quite crowded just beyond where the ship was anchored. We saw our few kayakers skimming along right below some big bergs.
We climbed back into the zodiacs and went for a tour around the bergs. You can let your imagination run wild and see all sorts of things in these bergs. I saw a wellington boot, the Sydney opera house is fairly common, caused by the way many bergs slowly alter there position in the water so that you get a series of water ridges and dents that give them a shell like appearance. Two eyes and a mouth in a face was another, and a small patch of mushrooms. Have no idea how the mushrooms came to be formed. Some of these icebergs even have little waterfalls cascading down them from the ice melting faster at the top. Some are the most incredible blue colour, probably the ice is thousands of years old and very compressed. Archways and holes are quite common and a few big caves. We got so close we could touch one, but it was only a low one, you keep well away from high ones as they and turn over without warning. The water was so clear we could see some of the massive parts of these bergs that was underwater. Only 10% is above water if they are floating, a few of the big one were grounded in the shallower water. We also crossed a bit of the small chunks of ice and had formed a pack, the poor zodiac chugged its way through this field. The ice isn’t solid here but it could very soon become so if the temperature dropped. After 2 hours cruising around the bergs in the drizzling rain we were all rather cold and as soon as we were back in the warmth on board we headed to the dining room for a hot drink.
This afternoon we went in Hare fjord. The cloud had broken up somewhat and the sun came out. Before we left the ship some of us, me included had seen a mush ox on shore. After we landed we headed up the blueberry and birch covered slope that is brilliant in its autumn colours, it was much higher than what it appeared to be when we first started out. Up and up we went, then we came to the top of a ridge but no musk ox were in sight. Don, our guide had hoped to spot and arctic fox or hare around one of the two lakes that were now below us but we didn’t find either. We walked down to the lake and came back down through a red sandstone gorge. As we were all wearing wellington boots it didn’t matter that we had to cross the stream several times on the way. In the lower part of the gorge the remaining ice from a nearly melted glacier clings to the most shaded side and we had to climb past this ice. The blueberry and crow berry bushes in here had some lovely berries on them and I picked a few on the way. It was a lovely walk on a lovely afternoon with the sun shining.
We hadn’t seen any lemmings either but those little chaps we were probably walking on as they live in little burrows under the tundra tufts.
In the afternoon sunlight we cruised back down the fjord past hundreds of icebergs the captain guiding us safely through. We could see the tops of the mountains and they looked to be dusted with fresh snow. We hadn’t realized how high they were until one of the guides told us that the fjord is 3 knots wide, that’s around 6k’s and those mountains are 6,000 ft high (1800m). Just a few k’s inland from here the Greenland icecap is 3k’s thick and rises several thousand feet above sea level.
© Lynette Regan 1st September 2007

Our Trip Episode 8

Our Trip Episode 8
Our trip took us around the north-east of the country, this is fairly open grazing country for sheep and horses mainly, goodness knows what they do with so many horses, they dam near out number the sheep. There are still plenty of crops grown and some of this area is only 3k’s south of the Arctic Circle. That imaginary line is just 2.5k’s north of the most northerly point in Iceland. There are a few tiny fishing villages, about 100 to 200 people at most usually. Small boat harbours with a few small fishing boats moored, a few houses scattered about, a fuel station, sometimes a small shop, a school and always a church, often on the highest point. I do wonder what all the people do for a living as there is only a few small fishing boats and most of those owners rent their quotas to the big companies. There never seems to be very much activity in these little places. Sometimes there’s a free camp site, something to encourage the passing tourist to stop and spend some time there.
Egilsstadir was the next major town we came too. It sits on the shore of Lagarfljot, a lake that is home to a monster, probably a relative of Nessy from Lock Ness. It has a population of around 1700 and seems to be the first stopping point for people who arrive in Iceland on the ferry from Europe. There was a crowd of new arrivals stocking up at the local supermarket when we arrived. The ferry port is Seyđisfjordur 30k’s to the east.
In this area we saw the forest; it covers 800 hectares and is something the locals are quite proud of in this tree starved country. Originally there were trees here but the early settlers used all of them for building houses or for firewood to cook and keep warm in this cold climate. So that now there is none of the old timber left. This forest here was the first attempt at re-aforrestation. The trees growing here are silver birch, Alaskan poplar and Siberian larch, and the native dwarf birch. There is a short trail to the first tree planted here in 1938, I think it is a larch tree and it’s supposed to be 20 m high, but I reckon that’s stretching it a bit, it has a name too, Guttormslundur.
There is another nice waterfall that we hiked up too. When we set out we thought it was not very far but turned out it took us about 1 hour to climb to. Worth the walk though: On the way we passed a couple of smaller water falls on the same stream as it tumbled down the escarpment into the lake at the bottom. The main falls at the top, Hengifoss, are quite pretty though there is not a lot of water going over them at present. The wind was blowing the water as it fell sometimes even sending it back up in a fine mist, or pushing it to one side or the other. When the water is very low over the falls it is possible to walk behind them where there is cavern the water has gouged out.
We drove on up the valley and saw the turf roofed house that is now a restaurant, it is built of stone and the mortar is painted white so that it looks really pretty. A small church with a beautifully carved oak door is just up the road. This door is only a copy of the original that is now in the national museum in Reykjavik. The carving is of Roman soldiers on horseback in biblical times.
We found that we could drive right up to the wall of the new dam. The dam is almost finished; it and two other smaller ones will supply water for a hydro-electric power station that is being built to provide electricity for an Alcoa Aluminium plant being built at Reyđarfjordur on the east coast. The water in the dam will back up to one of the glaciers on the Votnajokull ice field. I hadn’t really intended to come here but we had followed the map and ended up here. The lady in the tourist office had assured me that the route marked in yellow was all sealed, so we had been looking for a particular turnoff and hadn’t found it. When we did find the intersection we wanted the road was very rough, just a 4x4 road so we could not go that way but had to return the way we’d come.
