Snowed in, Iceland

This week winter officially began here in Iceland. While it is unseasonal to have much snow at all in October, this year we are expecting a very harsh winter. The current snow depth outside my apartment is approaching a metre, which makes walking about very difficult (and wet) indeed. You soon get used to carrying a dry pair of socks with you when you step out of the house - not to mention waterproof pants, boots, gloves, a scarf, a beanie and ya jacket.

This week heralded the official start of winter

Soizic lost her car in the Hólar car park

With there being so much snow, activity levels are severely restricted. You are simply unable to drive anywhere when the snow drifts across the road - or if the snow eats your car. Sadly, things can only be expected to get worse. Take a look at what's going to happen over the coming months.

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	Day Length
Today	08:56	17:08	8:12
+1 day	08:59	17:04	8:05
+1 week	09:20	16:43	7:23
+2 weeks	09:46	16:18	6:32
+1 month	10:45	15:27	4:42
+2 months	11:47	14:52	3:05
+3 months	10:36	16:27	5:51
+6 months	04:53	21:42	16:49

I just don't know if the three hours of quote unquote "light" that we can expect around Christmas is going to be enough for me. Still, you do get the odd day when the sun comes out and the place looks truly beautiful. On the upside however, the hill here in 'The Krok' as it is affectionately known, is due to open for skiing and boarding this weekend. Looks like the shred is on in what promises to be truly epic pow pow.

Sauðákrókur Harbour after a decent dusting

Absolutely everything is frozen

As you might expect, the weekend was spent largely indoors - with plenty of Faxe Premiums (the cheapest beer available at NZ$2.70/500ml) to keep us company. Watching the weekly Handball match on Saturday afternoons has become somewhat of an institution for me and Dan. Sipping our balcony cooled beers we insult players for being overly flamboyant for what is, after all, just a game for kids. The only time we might sample something resembling a decent beer is at Beer Club, where the amber liquid is sold at cost. The cheapest option available - Moosehead (a Canadian brew) - is still NZ$5/335ml. In an act of defiance against the Arctic Winter I only drink beer with a summer variety on offer. Moosehead's deliciously named Summer Ale is a personal favourite - and you know its always going to be cold.

Move it or lose it - literally

Verið Station gets snowed on

Mér líður vel, Íslandi

I thought this week I'd give you fullas a virtual tour of where I work - Verið Station. I know that's got you all excited, but if you manage to sit still long enough you might just learn something.

Verið is located at the Saudárkrókur Harbour, in northwest Iceland. The surrounding Skagafjörður region is renowned for horse breeding and its wild 'end of the earth' type landscape. Subjected to recession, rough weather and lonely winters, Skagafjörður is littered with abandoned farms and chilling reminders of how difficult life in isolated rural Iceland can be. Recently however Saudákrókur played home to one of the region´s largest drug busts ... oooh ... umm umm umm umm.

Verið Station, Saudárkrókur Harbour, Iceland

The Fisk Company fishing boats come to port every few days to offload their catch, predominantly of Cod and Haddock. It's fun to go outside and watch as huge fish are packed in to big ice filled bins on the wharf. It's even nicer to watch the goings on from the warmth of the tea room. There are rumours that the fishermen will give you a fish or two if you ask them. I'm afraid of giving a lonely sailor the wrong idea, so as yet I haven't tried Icelandic fish.

In Iceland several types of fish are dried, most commonly Haddock, Catfish and Flounder. The fish is gutted, the head cut off and the fish filleted, with the skin remaining on. It is then cleaned of bones and blood and a hole cut through the tail end to make it easier to hang up to dry. The fish is then placed on wooden sticks and hung up to dry. The smell around Verið in summer, when the acres of hanging frames are chocca bloc with raw fish, is apparently (and understandably I imagine) disgusting.

Standing under dripping fish is not a good idea - nor is looking up

Effective drying isn't possible unless the weather is cold, preferably freezing (which from what I've seen shouldn't pose any significant problems). Having a good wind blowing is essential to the process and does an excellent job of keeping the flies off the meat - mmm! When the fish is completely dry through, which might take several weeks, it can be eaten. Harðfiskur is apparently a delicacy to be enjoyed, either on its own or smeared with butter.

Inside Verið Station itself the ground floor is taken up with several fish rearing rooms, each filled with pumps and tanks which are kept in check by miles of cables, pipes and hoses. At any one time there could be tens of thousands of fish down here, ranging from tiny larvae to very tasty looking adults of a number of different species.

Where we scientists like to 'make babies'

Tanks full of adult Arctic charr, with green topped auto-feed boxes.

