Category Archives: Industry

The Puffins of Rauðarnes

The puffins of Rauðarnes are a fun bunch. The walk is stupendous. It’s 7 km, return, but you could easily spend days sauntering along.

You can brave the rough, steep road to Borgisfjörður Eystr and see the puffins up close and personal, and they are really, really great, but this is better, because they aren’t so crowded, which gives a different dynamic, and more goofiness. These are, like, country puffins.

Plus, the gulls are sneaky. See her below?

And unlike the puffins in Borgisfjörður Eystril, they aren’t controlled by hidden netting to preserve their habitat and green it, so these are puffins in the raw, so to speak, which means erosion, yes, but also (see below) a penthouse!

Very cool!

Turn off the road to Vellir Farm just north of Svalbard, just north of Þorshöfn. You will soon be there, puffing on your 3.5 km walk to the puffins, delighted by the sculpted sea stacks and caves on the way. Get there soon, though. The puffins have an ocean to get back to. Oh, by the way, if you’re lucky, you can get pretty close. How about 3 metres?

Such beautiful birds!

Of Seals and Men

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Notice how little attention the seals are paying to either global warming or humans attracted to global warming and seals.

There’s a lovely crowd of them off of the mouth of the glacial river flowing out of the glacial lagoon these days, but, to tell the truth, if you go the the Selfljót and look for them in the estuary at the tide change you will have a lot more fun, even if you don’t see a single one.

This was the Iceland that Gunnar left for Denmark, and the one he returned to when war threatened the world. It’s still there, if you look for it, because even if Gunnar didn’t find it again, and you aren’t likely to, either, with a little luck the search will be the finding. Iceland will change you, if you work at it.

Lost a Fishing Net Lately? Checked the Back of the Boat?

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I found it three days ago. It’s waiting for you on the estuary of the Selfljót.

Please come pick it up.

The Top Fashion Model of East Iceland Takes the Runway

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Vellir Farm, Rauðanes

Parking in Reykjavik: Not Where but What

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Parking a car in Reykjavik is tough…

… because houses and hotels are already parked in the available spots, more hotels every month. Parallel parking skills won’t help. Cross parking is the trick.

The End of a Whale in Arnarfjörður

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Never romanticize Iceland.

Bildudalur Harbour

But if you do, it will wrench you back to your senses quickly enough.

The Edge of the World

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Humans travel by the millions to Iceland every year, to stand at the edge of the Earth and look into the abyss.

The Last of the Glaciers Melts in the Jökulsárlón

Notice how it looks back without blinking.

Logging in Iceland

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Old growth timber gets logged in Iceland.

And stacked up beside the road outside Hallormstaðir. Hawthorn City.

Count the rings. I count 23 years.

Back before the Millenia, in Old Iceland, this was a tourist place.

The tourists were Icelanders. In Modern Iceland, men brought in the heavy farm equipment.

And got at it.

When Gumnar lived at the end of the lake, just a few minutes away by car or the length of a saga by foot, there were no trees here at all. Modernity, it seems, is a return to the old world, with fun equipment along the way.