We drove on round the fjords through a few small villages. In one we stopped to visit the house of a lady who has collected rocks all her life. Her house and her garden are full of them. They are lined up on benches outside all around the big garden, there are flowers and shrubs in the garden too, and it’s a lovely garden. Then inside every available space has shelves and cabinets full of thousands more specimens. Its mind boggling: Mostly they come from a very small area, just the peninsular on which she had lived all her life. There is an amazing variety of rocks, and the quantity is astounding. Many are jasper. Probably even more have crystal inside and some are agate. Some of those with crystal inside are amethyst too; they are a very pale mauve. Others, that are generally a dark green colour are an opal apparently, but nothing at all like our opal and not gem quality. Very little of what she found has been gem quality but some have been quite rare. It’s a vast range of specimens considering the small area from which they all come. The lady also worked at the local fish processing factory and started collecting shells. She used to get the fish innards and go through them and find some lovely shells. Some of the other locals used to assist her. One shell they found has never been found anywhere else so has been given a local name.
How she ever got some of them home I really don’t know, they must weigh an enormous amount. I know the story of one that she hid away so no-one else would find it until she could get some help to get it home but even that one was not all that large, some she must have had a horse or something to pull them home.
Her name is Petru, and she was born in 1922 in this remote area of Iceland. It is not remote now but in that time it was. There were no bridges over streams and they are too swift and cold to ford most of the time so she really didn’t venture further away than what she could walk. Sadly now she does not live in the house but in a nursing home as she has had two strokes. Her daughter and granddaughter look after the house and the tourists that visit, around 20,000 each year. She does come back most afternoons so that she can talk to the visitors, but not the day we visited.
In the broad alluvial plain known as Lon where the rivers coming down from the icefield have deposited their debris there are some big shallow lagoons with reeds growing around them. This area is the habitat of lots of birds, especially white swans. There are vast numbers of them and most have half grown cygnets at present. The cygnets are still grey in colour and often you see 4 cygnets with two adults, a family group I expect. A few did have much younger cygnets, very small dark ones. Eider ducks abound here too, and they seem to have plenty of little ducklings with them.
On the southeast coast we had the glaciers of the icefield in view all the time. Several of them are visible at any one time along the road. Below them there are farms and sheep grazing.
As a point of interest the average depth of the ice in the icefield is around 450m, the deepest is 950m. This is the 3rd largest icefield in the world after Antarctica and Greenland. The largest outside the Polar Regions: Through the middle of this icecap runs the Lakagagir fissure, 30 k’s long and one of the most active volcanic areas in the world. Grimvotn and Oræfi are two active volcanos under the ice

On the broad outwash gravel planes south west of Lon and Nes, there is no vegetation, this is the area that has suffered the glacial burst floods in recent years. They are called Jőkulhlaup in the local language. These floods are caused by a couple of things, the main one here being eruptions of volcanos under the ice. This causes a build up of water that is blocked from flowing out by ice, until it gets to a stage where the ice can no longer contain it then it bursts free and roars downs the valley taking with it everything in its path including big chunks of ice that have broken off from the glacier. One of the most devastating was on the 5th November 1996 after the eruption under Votnajokull (Vatna glacier) some 6 weeks earlier. This flood swept away much of the road and several bridges, a few farms and anything else in its path. The flow the bridges and levies were built to withstand was about 20 cubic metres per second, what they got was 50 cubic metres per second. At one point there is one of the twisted girders on display and other bits and pieces can be seen in the stream bed. Smaller glacial floods happen fairly frequently and do not cause much damage as they are expected.
Went into the national park that is on the south western end of the icefield: There is an information centre and some walks and a camp site: We camped there one night. It was here too that we took a guided trip up onto one of the glaciers. I had done such a walk many years ago in New Zealand and had experienced a great deal of difficulty as we had not been given crampons to wear, just special boots, and the ice there is extremely slippery, so I was a bit wary about doing another such trip, however, I was assured that crampons would be used so I decided to go. I was really glad that I did so too. Wearing crampons made it fairly easy to climb and going down wasn’t too bad either when I got used to walking with them on, we also had an ice axe each to use as a walking aid if we needed it. We spent about 2 hours on the ice after we had been given instructions on how to use the crampons and had done a little practice. The ice here was much more rough than I remember it being on Fox glacier in NZ. The glacier we climbed onto here is Svinafellsjokell.
The ice has a great many crevasse and mill wells. Mill wells are formed when water, melt water or rain water finds a depressions and gathers there. The water being warmer melts the ice and so the depression gets deeper, eventually it will be so deep that it will join a stream either through the ice or underneath the ice, these mill wells are quite round so easily distinguishable from crevasses that are all shapes and can have vertical cliffs. In someplace we would climb a slope and find ourselves on the very edge of a crevasse that dropped hundreds of feet. Don’t slip!
The ice is quite dirty and that is because of the frequent volcanic eruptions in Iceland. Each time there is an eruption it drops a layer of ash on the ice, as the ice moves down the valley and ruptures and cavorts then those layers get quite wavy and twisted and they can be seen quite clearly as lines in the ice. Also there is the rock material that the ice has carved out of the mountains on its sides or from beneath it. Some of these glaciers have carved out valleys that are now 300m below sea level, if the conditions are right when the ice melts then that valley will become another fjord. However, it is possible that the valley will fill with other debris and become an alluvial plain. The deepest of these valleys at 300m below sea level is just 15 k’s from Iceland’s highest mountain at something over 2000metres.
There is some ice captured in these glaciers that is more than a thousand years old. Like glaciers in most places they are receding at present quite fast, some as much as 100m per year, but they are still much more extensive than when the country was first settled in the 9th or 10 century, then the whole country was much warmer and the ice cap much smaller. It was from the 15th century to the 19th century when the icecap and the glaciers grew very large, it is referred to as the mini ice age: Prior to that the outwash gravel plain didn’t exist, it was all good farmland that has since been washed away and replaced with this gravel.
For ships this plain also causes problems, it is the same colour as the water and many ships have run aground on it especially in bad weather. Those seamen lucky enough to get off the ships safely usually perished in the quick sand of these plains. Now there is a series of lighthouses built at intervals along this coast.
