It took two full days at sea for us to cover the distance from the Svalbard Islands to Iceland. Interestingly, the weather did not get any warmer as we sailed south. We were more-or-less paralleling the coast of Greenland, and I wonder if the winds off of Greenland’s ice cap kept the air cool. Regardless, we used our vests and coats to ward off the cold, and sailed first to Isafjordur, in the northwest of Iceland, and then to Reykjavik, spending most of a day in each area.
Dynjandi waterfall, actually a sequence of seven waterfalls. Or maybe Dynjandi is the big one at the top, since the others each had their own name. This was a gray, cloudy day, but the weather could not take away from the majesty of this scenery. Notice the tour buses at the lower right corner of the photo for scale.In case you were wondering how we traveled from port to port on this cruise, here is our ship, the Viking Star. The Viking Star is small compared to what you find with Carnival, Princess, and other cruise lines. The ship takes only up to 930 passengers rather than thousands. It is large enough, though, to sail without feeling much wave action, and small enough to go into ports that larger ships can’t enter.Speaking of sailing, here are some navigation aids that caught my eye as we approached Ísafjördur. The monuments seen above are designed to be highly visible from morning to night, and easily seen on the ship’s radar at night and when hidden in fog. The idea is to keep the higher monument aligned directly over the lower one as the ship sails up the channel; as long as they are aligned, you are on the right path. Some years ago we saw a similar setup to guide ferries from New Zealand’s North Island into a fjord to reach the harbor on the South Island. Also visible (just above the water) is the end of the runway for Ísafjördur’s airport.Closer view of the Dynjandi waterfall. A trail led from the parking area up to the base of this huge waterfall. The first half of the trail was paved and included loops such that a motorized wheelchair could travel well up past some of the lower waterfalls. I suppose an unpowered wheelchair could make it, too, if it was pushed by a football lineman. The second half of the path, to arrive where you see the folks standing at the base of Dynjandi, was more of a scramble. The path was narrow and rocky, so it was a slow slog up and a slow slog back down. I stopped at the halfway point to get this photo, and the view was wonderful.Church in the small fishing village of Sudureyri. The church was locked, and like many of the churches we saw during out trip, it showed little signs of use. We were often told that the churches were used for concerts or civic meetings. Sadly, there was no mention of a spiritual or religious use for the buildings.Flowers along a fence in Sudureyri. The cool, moist climate seemed conducive to growing flowers in window boxes, sidewalk planters, and along fences. We saw fresh snow on the adjacent mountain tops, but the nearby sea moderated air temperatures, particularly this close to the fjord.Cliffs and the sea as we cruised from Ísafjördur to Reykjavik. One of our travel companions saw a series of whale spouts as we sailed through this area, but it was hard to find them among the waves and without polarized lenses.Another view along the way. Here we see a tug boat (or a fishing boat?) equipped with a water canon for fire-fighting. Most boats of this size that we saw in Norway were equipped in a similar way. On the shore we see what appears to be a school building, although it is difficult to tell from this distance. And the scenery all around was breathtaking!Greenhouse growing tomatoes near Reykjavik. This is a small part of a large farming operation. They pump water from a nearby hot spring through a web of pipes to keep the greenhouses warm at night and through the winter. They also use sodium vapor lamps to give the tomatoes 14 hours per day of artificial light during the summer and 17 hours per day in the winter. They harvest two tons of tomatoes every day for use in restaurants and supermarkets and the whole operation is so successful that the owner is able to afford his favorite hobby: Icelandic horses.After seeing the greenhouse operation and enjoying a mug of rich tomato soup, we walked over to a small track and then the stable to see the Icelandic horses. Here are two of them showing off one of the five gaits that most Icelandic horses can master.Icelandic horses are unique in that one of their gaits moves at a fairly good pace yet without bouncing the rider. The horse’s backbone stays essentially straight and level. This rider held a mug of beer all the way around the track without sloshing any of it — the gait is that smooth.After the horse show, here is my favorite tourist petting one of the Icelandic horses. This was the last tour of our day at Reykjavik, and the last event of our travels. That night we went to the airport for our flight home, a couple of days before the next eruption of the volcano near the Keflavik airport.
Thank you for sharing this travel with us by looking through these blog posts; we hope you enjoyed the photos and captions. If you missed any of our stops, use the links at the bottom of the page to get back to what you missed.
