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)