In another place we took a trip on an old ‘duck’ into a lagoon full of icebergs from the glacier above it. These icebergs, some the size of a large building, and that’s only the 10% above the water that we can see take up to 7 years to melt down small enough to float off down the stream and into the sea. We saw seals lazing in the sun on the ice, a thing seals do really well, and just a couple swimming in the water. In summer the water is around 2C to 6C degrees and in winter about -5C. No iceberg carved off from the terminal face of the glacier while we watched from around 150m distance, the terminal here being some 30m high. Because the glaciers are melting fast this lake which only started to form around 1930 now covers 15 sq kilometres.
It seems that in the time of the first settlers, and I now have two different dates for this so take your pick, one is around 834, the other 930, and somewhere else I read that when the first Norse came here there were already some Irish Monks living on a small island just off the southeast coast. In those early times the climate was warm enough to grow corn and mostly cows and pigs were kept, now there are still cows but its mainly sheep and horses, and I haven’t seen any pigs at all. Have only seen a couple of crops of wheat and/or barley, mostly it is other pasture, some oats, and these crops are cut and made into silage.
Around the coast we have seen a lot of driftwood, often in the form of cut logs. As there are no forests that can be logged in Iceland we wondered where this wood came from and finally we found out. It comes from two totally different sources, one is northern Russia and Siberia, it comes on the current that comes from there, the other is the Caribbean and is brought by the gulf stream and offshoots of that stream. Some beaches are littered with this wood and no-one bothers to collect it or use it for anything so it seems. It can be hundreds of years old.
At the southern most point of the Island near the little town of Vik there are some sea stacks just off shore. On shore there is a large cave surrounded by basalt columns, some are perpendicular and others are at all odd angles. The beach here is made up of pebbles, lovely smooth ones that have been tumbled trillions of times by the roaring surf. They are quite large pebbles high up the beach and they gradually get smaller the lower down you go, but at no time above the water line do they become small enough to call sand. They are mostly black but there are just a few that are red and some even lighter. Many of them are aa type lava, you can clearly see the aerated holes in them others are possibly basalt. The aa lava is quite light being full of holes. The sea stacks are outcrops of lava that have resisted the erosion effect of the sea. One has a lovely arch in it.
A visit to Iceland must of course, include a visit to Geyser, the home of the geysers. The one here is the one that has given its name to all other similar geological phenomena. It sits in a small area of geothermal activity, however the one named Geyser is not the most reliable of geysers. There is another one here, Strokur, that spouts every few minutes, about 5 or 6 mins apart although it does seem to do its own thing and while we watched it spouted twice in the space of about 2 minutes then a 3rd time, and bigger, a minute of so later, then it didn’t spout again for at least 10 mins. Little Geyser doesn’t really spout steam, it just gently steams away all the time. There are a number of other little and big vents within a small area here but they bubble away on a continuous basis. The sulphur smell is not particularly strong. We camped the night here and during the evening while sitting in the car eating our tea we saw that Geyser had gone off with a great spout of steam, it was about 9pm but still daylight. Our camp here was about the coldest we had, in the morning there was frost on the ground and ice on both the inside and outside of the tent fly sheet.
Just a short distance from Geyser is the big waterfall of Gullfoss (golden falls). These are another magnificent waterfalls. In two stages the falls drop the first of 11 metres then a further 21 metres. Already in a shallow gorge the river descends over a series of small rapids before the first waterfall of 11 metres. This fall runs along the stream for about 100metres. Then 30 metres after that it falls another 21 metres into a narrow chasm with one end of the falls being right in the inside bend of the river. Looking down from above the river changes direction 90 degrees creating the narrow chasm; it is quite spectacular: Being a sunny day we could see a rainbow in the spray.
A better rainbow though, was to be seen in Skogarfoss. This is a magnificent waterfall of a single drop of around 62 metres. Like long silver flowing hair it falls over the escarpment and the wind catches it and blows it into a fine mist. The brilliant sunshine was in just the right angle to create a beautiful double rainbow.
Of course we had to visit the famous Blue Lagoon. The lagoon was really created through an environmental blunder. It was thought the water waste from the geothermal power station would just soak into the porous lava, but it didn’t quite happen that way. The water has such a high mineral content that it clogged up the lava and so created a lagoon of milky blue water. The bottom and the edges has an accumulation of a white mineral substance. When people started bathing in this pool they claimed that it cured all sorts of ailments so it became a very popular thing to go. Now they have built a new lagoon with flash facilities and a charge to suit, the equivalent of $36AUD just for a swim. We looked but didn’t go in. Instead we went back to the nearby town of Grindavik and paid just $6 each for a swim in the local pool, temp 28C with 2 hot tubs, one with a spa and also a small water slide that was great fun. We then camped in the local free camping area overnight.
The next day we drove around the rest of peninsular. We came across another geothermal power station and crossed some old lava flows, one 2000 years old and another one over the top less then 700 years old. We returned the car to the hire company office and wandered about Reykjavik for a couple of hours. It was raining again although it only started after we returned the car. It had been tipping down with rain when we arrived and it was again doing so when we left, we had been quite lucky to have such a lovely mostly dry spell in between. So ended out trip to Iceland: We boarded the Polar Pioneer around 5pm to begin our cruise to Greenland and Svalbard:
Finally just a couple of things that I recently learnt: There are 36 letters in the Icelandic language, some of them are old runic signs, like the đ and Þ. It is the Old Norse language that was spoken in most of Scandinavia and in parts of England. In the other places the language evolved into several different languages but Iceland has retained the same old language. When it comes to names its quite different to what we are used to as well: A boy child with have his father’s first name and add son to the end of it and use that as his last name, eg. Jon has a son named Peter, therefore Peters name is Peter Jonson. If Jon has a daughter named Christine then her name is Christine Jon(plus the local word for daughter that I have not been able to find out). Jon’s wife will keep the name she was given at birth, with the result that a family of 4 can have 4 quite different names. When speaking to anyone only first manes are used except in the case of speaking to a Judge or the President of Iceland. In a phone directory or similar alphabetically listed directory everyone is listed by their first name. I will try and find out what the Icelandic word for daughter is sometime and let you know. We are now on the Polar Pioneer so can’t look it up on the internet for you.