After leaving Honningsvag we spent a full day crossing the Norwegian Sea to arrive at Longyearbyen in the Svalbard Islands. Longyearbyen was established by an engineer named John Longyear, who opened coal mining operations here in 1906. The town was destroyed by the Nazis in 1943 but rebuilt after World War II. It is the world’s northernmost town with a population of 1000 or more. This was also the northernmost point of our cruise, at 78º22′ north of the Equator, and about 800 miles from the North Pole. We spent two damp, cloudy days here looking for wildlife and admiring the scenery.
Catamaran that took us out of the harbor (on two successive days!) to look for wildlife. We hoped to see seals, walrus, whales, or maybe even a polar bear, but it was not to be. We did, though, see magnificent glaciers, a few small icebergs, different kinds of arctic seabirds, and (from a distance) some bird nesting areas.Confluence of multiple glaciers as they reach the sea. The low, black ridge in front of the glacier is part of a terminal moraine pushed by the ice as it advances. Our guides said that seals were actively feeding in this area, but difficult to sea among the waves. On a sunny day we might have seen some of them hauled out to bask in the sun, but this was not one of those days.Closer view of where the glacier calves into the sea; a dark but beautiful scene. This glacier is moving forward by a few feet each day, but you have to watch in the right spot at the right time to see part of this ice cliff tumble into the water. Ice chunks of all sizes floated in the water near the glacier, but we did not go much closer than this because ice could damage the hull and propellers if we hit a piece hard enough. The water temperature was cold enough that the safety briefing as we left port started with how to climb into an orange thermal survival jump-suit before putting on a life jacket.Fulmar racing our catamaran. Like many of the birds we saw in the Arctic, fulmars were expert at soaring along with our boat, often skimming very close to the water (note the pockmarks of raindrops in the photo above), sometimes seeming to race us on the course forward. An on-board naturalist speculated that fulmars like to find food near boats that catch and process fish. They tend to think that every boat must be a fishing boat, so they hang around looking for what we might toss overboard.Kittiwake, a common type of arctic sea gull. We saw large colonies of these birds nesting on cliffs near Longyearbyen. Close, but not close enough for a good photo of their nests.Sadly, this was the only polar bear we saw. The Svalbard Islands are home to more than a few polar bears; enough that guides are not allowed to take tourists or fishermen outside the town limits unless they have means (rifle, flare gun, etc) to stop a polar bear attack. Some of our friends were on excursions where the guide carried a high-powered rifle; the guide for our dog excursion below carried a flare gun. We were told that the locals leave doors and cars unlocked at all times, and particularly in the winter, in case someone might need to step inside to get away from a bear. So where were the bears? Sea-ice maps that I checked indicated that the north side of the Svalbard Islands still had some sea ice, even in August, so I think the bears were probably up there hunting for seals.It was the wrong time of year to take a dogsled through the snow, but the next best thing was a ride for several miles in a dog-pulled wagon. This was a LOT of fun! The team above had no trouble pulling the guide and six heavy tourists on a road down the coast and back. The dogs were barking wildly, excited to get started, but they were all business once we started down the road. Except for the yellow dog. She was so excited that she was jumping around with nervous energy. Then she pulled with all of her might for the first half mile or so, but then decided she needed a rest. She slowed down and eventually stopped, with the rest of the team voicing their displeasure. Think they would have started taking a bite at her, but the guide brought her up into the wagon to rest. But then a ways further down the road she wanted back into harness to help run. And then after some distance she wanted to rest again. This cycle repeated three or four times while the guide struggled with how to give the dog the right incentives and disincentives.We took three breaks to give the dogs a chance to drink a bit of water and cool off. My favorite tourist loves dogs (hey, we all love dogs) and could not resist the chance to pet a couple of them.Arctic tern carrying a small fish to feed its fledglings. Terns nest on the ground, and it is easy to intrude on the nesting areas without realizing it. Until the terns start flying at you (or the dogs) to try to chase you out of the area. At least they came close enough for pictures!Winter weather conditions make it difficult to move coal from mines to storage piles from which it is loaded onto ships. For many years the mining companies used this tramway system to pull buckets along suspension cables. Loaded buckets went from the mine to the docks and empties went back the other way. Some of the tramways still stand, but now the coal moves by truck. Only one mine still produces coal, though. What kind of coal is worth producing in such a remote location? That would be coking coal, a low-sulfur, relatively clean coal used for making coke to burn with iron ore to produce iron.Portal to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This temperature- and humidity-controlled underground facility stores hundreds of thousands of all kinds of seeds against the possibility of a global catastrophe. What kind of catastrophe? Imagine that a major volcanic eruption (or asteroid strike) darkens the atmosphere and suddenly changes the climate for a decade or maybe a century. Think of the Little Ice Age, for example. Wheat, corn, bean, and other crop hybrids upon which we all rely no longer grow very well in the new climate. At that point we have to go back to earlier varieties, perhaps “heirloom” seeds, and develop new hybrids. This secure vault (and a handful of similar vaults in other parts of the world) stores the seeds we would need to restart our agriculture.This high ridge behind Longyearbyen is home to well over 100 domes housing antennas for communication with low-earth-orbit polar satellites. Since this is so close to the North Pole, these antennas can communicate with the satellites on every pass as the Earth turns beneath their orbit. A similar array of antenna domes in Antarctica provides this service near the South Pole. As coal mining winds down in the Svalbard Islands, tourism and high-tech communications (think data streams from satellites) are gradually taking its place.
