We haven’t visited Iceland in a while, so let’s do that. Sólfar (The Sun Craft) is a sculpture by Gunnar Árnason that is perched on the waterfront overlooking the harbor at Reykjavik. It commemorates the original Viking settlers.
Nov 092010
Oct 202010
Aug 232010
(Since I currently have a little downtime between photographic excursions, I’m using this time to revisit some of the awesome places I’ve visited over the past few years).
Grímsey is a little island to the north of Iceland out in the middle of the Greenland Sea. It’s the the northernmost populated area of Iceland and is the only part of Iceland that actually extends past the Arctic Circle. My mom and I took a ferry, the Sæfari, from the town of Dalvík to Grímsey during our visit to Iceland in the summer of 2006. (Mom, I noticed on the Sæfari website that they’ve since painted the ferry WHITE! It looks funny).
The 3-hour ferry ride through the Eyjafjörður (“island fjord”) and out to Grímsey is a lot of fun, but it can be a rough ride depending on the weather, so be sure to take your sea-sickness pills! Fortunately, the seas were perfectly calm during our trip. My favorite part of the ferry ride was photographing the fulmars (seabirds similar to seagulls) that were doing laps around the boat.
One of the main draws of Grímsey, of course, is the fact that about half of the island juts north of the Arctic Circle, a spot marked by a large sign/monument.
But the main MAIN draw of the island is the seabird life, particularly the puffins. Literally thousands of puffins make their home on the cliffs of the island during the summer and it’s possible to approach quite closely to get photos. They are delightful little birds.
Another bird found in abundance on the island of Grímsey is the Arctic tern, although they aren’t quite as delightful. In fact, they’re downright awful. In an effort to protect their nesting grounds, the Arctic terns will hover above you, screetching and occasionally divebombing your head. The lady at the gift shop/pancake dispensary was kind enough to loan us short lengths of PVC pipe, which we promptly dubbed “tern wackers.” After swinging wildly at the terns (with no intention of actually hitting them, mind you), we were informed by a bemused local that we were only further aggravating the terns. We were supposed to just hold the tern wackers above our heads so any divebombing terns would attack the stick rather than our heads. The ploy seemed to work to keep the angry terns at bay.
Overall, our trip to Grimsey was absolutely wonderful and I would highly recommend it as a destination if you ever find yourself in the north of Iceland with an entire day free. Keep in mind that the ferry runs only three days a week, but I believe there are daily flights from Akureyri as well. And don’t forget your tern wacker.
Aug 122010
I haven’t posted a photograph from my Iceland trip in a while. I think it’s time.
Columnar basalt near Vík í Mýrdal
Jul 072010
Four years ago today, my mom and I were approaching the end of our 10-day circumnavigation of Iceland via the Ring Road. On this day, we visited Núpsstaður, an old farm that is now in the care of the National Museum of Iceland. There are several interesting turf-roofed buildings at Núpsstaður, including a church that was originally built in the 17th century and dedicated to St. Nicholas. After Catholicism fell out of favor in Iceland, the church building was used as a storehouse until it was restored by the National Museum of Iceland in 1972. The setting of the farm is absolutely stunning, with its backdrop of vertical cliffs and waterfalls and an endless view of the vast glacial outwash plain, Skeiðarársandur.
Jun 262010
Strokkur is a geyser in a geothermic area of the Haukadalur Valley in Iceland. It erupts every 4-8 minutes, often twice in rapid succession, and was certainly one of the highlights of my Iceland trip 4 years ago. My favorite part of the eruption cycle is when a large blue bubble forms just before the water and steam is forced skyward.
Click here to view a short video I took of the eruption
Click here to see a LIVE webcam of Strokkur. (Be patient… it will erupt any minute now)!
Wikipedia has this to say about Strokkur (which I didn’t know):
Strokkur has a long history of activity, beginning in 1789, after an earthquake unblocked the plumbing system of the geyser. It continued to erupt until 1896, when another earthquake blocked the conduit of the geyser. Then in 1963, locals cleaned out the blocked conduit and the geyser has been regularly erupting ever since
Jun 032010
Jökulsárlón is a glacial lagoon in southern Iceland. Chunks of ice break off the glacier Breiðamerkurjökull, which is an arm of the BIG glacier, Vatnajökull, and float around in the lagoon until they get small enough to navigate the little river, Jökulsá, that leads to the ocean. It’s an amazingly magical place.
May 042010
The Drowning Pool
This pretty little spot along the river Öxará (Axe River) in Iceland’s Þingvellir National Park belies its grim past. This spot is known as Drekkingarhylur (the Drowning Pool). Legend has it that at some point in Iceland’s very long and tumultuous past, approximately 18 women convicted of various infractions from adultery to witchcraft were tied into sacks and drowned in the pool. Creepy, but the spot is beautiful nonetheless. Iceland doesn’t generally toss its wanton women in The Drowning Pool anymore, but I didn’t linger in the area for too long just in case. 
Mar 252010
This is the time of year when the bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) take over Texas for a short while. Since I (oddly enough) don’t have any photos of Texas bluebonnets, allow me introduce to you a close relative, Lupinus nootkatensis, aka the Nootka lupine. I made the acquaintance of the Nootka lupine in Iceland in the summer of 2006.
This very abundant flower is actually not a native of Iceland. It was introduced in 1945 to lowland areas in the southwest as a means to add nutrients to the soil and to function as an anchor for organic matter in an effort to combat erosion. It’s an invasive species and, as often happens with introduced species, it is rather controversial.
Nevertheless, the Nootka lupine has made itself quite at home in Iceland.
Mar 232010
Iceland is finally making the news of late for something other than the country’s financial meltdown. What’s newsworthy these days is a volcanic eruption in a fissure near the glacier Eyjafjallajökull southeast of the capital Reykjavik. It’s not a particularly large eruption and the folks who were evacuated on Sunday have been allowed to return to their homes, but it’s still erupting and still making the news.
I searched through my Iceland archives yesterday to see if I have any pictures of that general area, and found the picture below, which depicts a farm with Eyjafjallajökull looming above.
I thought, “I bet the folks who live there got evacuated.” Then I saw an article/photo on icelandreview.com identifying that same farm as Thorvaldsevri and stating that the inhabitants of the farm were indeed evacuated.
The current eruption is occurring in an area called Fimmvörduháls, which is between Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull, two glaciers in the south of Iceland. The concern is that the eruption will spread underneath either of these two glaciers, or that this eruption will cause a chain-reaction eruption of the much-larger volcano Katla, which lies underneath the much-larger glacier Mýrdalsjökull. Such an eruption could result in a major glacial outburst flood, called a jökulhlaup. The last major jökulhlaup in Iceland happened in 1996 after an eruption under Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. The floodwater created by this eruption emerged from underneath the glacier a full month after the initial eruption, causing approximately $12 million in damage. You can read all about that fascinating event HERE if you’re so inclined.
I ♥ geology.