© Lynette Regan 29th August 2007

Our trip Episode 7 (22nd August 2007)

Our trip Episode 7 (22nd August 2007)
Along route 1 we came across the waterfall Gođafoss (Waterfall of the Gods). It got this name as it is believed that the law speaker Þorgeir, in the year 1000 after he had been at the meeting of the AlÞing (parliament) when Christianity had been accepted as the National religion, passed this way on his return home. He pondered here at the falls for some time then threw all this wooden idols of gods into the falls, so that is why they have been so named. Or so the sagas say: With this attraction being just beside route 1, the route around the Island there was a crowd of people here. We have travelled very little along this route.
And so we continue with churches. It seems that every village thinks theirs is special, but some are more special than others. This next one I’m about to mention is up a narrow valley that leads back up onto an Icecap. There was once a monastery here back before the reformation when the whole country was Catholic. Now, instead of a monastery there is an Agricultural college.
This church is built of red stone cut in shape and size about that of a concrete block. These stones were quarried from a hill right behind the village. The only red stone work now to be seen is on the front of the church and around the side doors, the rest is painted white but I’m not sure if there is stone or something else beneath that paint.
When we entered we were met by a very friendly woman who conducted us on a tour of the church and pointed out many things of interest. The Altar piece is from around 1520 and was presented to the church by the last Catholic bishop. It is made of Cherrywood and oak and has hinged wings so that it can be closed like a box. It is painted both inside and out with religious themes. The bible on display was the first translated into the Icelandic language and printed in the village in 1584. It is in remarkably good condition. It is also the main reason the Icelandic language has survived, if this had not been translated then they would only have had bibles in Danish and so everything else would have been in that language too. An alabaster altar piece made in Nottingham in 1470 now hangs on a side wall; it used to hang over the entrance to the chancel. In a separate bell tower hang 3 bells each one from a different year between 1784 and 1885.
I asked the lady what language Icelandic is most like and she really couldn’t tell me, what she did say was this; the Norwegian, the Swedes and the Danish all claim that they cannot understand Icelandic, yet these are the languages that it is derived from. I expect that in its way it is a bit like English with its Greek and Latin derivations but still a different language. Most of these Icelandic names I have no idea of how they are pronounced, they are just a jumble of consonants with a vowel of two thrown in for good measure. In their good sense most of these people have learnt English so that they can communicate with the rest of the world, plus it makes it easier for tourists.
I must at this point add a note on the lovely toilets we had encountered over the last few days. They are always very clean and heated with a sink with hot and cold running water, just the opposite to those composting ones that stank terribly and were bitterly cold in Norway.
We went up to a remote village, Siglufjordur, to see a herring museum; it was closed despite a number of signs stating its opening hours. It may have been due to a funeral that was in progress as we had to wait on the far end of a single lane tunnel for the funeral procession to pass. The Icelanders have wiped out the herring in their waters; they overfished it back in the 1960’s till there was nothing left. They are not good at protecting anything. Even with their current fishing quotas the fish stocks are dwindling, quotas are too high apparently. The little game bird the Ptarmigan is endangered and can only now be found in certain places and if one strays from the protected area then it’s likely to be eaten. Some of the duck species are still hunted along with the puffins and eggs of several species. Should some poor unsuspecting polar bear arrive on shore here by mistake then it is promptly killed. Whaling for both scientific and commercial purposes takes place. Here and Norway and Japan are all hunting whales and now they seem to be decreasing again in numbers in the North Atlantic.
When we were camped at Siglufjordur our neighbours in a motor home invited us in for breakfast even though we had just finished ours. They were an elderly couple and were part of a large group of motor homes all travelling together. They lived not very far away really and could easily have made a day journey to this place but instead had made it into quite an event. Would not like to be stuck behind this lot of motor homes on these narrow roads: Neither of this couple spoke any English whatsoever so our conversation was very limited; must be the only people in the country not to speak any English at all: still it was nice of them and they offered us some lovely sandwiches and a local pastry something on the lines of a doughnut but with a twist.
Some of the campsites have really good amenities and others offer only a simple toilet. Sometimes there is a clothes washer and dried available for use at no extra cost, it’s just there in a separate room for use by all. In some of the showers there is a hair dryer hanging up to be used if necessary. The heating is always on, well, its not really warm enough for it not to be on but in lots of places a camping site would not have heated amenities. Hot water is another thing there seems to be in ample supply.
The city of Akureyri is one of the largest population centres in Iceland, around 15000. It sits near the head of a fjord and for some reason has a quite mild climate. So much so that there are many large trees in the gardens and everyone has a lovely colourful flower box or two out front of their homes. There is even a lovely botanical gardens founded in 1912 by a local woman’s group. Here, we saw plants from many different places including New Zealand. They try to grow anything they possibly can so plants from either high latitudes or high altitudes can be found here. There are lovely flower gardens full of annuals and perennials and in full bloom still. They are very pretty with pansies, petunias, snapdragons, and a whole array of colourful bloom. Really large spruce and other conifer trees from North America and Europe and another tree that I am familiar with but can’t put a name to, and nowhere could I find one with a name plaque. Most of the plants did have name plaques but not all the trees. The plaques gave the Latin name, the local name and usually, but not always the country or origin.
The big church here was designed by the same man who did the one in Reykjavik. It has a bit of a similar look about it. Some lovely stained glass windows inside and a model sailing boat hanging from the ceiling: This reflects old Nordic traditions of a votive offering to protect those at sea. The central stained glass window in the chancel was once in Coventry Cathedral in England and survived WW2 bombing.
Yet another church we saw was built in the Romanesque style. This time I had to go in search of the key and eventually came back with it. This church is painted white with trim in maroon; it has a small onion dome on top. Inside is quite simple with a gallery upstairs that looks down upon the nave and altar. No fancy stained glass here just plain windows with a couple of red panels. The rounded ceiling is patterned in squares just as you would expect to find in a Romanesque style. There were just 2 bells in the bell tower.
Out side the famer had cut the pasture and was raking prior to making silage bales. The short summer season is nearly over here now, the migrating birds have mostly left, and there are not as many tourists about, apparently. To me, there seems to be plenty about still, hire cars everywhere, especially ones like our little Toyota yaris, when we park it we often come back and find that it has multiplied, nothing unusual to see 3 or 4 all the same colour parked side by side. Just have to watch and see which one’s lights flash when you press the key. Then there are the foreign cars that have come over by ferry, plenty of 4WD’s both hire ones and foreign ones, and motorhomes. And of course there are the cyclists: Out in droves they are; some are alone, others in groups from 2 to 6 all loaded up to the hilt with gear or towing little trailers. Up and down the mountains they go, nothing seems to slow them.