We finished our tour of mainland Norway’s coast with a day at Honningsvag before sailing northwest to the Svalbard Islands. North Cape, a short ride from Honningsvag, marks the northernmost point of Norway that can be reached by road, although some of the local maps made it look as though one or two nearby promontories might contest this claim. I guess we have to trust the surveyors and navigators on this one.
Port of Honningsvag. A busy place, but noticeably smaller than Tromso or Narvik. Tour buses are lined up waiting for us and for passengers from a larger Italian cruise ship that was in port at the same time. Businesses near the waterfront included a nice shop for tourists, places to buy pizza or other food, offices for the port officials, and so on. As you can see, the weather was sunny, but also notice the snow fences on the hillside above the town. The buildings all seemed designed to endure cold, wet weather.My favorite tourist posing with a local troll. The gift shop behind her had much smaller trolls for sale, but I think she resisted the urge to buy. On the other hand, I did not really check her luggage, so maybe I missed something.Posing with a polar bear inside the gift shop. Sadly, the only polar bears we saw on this trip were on display in stores or showcases. At this time of year the bears were probably a lot further north, hunting for seals. The store also displayed a stuffed reindeer, and had wolf pelts and reindeer hides for sale. Like many other stores we saw, they carried a wide range of sweaters, hats, and coats, most of which were much warmer than what we ever see in California stores.Road from Honningsvag to North Cape. We took a 45 minute bus ride past fjords and inlets and over hill and down dale before arriving at North Cape. Nice scenery, but few if any trees given the latitude.Reindeer grazing along the road. The moving bus and glare from the windows made photography difficult, but I managed to grab this shot as we whizzed past. The rocky terrains with patches of grass were typical of much of the landscape along the route.Tourists at the North Cape visitors center, a little more than 71º north of the Equator. It was not particularly cold on this August day, but the wind was brisk. We were on a promontory, or overlook, that was perhaps a tad more than 1000 ft above the point where the Norwegian Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean, meets the Barents Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean.Same tourists, standing at the base of the globe monument marking the Cape. Very difficult to get this shot without someone photo-bombing the picture, but our travel companions managed to pull it off.View of North Cape with its globe monument (seen in the previous photo). At an elevation of 1007 ft above sea level, the Cape also appears to be above the cloud layer hugging the water. The white speck to the left of the cliffs and just below the edge of the clouds is one of a few fishing vessels we could see from the cliffs. If you go straight north from here, there is no land until you pass the North Pole and reach the other side of the Arctic Ocean.Tourist with two more trolls. The visitors center was a great place to get out of the wind, find clean restrooms, and see historical exhibits about navigation around the Cape before and during World War II. They also had a nice gift shop and a small cafeteria with Norwegian pastries, hot coffee, and other snacks.After we returned to Honningsvag and set sail, our ship made a detour past North Cape before sailing northwest for the Svalbard Islands. Atop the cliffs are a radar dome and, to the right of the dome, the globe monument seen in previous photos. Yes, they are very small, but the size of the scenery puts it in perspective.
