Isafjördur-Holmavik-Broddanes

Isafjördur harbor… Maybe the Norwegian flag is for the Norwegian cruise ship at dock?

Street post, Isafjördur

Detail – residential door – Isafjördur

Driftwood is collected in piles along the fjörd

Wooden fishing boats, Isafjördur

Changing colors on the hillsides

Last night I stayed in a proper hotel, the only such of my visit here, in Isafjördur. There was a “function” in the banquet room and people in fancy dress milling about with goblets of iced wine when I checked in. Later in the evening, because I was apparently lodged just over the banquet room, I could hear a band and the crowd singing what must have been traditional folk and/or nationalist songs, for it seemed that many knew the words and were singing along. The folk tunes transitioned to some short speeches and were followed with a repertoire to include the Footloose soundtrack, various CCR and some Michael Jackson. Quite entertaining, especially since the band and its lead singer really weren’t bad!

This morning I was up early and thought I’d stroll around town, figuring it would be quiet of a Sunday morning and a good opportunity to take some pics. And so it was, for about a half-hour. And then, suddenly, hordes of people began pouring from the area of the docks, many of them dressed in matching anoraks, sporting cameras about their necks and maps in front of their faces. And lo, as I completed my tour of the fish processing warehouses (industrial areas can make for neat photo ops) and rounded a corner of the docks, what should I see but two – not one, but two – cruise ships. Suddenly my quiet, sleepy, remote Icelandic community had been overrun. All those alleys with neatly trimmed houses, serene on an early Sunday morning, were thronged with people. So much for photo ops.  Now, this cruise ship thing wasn’t entirely bad because many shops which I expected to be closed were now open… But they were stuffed with people and if there were beautiful wool products I couldn’t get to them. I settled on a loaf of bread from the bakery, gassed up the car and headed out of town.

Most of the day I was within a few minutes of 66o North, and it was definitely cooler today than it was my first few days a bit further south. Everything is changing color, the hillsides covered with a low shag carpet of orange and yellow and red, with some gaudy brilliant greens from the haying fields and mossy streams. And swans! I’ve seen quite a few since I got here, but I must’ve seen at least a couple hundred today. I just don’t think of swans as Arctic birds – they’re supposed to be on some slow-moving oxbow on the Thames, preening lazily in a hazy English summer. But no, dozens of them gathered on high Arctic tarns, arching their necks and calling loudly if I s topped too close.

And get this: Car washes (at least some of them) are free at the gas stations that have them! Twice already I’d seen people using what appeared to be free hoses, brushes, etc. Today I watched two drivers pull up to some bays near the gas pumps in Holmavik, scrub their cars and then leave. I decided I should take advantage of same, since Ol’ Rattler was looking a bit disheveled. Now my car is silver again but it still sounds like pieces are falling off it.

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Breidavik-Látrabjarg-Patreksfjördur-Dynjandi-Ísafjördur

This morning I stood at the westernmost point in Europe. The morning sun warmed the back of my neck as I searched, vainly, for Greenland in the distance. The silence was broken only by the occasional sighing of the wind, the staccato “whoosh” as fulmars cruised by on thermal updrafts and the lapping 1400′ below of the North Atlantic on a rocky shore.

Later, going back and forth, over and around vast fjords of aquamarine, I watched a seal rip and devour a freshly caught gull, red feet flashing amidst gray and white feathers before it was dragged under the sea. I saw numerous sheep grazing the kelp exposed by low tide. I watched a shag (that is, a European cormorant) try to swallow a fish that looked like a Yellow Irish Lord. That bird tried hard – it dropped the sculpin in the water, picked it up from new angles, tossed it about to get the head positioned correctly… And still that fish was just too wide! I saw a pair of swans with their young, in a high, high, mountain meadow. Every time I got out of my car I was amazed yet again by the stillness in the fjords… The only sounds I heard were birds, mostly eiders, and water.  Water lapping at the shore, water tricking down gravelly stream beds, water tumbling over rocky precipes…

And towards the end of this day, I came around a switchback and I got my first glimpse of Dynjandi. “OMG,” I thought. I went around two more hairpin curves and got my second view. “OMG,” I thought. And so it went, until I pulled into the parking lot at the base of the series offals that comprise Dynjandi. The size of this waterfall is absolutely unimaginable. It doesn’t seem real, and yet there it is. I hiked up about a hundred meters just to get to the base (supposedly 60m across), and once there just simply stood there, watching and listening (you can’t hear anything except the thunderous cascading of water) for a good quarter-hour. Looking at this waterfall, watching it tumble and rage its way unfettered by man, all the way to the ocean; to see nature at her most awe-inspring; be so insignificant and yet to have the opportunity to witness this, brought tears to my eyes. To still be able to feels his kind of wonder is a joyous thing.

It was a good day. Other than the hundred or so miles of potholed roads that make Captains Bay seem like child’s play… But still, the bruised kidneys are a minute price to pay.

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Stykisshölmur harbour

There are two stone men on the heaths of the West Fjords, Karlinn and Kleifabúi. They were made by road construction workers in their spare time. Kleifabúi was made by the road construction group of Kristleifur Jónsson in 1947.

National flag on the Ferry Baldur

Stykisshölmur lighthouse, looking toward Breidafjördur

Stykisshölmur harbour monument

There are a lot of similarities between Iceland and the Eastern Aleutians: the grasses and lichens and wild fruits (not just blueberries and crow berries – they have wild strawberries here, something I discovered after talking to a potter about the berries she’d put on her tea mugs); the waterfalls and the cottongrass meadows cut through with myriad rivulets; the type of rocks and even the shape of the mountains are similar. But the scale of things here is truly astonishing… Imagine if you will the tool in a photo editor, the one that allows you to pinch and stretch different parts of your photos. Now, take the Aleutians and stretch the ridges until they are miles long. Grab a mountain peak and double or triple its elevation. In fact, raise the whole Chain so the passes become instead vast valleys. That’s what it feels like here: the Aleutians, super-sized. I’ve yet to effectively capture this in a single photo, but I’m working on it.

In other news, I left West Iceland and have arrived in the Westfjords, a highly serrated peninsula that juts from icelnd’s northwest corner. I could have spent an entire day driving here, but instead took took a ferry ride across from Stikkishólmur to Brjánslækur, across Breidafjördur. Im not sure how big this bay is, but it took three hours to cross it and there are at least 3000 islands in it. Seriously. And it’s a hot-spot for eider down production, in case you’re wanting an eider down comforter and want to know where it was sourced. About halfway across is the only year-round inhabited island, Flatey (say Flat-ee), serviced only by the ferry and a few  privately owned work and fishing boats. The ferry brings fresh water to the village because there isn’t any there except what can be captured in snow or rain fall.

Aurora forecast is good, and it’s only partly cloudy tonigh. Tomorrow I’m headed to the westernmost point in Europe, a place which also happens to be the largest (14 miles long by 1200 feet high) seabird colony in the northern hemisphere…

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