We took a whale watching trip from the small town of Husavik. We just made the last one of the day, 5pm departure on what had been a beautifully warm sunny day, the very warmest we’d had here at 17C. Just after we left harbour a squall came across then the sea mist came in and we could not see very far at all. About 40 mins out of port they put a zodiac out with a crew of three to go in search of any whales but they had no success. I suppose there were about 40 passengers and we were all on the open deck of an old oak fishing vessel. There were plenty of warm clothes supplied in the form of bright orange waterproof and wind proof coats with hoods, warm wool lined overalls, wool caps, mittens and blankets so no one need be cold. We sat out there keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of movement for three hours in total but the only thing we saw were jelly fish. One of them was about 3ft across. I had not realized that jelly fish lived in such cold waters, I asked the captain the water temperature, he said approximately 8C on the surface, that’s the warm gulf stream, and much colder below, some arctic current. No, Lyn is not about to leap in for a swim here. It was fairly rough with about a 3m swell so the little boat was pitching nicely. Only a couple of people were seasick thank goodness. We had some lovely hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll on the way back but no sight of any whales. It was after 8pm when we got back into the harbour and the sun should have been still shinning as I’m sure it was above the thick cloud. Our tickets were endorsed so that we could use them at any time in the future for another trip because we hadn’t seen any whales or dolphin. We went along to the campsite just out of town and found that several of the others from the trip were camped there too. The next morning we went back for the morning trip at 9am. The weather hadn’t really looked much better but there wasn’t a low sea mist so visibility at sea level was much better.
This time there were many more people and we were on a bigger boat. As soon as we left harbour the sun broke through briefly and the cloud started to lift, soon we could see the headland across the bay. Within a few minutes we saw some white beaked dolphins. Not that Lyn could actually tell anyone what they looked like, all I saw were bodies, fins and tails, no real detail. There were at least 3 of them, one was a baby and at one point they passed right under our boat, we were barely moving at the time. Mothers with young don’t often come that close to the boat.
Some way further out into the bay and we could see the small island of Flatey where there was once a fishing village, now some of the houses are used as summer cottages but no-one lives there permanently any more. While we were all looking at that suddenly a whale blew, then another: We got some really good views of them, the length of their bodies and their flukes (tails) as they dived. These were hump backed whales, and each one has a different pattern on the underside of their flukes, judging by that there were at least 4 different whales around us. They came within 10m of us many times and crossed right under our bow. As the water is quite shallow in this area, about 200m they did not dive for more than 5 to 7 minutes then they would come up again, always in pairs it seemed, blow 3 or 4 times then dive again. They were great to watch. In the meantime the sun had come out and it was quite a nice morning, the sea almost flat. We were really pleased that we had waited and gone out the next opportunity, most people had not been able to do that.
While in the town we visited the Phallological museum; yes you have it right, its a museum of penises, now you are all really wondering just what the hell I’ve been drinking up here, but I tell you this is real, its a real museum in a real town, and we paid a real $10 ea to visit it. In all there are 257 specimens from 90 species, including trolls and merman. The troll one being of stone and well, I’m not sure just what the merman one was made of but it was green. They certainly come in a variety of shapes, long pointy ones, short pointy ones, some are quite rounded, some have bends and other have twists, bit like a cork screw. There were large ones from large mammals like whales and elephants, some from everyday domestic animals like bulls, horses, pigs, dogs etc, and the smallest I saw was a hamster, not very impressive at all. One horse penis had been smoked and was ready for eating, apparently it is quite the normal thing to do here, or at least it was in earlier centuries. Some were dried and made into lamp shades, others had been mounted on plaques and hung on the walls. There was a judges gravel made of wood but in a phallic shape. After all that when we went outside again the first thing I looked up and saw was the church steeple, another phallic symbol!
We have been lucky with bugs. I had expected them to be bad like they were in Canada and Siberia but we have had very few, now we were to plunge right into them at lake Mývatn. At this place they were some little bug that looks a bit like a mozzie but doesn’t bite, it just loves to get in your eyes and up your nose. It was so thick in places that all I could see was a black cloud. I think we have missed the other bugs it being a bit late in the season. Fortunately for us they seemed to be in just a few places right near the lake shore and amongst the twisted dwarf birch trees, blueberry bushes and tundra tufts. Earlier in the season they would have been much worse.
This is an area of much volcanic activity, not all of it in the dim and distant past either. The Krafla volcanic area erupted in a fissure several k’s long just before Christmas 1975, and is expected to do so again at some point in the not too distant future. There is a walk around this fissure and over the last lava flows. There are some small steam vents puffing away and fluoro yellow sulphur crystals have formed here and there from the steam. Sometimes it is most odd how lava flows, in one small area it has completely missed a small steep slope, its gone over the top and along the bottom but missed the side; red soil and some plants are growing nicely there. The lava seems mostly of the crinkly aerated aa type, but there is some of the thicker more ropey pohoehoe type. In a dip there is a small pool of milky turquoise coloured water and a couple of glugging mud pools on the edge with the strong smell of sulphur all prevailing. I could have spent hours wandering around here, I just loved the place but the weather very quickly changed and started to rain; by the time we got back to the car a couple of k’s away we were quite wet and cold.
In another area there are some pastel shaded hills; they are this colour from the small steaming vents that are scattered about the hillsides and in the gullies. The sulphur from these vents colour the soil so that you get soft pinks and fauns as well as the bright fluoro green of the sulphur crystals. Below these hills there is a small area of bubbling mud pools and more steaming vents. Here the fumarole gas (hydrogen sulphide) smell is overpowering. To me it smells quite like ‘pigs in mud’, a piggery smells much the same. The mud is thin and a murky grey/green colour and it is bubbling away quite nicely, some pools have really big glugs while other places have small ones.