Next travel post: Longyearbyen and the Svalbard Islands
From Leknes we cruised to Tromso, the largest city in northern Norway and the third or fourth (depending on who is counting) largest city anywhere inside the Arctic Circle. By now we were far enough north that we were in the land of the midnight sun. There were no more sunsets; the sun was always with us at some angle above the horizon. As you will see in photos below, some parts of the day were brighter than others. However, there were no dark nights, which meant no opportunities to see the Northern Lights even though we are in the peak of the current sunspot cycle.
Speaking of the sun, the morning that we docked in Tromso I went on the top deck to take photos and was surprised to find this man taking a read on our position by shooting the sun with a modern sextant. Most ships navigate with GPS systems, but the captain and perhaps some of the other officers are required to know how to do celestial navigation in case the systems fail or an adversary attacks the satellites. I learned how to use the sun to fix my location in a surveying class many years ago, and it is harder than it looks. The captain and officers may not enjoy it, but they do know how to use a sextant, and every major commercial and military vessel carries the necessary instruments on board. As far as I could tell, though, this fellow was shooting the sun as a hobby rather than as an officer of the ship. Interesting.After chatting with the man using the sextant, I walked around the top deck looking for more photo opportunities. Here is a view of downtown Tromso along the waterfront. The city has a population of only 40,000 or so, but since it is the largest city in the region it serves the surrounding areas and as the point of departure to equip travelers going further north. The city includes a university, a number of research facilities, medical facilities, and the services you might expect for such a regional hub. Speaking of services, did I mention how many pizza places and taco shops we saw in Norway?The service and support theme was borne out when I found this crew loading produce and other kinds of food onto our cruise ship. A truck delivered pallets with bags of potatoes, crates of eggs, boxes of melons, and just about any other kind of fresh food that might come to mind, and the forklift moved them into the ship’s pantry for the rest of our voyage.Another view from the top deck: Tromso’s Arctic Cathedral with its elegant A-frame design. Sadly, the bridge you see at the left was closed for maintenance, so we could not go over to see the Cathedral. However, any expectation that I had for the Arctic being a relatively flat, featureless terrain was again dispelled by the scenery. That’s a fairly big mountain behind the Cathedral, and an even bigger mountain behind the first one.Like other Scandinavian countries, the Norwegians have no hesitation about making tunnels. In the US, if a hill blocks our road construction we usually cut through it or go around it. In Norway, they tunnel through. Sometimes I think they prefer tunneling just because they do it so well. In addition to massive structures like powerhouse caverns for hydroelectric projects, they also do simple yet elegant tunnels like this underground traffic circle.Time to leave Tromso and sail towards out next stop, Honningsvag, at the far north end of Norway. Here is a view looking out over waters lit by the sun that would not set. We were at a point where the brightness of the day was controlled as much by cloud cover as it was by low sun angle.The clouds parted (for a few minutes) so we went to the top deck at the stern of the ship to enjoy the sun and the chilly breeze. Mountains and sea all around.The light was dim once again, but this shows the immensity of the landscape. We see a low building, perhaps a fish warehouse or some other kind of storage facility, on the waterfront, but look at the size of the mountains and glaciers behind it! The waterways here are usually ice-free throughout the winter because a remnant of the Gulf Stream comes this far north, but imagine the snowfall they must see each winter given the cold arctic air and available moisture.Another look back, with more mountains and glaciers. The ship following us seems to be the Norwegian equivalent of the ferries between Vancouver and Alaska. These ships run a regular route between Bergen and the northernmost villages in Norway, moving cargo, supplies, people, and vehicles from port to port. They have been in business for many decades, and are apparently doing well. Some of the stops are large, like Tromso, while others are tiny fishing villages that have no connection to the rest of the world by road or maybe not even by air. Here is a closer view of Hurtigruten Line’s Kong Harald as it veers away from our course to stop at a small coastal community. Over the years the company began offering cruises on these ships, so if you want to see the Norway coast for half the price of our cruise, you can travel on a ship like the Kong Harald. The deal includes a cabin with private bathroom, three meals a day, unlimited coffee and tea, and something like 34 stops along the coast instead of the five or so ports of call we visited. Of course, many of those 34 stops are for only a few minutes rather than a whole day, but you do get to see a lot of scenery.
We had been working our way generally north along the Norwegian coast, mostly cruising Norway’s inside passage, ever since leaving Geirangerfjord. However, we took a different direction after leaving Narvik. We sailed southwest and then circled back north to enter the Lofoten archipelago, a large array of mountainous islands extending many miles out to the west from the main Norwegian coastline. Our destination was the fishing town of Leknes.