Tanks, pumps, pipes, hoses, cables and most importantly - Arctic charr

The top floor of the station is filled with offices, conference rooms, the all important tea room and a pretty fancy laboratory. This week we bred a number of 'families' (the offspring from a male and female Arctic charr) whose genetic lineage and make-up will later be studied.

Stripping eggs from a gravid female

First, the weight of the fish is taken. The eggs from a single female are then placed in a plastic cup and the fish is weighed again.

Extruding sperm

Sperm is extracted from male fish and used to fertilise one female's eggs. After the eggs and sperm have been extracted, the fish are whopped on the head, measured, tagged, bagged and photographed. A brutal process to be sure, not least because the fish effectively have sex in a cup (as sperm is added to the eggs) - after being killed. Gutted.

Weigh, strip eggs, weigh, measure, bash brains and photograph - brutal

Particularly dead looking Arctic charr - courtesy of Dr. Fish

The best part of the whole process (for me, definitely not the fish) is that after we strip eggs from the last female and breed her with a male, the rest of the fish (i.e. females without eggs and excess males) have already been ear tagged for a kiwi feed of fish and chips :o)

Bingo rocks! Iceland

I started learning the language of the Vikings this week. With several letters of the alphabet having been replaced by what my textbook refers to as "noises not heard in English", things get a little complicated. Regardless, after two lessons I decided I was ready to get involved with a game of 'Bingo' on Thursday night.

Being drunk wasn't helping me to understand Icelandic numbers

Perhaps not surprisingly, I won a prize - a kiss, a few beers and a massive basket of chocolate. There is still some debate among the locals as to whether or not my victory was obtained legally - and they did start reading the letters and numbers in English as well as Icelandic after I claimed my prize. It seemed to be a big joke among my Icelandic friends who incidentally had no problems devouring the chocolatey goodness. The party eventually wound up at about 4:30am with everyone claiming to be "fully rinsed" :-)

The player haters - but note the half eaten basket of chocolate ...

The Friday institution that is "beer club" was relatively uneventful but we rallied with a lively game of ten pin bowling on Dan's Nintendo Wii. It was very reminiscent of the mini-bowls tournaments on Friday nights at mine and Schnappy's place in Waihi Beach before the Beach Pub - except much more digital in nature...

Saturday was an exciting day here in Holar (and not just because it was Jen's birthday). It was the first time that any of us new students had eaten meat since arriving in Iceland - simply because it is so expensive. As it's the slaughter season here at the moment, last years lamb is now relatively cheap, so I decided to slap up a traditional kiwi roast for the new Icelandic crew. With a heavily discounted (NZ$35) and somewhat runty looking 1.9kg frozen lamb leg in the oven, accompanied of course by potatoes and kumura, we set off to the hot pot to let the meat slow roast in its own delicious juices. This time we were armed with a few icy cold jars, but sadly (sorry Chesterman) no Swedish girls. I don't even want to talk about how good the lamb was, because I might not taste it again for a very long time. I bet Jennifer's time in Venice doesn't compare to a roast leg of lamb ... Pphhhf ... Venice. I hope you had a happy Birthday though Penny :o)

On Sunday, still finding tasty morsel's of last night's roast in my beard, Soizic and I headed off to go fishing for Halibut (perhaps optimistically) and Flounder in the Hofsós Harbour.

View north from Hofsós Harbour to Drangey Island

Hofsós Harbour or "the kill zone"

The oldest wooden building in Iceland - centre stage

Hofsos is a small village on the eastern shores of the Skagafiord Bay, just north of Holar, and one of the oldest trading posts in Iceland. Trading commenced here 400 years ago and remainders from this long period of trading can be seen in "Pakkhusid" (the black building in the centre of the picture above). In the freezing wind whipping off the mountains, I caught my first Icelandic fish.

Soizic reeling in a monster Halibut?

Unfortunately it was not a record breaking 300kg Halibut, but a 30g mini Haddock. It was the only fish we managed to wrangle all day too.

Fizzing over a schlippery little Haddock - my first fish in Iceland

After sufficiently chilling to the bone, loosing several hooks snagged on the bottom and not catching any more fish, we stopped to have a look at some basalt columns at Staðarbjargavík. These hexagonal rocks are formed as lava cools very slowly and cracks as the whole mass contracts (or something along those lines, I know fishes not rocks ...). I saw me first seal too - as he bobbed up and down checking us out.

The hexagonal basalt columns at Staðarbjargavík

View back towards Hofsós Harbour

All in all a good week, but I'm starting to miss 'kiwiland'. You fullas are alright you know :-)

Hot ice & berries, Iceland

With a cold snap due mid-week, my new French friend Soizic (pronounced swah-zeik) and I ventured out on Tuesday afternoon to collect the last of the summer Blueberries growing on the edge of the Holar Forest. The resulting Jam, which we prepared on Saturday morning, was a welcome and cheap addition to my already very meager winter stores. Even 250g of 'Peter Pan Peanut Butter' runs up about NZ$8 - not to mention the fact that they don't have Marmite or Vegemite.