We climbed up the scree slope of another crater Hverfell. Only about a 20 minute climb and from there we got a good view over the little town of Reykjahliđ and Lake Mývatn. Inside the crater was another small hill. We walked right around the top; about 3 k’s and got a good view in all directions. In the distance behind the pastel coloured hills we could see a high stream of steam. Later when we were at the Krafla area we found that this steam is coming from a bore hole that was drilled to supply the geothermal power station, but when the drill hit the steam pocket it was so strong that it exploded and parts of the drilling rig were discovered up to 3k’s away; no one was injured. It takes 17 bores to supply the geothermal power station, that one bore if it had been tapped successfully would have done the job by itself.
Another area we ambled about is called Dommubirgir. It is an area of lava pillars and caves. It is believed that the pillars are all that remain of what was once a dome covered lava dam. The lava dam burst, the dome roof collapsed but the pillars left standing were the vents and they had hardened before the dam burst. They are some of the most odd shapes imaginable and you can imagine all sorts of things from their shapes. We saw a stone troll, very appropriate for Iceland as they have many great myths about trolls. Very deep cracks in the lava too in places, would be quite easy to just disappear down one, so you have to watch were you walk. Considering it is only about 2000 years old it has broken down quickly and vegetation has become well established in some parts. There are plenty of the dwarf birch trees and some other plants, blueberries too.
Around the church in the village is a far more recent lava flow, from 1729 when the crater behind the church erupted. Lava came to within just a few metres of the church, then parted and flowed around it, the church was not damaged. The pulpit in the church is carved with a representation of that eruption, it is really nice. That lava flow now has mosses and some grasses growing on it, I have seen lava flows much older that look more recent because nothing is yet growing on the lava.
After our time exploring this fascinating area we drove up to the Jokulsarglufur National Park. This is the ‘Grand Canyon’ of Iceland, though I’m not sure why as its nots the deepest canyon in the country but the deeper one is only accessible by 4 x4 vehicles I believe. Anyway, here we saw one of the most famous waterfalls in Iceland, Dettifoss, sometimes touted as the Niagara of Iceland and it bears very little resemblance to that overrated falls. It is 100m wide, 45m high, and has 193 cubic metres of water per second going over it. Now what would that quantity of water do for our water crisis! In the spring melt the water volume increases considerably. There is another, much wider falls upstream 1.5k’s, that one, Selfoss varies from 6 to 12m high and sort of runs along the stream some way, not straight across. Yet another falls is 2k downstream, Hafragilsfoss, are 27m high but not near so wide. More falls are further downstream but unless you go hiking along the canyon you cannot see them. The canyon averages 100m deep and around 500m wide.
In one area at the northern, downstream end of the canyon there is a horseshoe shaped area and within that there is some lovely forest thick with birch trees, dwarf birch and lots of blueberry bushes. It is also home to a wide variety of birds but of course Lyn only got to hear them they didn’t stay still long enough for me to see. I did see the wigeons (a type of duck) on the little pond below the cliff. The fulmar (a small member of the albatross family) nest in the cliffs, approximately 1200 pairs: when the young leave the nest they have to walk to the coast as they are too fat to fly. They then live on the sea until they are light enough to fly. There are warning signs for motorists to look out for these youngsters, but, despite it being the right time of year, we didn’t see any.
In another area in the canyon we saw some basalt pillar formations. One especially odd, where the basalt pillars are horizontal, not vertical as is the most common. Basalt columns are formed at a 90 degree angle to the cooling lava, that is why they are normally vertical, horizontal ones form from intrusions or dykes (don’t ask, look it up on the internet then you will be as wise as I am, lucky you!). They are all usually hexagonal, the basalt columns that is, and they can be of varying thicknesses. In one cave we were looking at them end on and they looked like a lot of stone blocks, 6 unequal sides, mortared together; some had squiggles as decoration on the end. It was only when you looked at the side where bits had broken off that you could see they were horizontal columns laid one upon the other. When you stood in this cave it sounded as though the river was all around, like your ‘surround sound’ audio systems.
Another cave not far away was also made of the basalt columns but thinner ones, horizontal too, but looking as this line of exposed rock it appeared as if it had been pushed for either side and so made a wave pattern with only one end pushed high enough to form a cave under it. On a hill just around from the cave there was other rock on top of the basalt columns and high up on the side it looked as if someone had plastered a few square metres with plaster ½ a metre thick, mosses and lichen clung to this ‘plaster’ but the whole piece could fall off at any time, it was most odd.
Across this canyon there is a lava flow that is much older than the canyon itself. It is believed that the canyon formed in just a few days with water cutting right through that lava flow, some gigantic flood caused by a volcanic eruption under the ice.
© Lynette Regan 24th August 2007

Episode 6 (16th August 2007)

Episode 6 (16th August 2007)
We drove on round the coast to the West Fjords area, it is that north-westerly area that sort of looks as if it has been tacked on to the rest of the island as an afterthought. It is a quite remote area with plenty of gravel roads and somewhere between 8000 and 9000 people.
First along the south coast, well its really the north coast of the Breidafjordur, along a wide coastal plain with lots of little farms bordered by the deep blue sea of the one side and running back into scree slopes topped with sheer cliffs of high mountains on the other. There are many small fields of pasture with bales of silage dotted about or stacked up beside barns. Mainly sheep are raised on these places but occasionally there are some dairy cows. There must be plenty of dairy cows about the country as there is plenty of milk, cheese and yogurt, all made in Iceland.
The place we were making for first is the most westerly point of Europe even though it’s in Iceland and on the North American tectonic plate. It is the bird cliffs of Latrabjarg, on the peninsular of the same name. These cliffs are famous because of the 1,000,000 or so birds that nest here each summer. Along the way to this cliff we passed an old steel boat beached on a remote shore rusting away. A sign said it was the oldest steel ship in Iceland built in 1912 and beached here in 1981, just why it was beached here it did not say.
In places the road passes around a cliff face fairly high up with an almost vertical drop into the fjord on the one side, it was narrow and gravel and we were quite pleased that no other traffic came along as we negotiated this stretch. There are some lovely light golden sandy beaches too, all you need is the palm trees and the water 15˚C warmer, and you’d have a lovely tropical beach. There are more little farms: Along one of the beaches we could see the remains of stone houses that were built by fishermen centuries ago and abandoned in the 17th century. They used to live here and catch and dry cat fish.