After docking in Leknes we boarded a bus to drive through two or three of the islands en route to Svolvaer, another fishing town. The scenery along the way included striking mountains and cliffs edged with flatlands. Not much agriculture, but plenty of commercial fishing along with crafts and trades needed to support the fishing communities. And a bit of tourism thrown in for good measure.Svolvaer includes homes, shops, and public services such as schools, but the fishing industry dominates the town. Here we see two large buildings designed for fishing boat maintenance and repair. Waterways to the buildings are not visible from this angle, but each building houses either a dry dock or a ramp for pulling fishing boats up out of the water. And the buildings typically include industrial bridge cranes large enough to lift an entire boat as needed. There were at least two other buildings of this size and purpose over to the left, off camera.Here is a closeup of part of the ridge behind Svolvaer. Notice the pinnacle with a forked prong on its top (center of the photo). The two prongs of the fork are perhaps 10-15 ft tall and 5 ft apart. Local lore has it that if a couple is serious about marriage, the young lady climbs to the top of one prong and the young man climbs atop the other. When he is ready to propose, he leaps over to the other prong to join the lady to prove that he is serious. An interesting romantic story, but nobody mentioned any failed attempts.A nice array of yellow flowers spotted while walking about town. Given the cloudy and showery weather, I don’t think they ever needed to water the plants.Norway is often portrayed as Lutheran, or at least the state church is some variety of Lutheran, but other denominations turn up from time to time. Here, for example, is a local Methodist Church.Part of the harbor at Svolvaer. The empty frames on the other side of the water are racks for drying cod. Fishermen catch large quantities of cod in the spring, gut the fish and cut off the heads, and tie fish together by the tail to hang over the racks. Since seagulls and other sea birds don’t have feet equipped for perching, they can’t perch on the racks to eat the fish. Meanwhile, the sun and wind gradually dry the fish to create what is known as stockfish. Guides told us that these fish are still a major Norwegian export, especially to Mediterranean countries. We were too late in the season to see many fish being dried, but we did see a few at a later port of call.Norwegians love their trolls, but I can’t tell if the love reflects a cultural heritage, the interest of tourists, or both. Many of the stores catering to visitors (a.k.a., tourists) have several sizes of trolls on hand: small trolls to sell and larger trolls to attract attention and for tourist pictures. This larger troll in a local shop was just right to attract attention to the small trolls for sale in the background.While in Svolvaer we took a boat tour of nearby Trollfjord. To get there, we had to cross this inlet, which was large enough for some wind and waves. We were grateful not to get seasick.Trollfjord is a narrow fjord with an almost hidden entrance. Legend has it that a giant troll became angry for some reason and tried to split a mountain with a blow from his axe. The result was Trollfjord, a deep, straight cleft back into the mountains. Trollfjord’s entrance is on the far side of the point in the middle of the photo above.Here is a view down the length of Trollfjord. Is it my imagination, or is Trollfjord darker and more shadowed that other areas we visited? At its narrowest point the fjord is only a few hundred feet wide, while the cliffs on either side are hundreds of feet tall. Trollfjord is ringed by mountains with snowy alcoves or cirques; this terrain was alpine in appearance in comparison with the glacially-rounded mountains of mainland Norway.We did not see any whales, seals, or walrus on this part of the cruise, but we did see white-tailed eagles, also known as sea eagles. Here is an adult white-tailed eagle perched in a tree overlooking Trollfjord. I tried to find this in the Merlin bird app on my phone, but for some reason it could not come up with any birds of this size.Two fledgling white-tailed eagles perched on a ledge overlooking Trolljord. The adult in the previous photo was positioned to keep an eye on the kids, and there were other adult eagles soaring overhead along the fjord.Small hydroelectric station at the end of Trollfjord. A penstock brings water down from about 1600 ft above this level, so while there may not be much flow there is plenty of pressure to drive a turbine. Powerlines carry the electricity up the slope and out of Trollfjord, probably to feed into the national power grid. Norway has plenty of hydroelectric power and the potential to develop even more, so electricity is plentiful and relatively cheap compared to other countries. This was the end of Trollfjord, so we turned around, sailed back to Svolvaer, and took the tour bus back to our cruise ship.