Icelandic Blueberries ... mmm ...

Hunting and gathering

We couldn't have timed our Blueberry picking excursion better. The snow flakes that began falling as we hurriedly filled our baskets continued until Saturday. I figured that the icy roads would provide the ideal conditions for me to learn how to drive "the other way 'round". Sketchy is all I can say - and that I can't wait for winter proper.

Main street iced up, Saudarkrokur

A typical Icelandic vehicle ...

Having finally made it through the drudgery of the working week, without incident on the road, everyone was eager to enjoy their weekend. Some of us decided to head in to Saudarkrokur to have a few jars and see a punk band/stand-up comedy show (an odd mix, but okay). After a few minutes we decided that perhaps it would have been money better spent if we could have understood anything that they were saying. Judging by the crowd reactions however, they were flippin' hilarious.

After making Blueberry Jam on Saturday morning, Cat, Dan, Soizic and I headed off for a soak in a locally famous 'hot pot' just 20 minutes outside of Saudarkrokur. Siozic's miniature Peugeot/Pocket Rocket is not exactly the ideal winter vehicle here in Iceland, but fortunately the snow had eased up and the gravel road was in pretty good nick. Despite a small problem with grip on an icy uphill section it did surprisingly well, especially considering some of the potholes could have eaten it alive.

Not exactly what you would call the ideal off road winter vehicle ...

The 'hot pot' was beautifully warm (if not a little slimy), but getting changed into your togs was a bit of a nightmare. Can anyone say shrinkage? Despite the outside air temperature only being about 2 degrees, one of the pools was so hot that we had to get out periodically, and Dan and I even braved the iciness of the Greenland Sea to go for a (very) quick dip. The highlight of the trip was definitely the bunch of Swedish girls who turned up for a soak after a hard mornings work in the slaughterhouse packing room. Delicious.

Slow poaching

Dan gettin ' pruned up good

Sunday saw us headed for a supposedly very beautiful waterfall somewhere between Saudarkrokur and Akureyri. Soizic was playing tour guide because she had been on this trip once before. After negotiating a few farmer's fences and finding the correct portion of the old Ring Road, we set off up the canyonous valley of the Valagisa River.

Cat, Dan and Soizic in the (wrong) canyon

It felt very odd not to have my fly rod in hand so close such beautiful water, and I couldn't stop scanning the riverbed for likely shapes. Sadly, a few hundred metres in to the narrow and icicle filled canyon our path was blocked by the (literally) freezing water, and we had to take the much more physically demanding overland route.

Trout about to get frozen in for the winter

Our overland route followed the canyon - up

We walked uphill for a couple of hours, stopping to eat Blueberries and constantly wishing for a sighting of the elusive Arctic Fox. With no waterfall in sight, and only steeper terrain ahead of us, we decided to head back down the valley - and to check out a map when we got home. As it turned out, while we stopped to open a gate on the drive home, Soizic recognised the adjacent valley 2km down the road as the one we should have hiked in to. It was at this point that I introduced everybody in the car to the word 'muppet'.

Looking up the Valagisa River valley towards the non-existent waterfall

Beard update 1, Iceland

Today marks the 1 month anniversary of my "Iceland Beard." I only hope Chesterman is still wielding his grizzle as he buzzes over Borneo shooting laser beams at Orangutans. There is a third man in the race now too - aptly named Dan 'the hairy American' from next door. Although Dan has a few weeks growth on me and Aaron, he has a major problem; his wife is not so keen to seem him claim victory in this particular event. I guess there comes a point in a man's life when he has to decide whether he wants to be a man with a horrendously out of control beard, or a man with a wife.

If only it was as simple as a beard OR a wife

Despite always having trouble with lack of ferocity and highly variable density, my winter coat as it's referred to in the animal kingdom, is coming along nicely. Sure there are white bits, ginger patches, long stray hairs and pieces missing; but it's going to have to do. After all, it's the only one I've got.

My initial burst of growth has coincided nicely with the first signs of the Arctic winter, which has now officially RSVPd for Christmas. The air definitely has the crispness you'd expect so close to the North Pole, but up until now the weather has been surprisingly mild, if not highly changeable. Having said that, however, let's be honest - its still pretty fricken cold. It's Iceland after all.

24 September 2008

27 September 2008

1 October 2008

The snow is definitely outrunning the beard at this point, but I think over the next month or two my bristles are really going to gain some momentum. Wish me luck.

View from Holar towards the head of the Hjaltadal Valley

The snow covered Hjaltadal Valley 3 days later