I had expected a lot of tourists here but there were only 4 other cars in the carpark and a couple of bicycles when we arrived. These cliffs are 14k’s long, up to 441m high and cover 35 sq kilometres. There are about 10 species of birds that nest here, these are the ones I remember; Guillemot, Brunnicks guillemot, razorbilled auk, puffin, fulmar and kittiwakes.
The local people used to hunt these birds to supplement their mainly fish diet. In 1926 36000 birds were caught and around 44000 eggs taken. This hunt came at a price though, in that year 2 men were killed while hunting. These people used to either rappel down the cliffs or climb up from the bottom and believe me, though cliffs are vertical. This skill at rappelling proved very useful though as 2 trawlers have been wrecked on the rocks below the cliffs and both times the locals have rescued the crews using this method. Hunting now is very rare but some locals still practice the rappelling so the skill is not lost.
Off we headed along the track that led up the grassy meadow that finished at the cliff edge. The very first bird we came to was a puffin sitting on a tiny rock ledge 100m above the sea and almost in reaching distance for those of us who lay down and crawled towards the edge. He (the puffin) was quite tame and just stood and looked at us for the most part. It had a burrow just by the ledge and every now and again it would get bored of looking at us and disappear down its burrow for a while. We walked on and came to more puffins doing much the same thing. A great number of guillmots are nesting here too and they are very noisy. The chicks are about ready to leave now but some are still being fed by their parents. Among these birds there was a great deal of activity with goings and comings, while the puffins just sat and watched the proceeding in a detached sort of way. The smell was a bit overpowering too if you got down wind, and that wind was blowing a gale. We carried on up along the path but there was not more birds, all those further along seemed to have left for the season. Maybe much further along there was still some area occupied but we didn’t go a long way, but instead coming back to watch those birds we’d seen.
We did consider camping nearby but with that wind blowing our poor little tent would have been blown away I fear, maybe with us in it. Just picture it, Lyn tent flying over the north Atlantic:
We crossed the Glama moors, a high windswept moorland covered with tundra and some patches of snow. Snowmelt lakes abound and appear smooth despite the wind. No-one seems to live up here and there is no agriculture, only some gravel pits and attendant workmen.
On a bright sunny morning we came to the Dynjandi waterfall. This is quite a spectacular falls as it tumbles over the escarpment in one long drop, then cascades down the rocks below. A 20min hike up hill brought us to the base of the main falls and into the spray from them. The water wasn’t as cold as I had expected despite the bleak tundra covered moors it came off. It was a bright sunny morning and the sun shone through the water just where it came over the top, it was very pretty, shinning like a halo.
There are several small villages around the fjords, they used to depend on fishing for their livelihoods but since the introduction of fishing quotas in the early 90’s most are struggling to survive. Talk to anyone in this country about the fishing quotas and they will tell you it’s an absolute mess. The small boat fishermen that do have a quota make more money renting their quotas out to the big companies than to go out fishing themselves: Whereas before there used to be fish processing works in most towns now the big companies only have them and only in the really big places, so there is no work for the people in the villages. Some have turned to tourist based industries but there are really only 3 months of the year when there are a lot of tourists about. Fishing licences for tourists for just a day can cost anywhere from $200 aud to $4000 aud, that’s an expensive fish dinner. Also I have read that even with the quota system the waters around here are over fished and many species are in short supply.
The little town of Þingeyri is one such town where very little happens. The lady in the tourist info office is the daughter of a fisherman. Her family had spent 4 years in Namibia where her father was working as a trawler captain and now he is in Newfoundland. The little office was filled with craftwork, mostly woollen items knitted with the local wool in the traditional colours of varying greys to white and in traditional patterns. It is quite expensive, a pair of gloves similar to that which I bought a little over a year ago in Ecuador and cost me $2 US are for sale here for around $30 US; mine were made of Alpaca wool too.
On another fjord is the town of Flateyri, it has a high earthen wall built between it and the mountain behind as some years ago a big avalanche came down that mountain and wiped out part of the town. The earthen wall forms a bowl in which the camp site is placed, it’s just as well there is no snow to make avalanches in summer or the campers might be wiped out. The town sits on a gravel spit jutting out into the fjord and is only about 1metre above sea level; hope global warming does not cause the sea to rise too much here.
Outside the town is an old brick chimney and rusting metal boiler; the only remains of a whaling station that was here. Bit further along and there are some fish drying racks. Just made of wood and there was some fish hung up drying too. Several types of fish both small and large: In bins beside the rack are the bones and heads of countless fish, we wondered if these are taken and used to make fertilizer.
Further on we came to the much bigger town of Isafjordur. Here we saw two cruise ships in port. One was an expedition ship, so the sign said and probably had 300 to 400 passengers, the other was a much larger cruise ship with anything up to about 600 passengers. There was only a few walking about the town, where everyone else was I have no idea. Perhaps they were on a bus trip some place but we had passed no busses on our way into the town and the only other road led up the fjord, the way the ships had come.
We had a bit of a look around this town but again there is not a great deal to see. Some nicely painted houses, all of a similar style and probably from about the 1950-60 period, not real old. The large cultural centre was of the same style on a much larger scale. It had an exhibition of some modern art but judging from what was on show outside we decided that a visit inside would not really interest us.
From here we wound our way around numerous fjords past farms and pastures and around cliff edges, over more moorland. We camped one night beside a stream and there was an area dense with blueberry bushes. I think something had eaten most of the ripe berries but I did manage to find enough for a good snack. They were very plump and juicy and sweeter than I remember the Alaskan ones to be. The bushes are beginning to turn that lovely russet colour they get in Autumn. I did wonder what animal might have eaten them as there are no bears here. Perhaps it is the sheep, there are plenty of them. The little black round berry that grows on a ferny leaf plant is abundant here too, this berry is ok to eat. These are crow berries
On the Standir coast we drove right up to the geothermal pool at Krossnes, the end of the road. The pool is quite warm about 33C and there is a hot tub about 38C. The pools are fed from a thermal spring beside the road; you can see the steam rising from it. The pool is down on the black pebble beach. It just works on an honesty box system about $5ea AUD. Not enough people venture here to have someone in attendance all the time I expect. A couple were just leaving when we arrived and some more arrived after us, we all left about the same time and passed no more cars heading in that direction. There is a very pretty waterfall behind the almost deserted town of Djupavik. It falls over the cliff then cascades down the very steep scree slope. I did consider walking up to it but David didn’t feel up to it so I gave it a miss. Perhaps if it hadn’t been threatening to tip with rain I might have been more inclined to do the climb.
In the town of Holmavik we visited a witchcraft museum. It was most interesting as it is not something I have ever seen before. Witchcraft was widely practiced in Iceland in the 17th century; this coincides with its popularity in Europe. There are quite a few differences though. Here it was mainly men that practiced it and there were no broomsticks involved. Symbols and signs (runes) were common and some of the farmers used to paint one of these on the sheep to keep away the arctic foxes. Wonder if they could come up with one to keep dingos away from sheep and cattle.
During this period there were 21 people burned at the stake for witchcraft, all except one were men. In Europe, especially Germany there was a huge number burned but they were mostly women. Here, the main accusers were priests it seems but some of them also practiced it. Also on display were the recipes for potions to make yourself invisible, and other for raising the dead or putting a curse on someone. All involved precise amounts of blood from various parts of the body as well as that from certain animals taken at certain times of the year like Christmas, Easter or Whitsun.
One particularly gruesome item was the necrotrouses. These were taken from a dead body from the waist down. The body was skinned from the waist down, including penis and scrotum and the toenails on the feet. No holes or nicks in the skin either. A sorcerer would do this at Christmas, Easter or Whitsun, and then he would wear the pants, but he must also steal a coin from a poor widow in the dead of night and wear that coin in the scrotum, it was suppose to attract many more coins to the wearer. Bet this fellow was always having a scratch. Then he must make sure he didn’t die wearing the trousers, if he did that then all sorts of dire things would happen to his body (what the hell did that matter!). Anyway, he had to pass the trousers onto the next fellow one leg at a time in a strict order. The trousers would last for several generations that way.
Not a great deal has survived from that time as the priests and sheriffs destroyed all that they could find but there were still quite a good display. Runes on skins and leather, a few old wooden items used and a stone bowl found not long ago: It was found when a house was being renovated that stands where there once was a pagan temple. Minute traces of animal and human blood were found on it but scientists won’t commit themselves as it was brought to them not left in the ground and they brought to it. Still it is an interesting find.
Around one peninsular we saw two or three seal colonies. The seals were just lying on the beach doing very little which is what seals tend to do most of the time. Some of these were very light in colour, some were grey and white and some a dark grey. I have seen no signs to say exactly which type of seal they are. A few were in the water swimming but mostly they were just lying on there backs barely moving a muscle. We could not get nearer than about 50m to them. Some were on a lovely black sand beach but others were on little rocky islands covered in seaweed. In some places there is a massive amount of seaweed on the beach. Later found out that these are harbour seals.
A rocky hill top was once a fortress. The natural rock on the top forms a wide wall all around with just a narrow gap for an entrance and a depression in the centre, the gap was walled up with stone. The wall is several metres wide so easy to walk around and it commanded a wonderful view over the farm lands below. It looks just like a castle wall. There is no documental evidence of its existence only mention of it in the sagas. Traces of a well still exist.
One of the best museums we have visited is the turf houses at Glambær. The houses here actually date for the 18th and 19th centuries but are typical of the style that was the main form of building in this country. Turf house building like all other constructions have evolved over the centuries:
The turf in Iceland is especially good for building these houses as the grass grows thickly with a mass of roots that holds the sod together. The sods are cut in squares and are laid like stone work, either horizontally or vertically. They look very neat. The roof must have just the right degree of slope, too steep and the sods dry out in dry spells, they then crack and the roof leaks, or too flat and they get too wet when it rains and they leak. However they are very warm when a fire is going inside. The fires were often fueled by peat that is found in the marshes near here.
The rooms were laid out as they would have been in the 18th century with items from that period. One room was a blacksmiths shop with his bellows made of cow hide and his forge. There were some storage room and then the main living quarter had several rooms. One was a guest room with the best furniture and china, there was an upstairs room with a spinning jenny on which several threads could be spun at the same time. Another room was the dairy. Not where the cows were milked but where the milk was kept and the butter, cheese and curd was made. A storeroom that could be locked was where the salted meat and fish was kept so hungry work people could not raid it between meals. There was the main sleeping area divided into three areas. All the workers shared the one long bedroom divided into two with a curtain and with bunk beds. The bunks were short but a pair of socks I saw would have fitted a giant’s feet. There was some clothes laid out that might have been worn at the time. They were mostly made from wool or horse hair, even the wool was quite coarse, the horse hair was even more coarse but I don’t think it was used to make clothes. One bedroom was separate and that was for a family with a tiny bunk above the bigger one, the tiny one being for a baby.
A church next to this house is early 20th century but has some interesting old icons around the walls, and it also has a very modern organ made entirely of wood, keys and all, it was made in England. There has been a church on this site since the 11th century. This area is among the first settled in Iceland by the Nordic people.
Sorri, the first European born in North America 1003 is buried around here. His family were with Leif Erikson when he landed in Vinland (North America) and then they returned to Iceland when that new settlement failed. No one seems to know why it failed. Sorri’s mother Gudridur was a very widely travelled woman for her time; she had crossed Europe twice by foot and made 8 ocean voyages.
In another place not far from this house we saw an old turf church 1834. When we arrived a man from the house next door rushed over with the key then wanted about $4 each entrance fee. Inside it was quite small but lovely, it is all lined with wood. An altar piece dates from 1616 and is a painting of the last supper. The pulpit has some very old paintings, it is from a much earlier church, but the paintings are quite damaged.
In the year 1000 Christianity was accepted as the national religion of Iceland, then around 1550 the reformation took place, instigated by the King of Denmark, that was when the Catholic Church was outed and replaced by the Lutheran. Most Icelanders are still Lutheran; there are only a handful of churches that belong to other religions.
©Lynette Regan 21st August 2007